ARTICLE: "Fewer Conflicts Involve Child Soldiers, Report Finds," by Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, 22 May 2008, p. A15.

Despite those trying to sell us on conflict-centric (or worse, terror-centric) grand strategies, the news keeps pouring in that the world is getting more peaceful.

That doesn't say the 9/11 break-point wasn't real, just that it's not a turning point for globalization per se, the real driver behind both the force (economic integration that pacifies) and the friction (the blowback).

So, on this point of child soldiers, we get some good news: 27 conflicts with kid soldiers four years ago. Today only 17.

The phenomenon is ugly but hardly surprising, given the frontier-integrating age we live in.