Yes, it's rather cynical. And yet it's this very tension that keeps the peace. The world is now in the longest stretch of world-wide peacetime ever in history.
Peacetime everywhere. The post-WWII wars are all tiny by comparison. The nuclear era is historically unprecedented in the total lack of direct warfare between major industrial powers.
1898, lasted for 4 months, less then 4000 wounded and killed.
Compare that just with the US sanctions against Venezuela (again, not too major, but the US definitely is the only remaining superpower) at this very moment:
"the sanctions have inflicted, and increasingly inflict, very serious harm to human life and health, including an estimated more than 40,000 deaths from 2017 to 2018; and that these sanctions would fit the definition of collective punishment of the civilian population as described in both the Geneva and Hague international conventions, to which the US is a signatory."
Check your history books about the time before WW I and between WW I and WW II. Both periods are completely comparable with this now.
It was the “common knowledge” that the big war “can’t happen”.
“Everywhere” in your answer means for you. Ask the families of dead soldiers about “everywhere” or the millions of people outside the of the US whose relatives died in wars or even only due to the US sanctions which are how the US prepares for its next war (like in Iraq).
