The wars that have not ended

Armistice Day was supposed to commemorate the "war to end all wars".  The horrors of WW1 are well documented.  Millions of men died as the modern machinery of war led to mass slaughter of combatants by machine guns, poison gas and gigantic artillery shells which churned up the opposing lines during the many battles.  Politicians vowed this obscene killing would never happen again.  20 years later the nations of the world were at it again on an even more gigantic scale.  Very few politicos were ready to declare the end of WW2 the end of all wars.  Since 1945, millions more have perished in so called "brushfire wars" fought by proxies of the post WW2 superpowers, the US and the USSR.  Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the focus has shifted to terrorism as disenfranchised groups pursue their grievances through undeclared war on whichever regime they blame for their troubles.  Throughout this transition from organized mass slaughter to indiscriminate terror, the victims have changed from well trained warriors to hapless civilians, including many women and children.   I guess humanity learned something from the first world war.