UNITED NATIONS.– Armed conflicts have declined by 40 percent since the end of the Cold War primarily because the United Nations was finally able to launch peacekeeping and conflict-prevention operations around the world, according to a new study.  

The first Human Security Report paints a surprising picture of war and peace in the 21st century: a dramatic decline in battlefield deaths, plummeting instances of genocide, and a drop in human rights abuses. 

The only form of political violence that appears to be getting worse is international terrorism, a serious threat but one that has killed fewer than 1,000 people a year on average over the past 30 years. Tens of thousands were killed annually in armed conflicts during that time, said the report, which was financed by five governments and released Monday. 

Despite the dramatic improvements in global security, the report warned against complacency, noting that 60 wars are still being fought around the world, including serious conflicts in Iraq and Sudan's western Darfur region. 

"The post-Cold War years have also been marked by major humanitarian emergencies, gross abuses of human rights, war crimes, and ever-deadlier acts of terrorism," it said. "The risk of new wars breaking out — or old ones resuming — is very real in the absence of a sustained and strengthened commitment to conflict prevention and post-conflict peace building." 

Nonetheless, the report said there also was no cause for pessimism. 

Andrew Mack, a professor at the University of British Columbia who directed the study, said the end of the Cold War eliminated tensions between capitalism and communism, cut off U.S. and Russian funding for proxy wars, and most importantly liberated the United Nations. 

"With the Security Council no longer paralyzed by Cold War politics, the U.N. spearheaded a veritable explosion of conflict prevention, peacemaking and post-conflict peace-building activities in the early 1990s," the report said. 

A Rand Corp. study earlier this year concluded that the United Nations was successful in 66 percent of its peace efforts, but even the 40 percent success rate some believe is more accurate would be an achievement considering that prior to the 1990s "there was nothing going on at all," Mack said. 

"We think the United Nations, despite the many failures, has done in many ways an extraordinary job ... very often with inadequate resources, inappropriate mandates, and with horrible politics in the council," said Mack, who was the director of strategic planning in U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office from 1998-2001. "If the politics were less horrible, the resources more adequate ... the U.N. could do a much better job." 

According to the report, armed conflicts have not only declined by more than 40 percent since 1992, but the deadliest conflicts with over 1,000 battle deaths have dropped even more dramatically — by 80 percent.