Both the Pax Romana and Pax Mongolica saw their share of violence - plausibly comparable to 19th century Europe, or the Han and Tang dynasties, which which were not unipolar. We just don’t have good numbers for any of these cases. The long-history basis of your argument is flimsy at best.
The US itself only began resuming mass offensives with the decline of the USSR. But a world collapsing into unipolarity should lead to less conflict according to your view, as there would be less incentive for inter-state violence. The other pole was undergoing collapse, and the US sent soldiers, and continued to do so for decades.
But strictly speaking 2019 is part of a longer term downtrend in violence between nations after World War 2. That’s a trend that preceded American hegemony - a hegemony which is frankly a shadow of its former self. The real risk today isn’t multipolarity, it’s that the US is denial of multipolarity. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel. The US just doesn’t have the money to hemorrhage out to military disasters any more. It’s a house of cards growing taller and taller. What has no limit is the foolish arrogance of our leaders. The way to stop war is rarely escalation (anathema to the defense lobby).
And we are all human beings, US and non-US alike, not animals. It’s the capacity for compassion that makes us human, not the ability to kill.
The US itself only began resuming mass offensives with the decline of the USSR. But a world collapsing into unipolarity should lead to less conflict according to your view, as there would be less incentive for inter-state violence. The other pole was undergoing collapse, and the US sent soldiers, and continued to do so for decades.
But strictly speaking 2019 is part of a longer term downtrend in violence between nations after World War 2. That’s a trend that preceded American hegemony - a hegemony which is frankly a shadow of its former self. The real risk today isn’t multipolarity, it’s that the US is denial of multipolarity. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel. The US just doesn’t have the money to hemorrhage out to military disasters any more. It’s a house of cards growing taller and taller. What has no limit is the foolish arrogance of our leaders. The way to stop war is rarely escalation (anathema to the defense lobby).
And we are all human beings, US and non-US alike, not animals. It’s the capacity for compassion that makes us human, not the ability to kill.