The End of War?

This article in The New Republic Online is interesting reading. It argues that the number of wars, and the global risk of dying in war, have gone down steadily since 1991. While many reasons are explored, there is one that seems to be missing, although the evidence is present right in the article:

The striking decline in global military spending has also received no attention from the press, which continues to promote the notion of a world staggering under the weight of instruments of destruction. Only a few nations, most prominently the United States, have increased their defense spending in the last decade. Today, the United States accounts for 44 percent of world military spending; if current trends continue, with many nations reducing defense spending while the United States continues to increase such spending as its military is restructured for new global anti-terrorism and peacekeeping roles, it is not out of the question that, in the future, the United States will spend more on arms and soldiers than the rest of the world combined.

This point is made in the article as a means of discussing whether the decrease in spending is a cause, or a result, of the overall decline in war. However, it seems to me to be far more significant than that. War is, in my opinion, on the decline because one nation weilds effective military hegemony, and that nation (America) is not perceived by it's potential competitors to be a threat. Yes, I know that anti-Americanism and claims of America being a rogue nation abound, but if other nations of the world, particularly the other developed nations, really believed that they would be increasing, not decreasing their military spending. War doesn't pay for most nations, because they know that they cannot win, and the risk of trying is greater than the any possible gains. Saddam's invasion of Kuwait proved that fairly effectively and his subsequent complete fall has only reinforced that lessen. While I am an optomistic person, I am not a utopian. This is most likely a temporary state. The Pax Romana eventually ended when Rome grew complacent and reduced it's military spending. The Legions soon became a hollow shell of what they once were, and the barbarians attacked. The same scenario is quite feasible with the Pax Americana. The price of peace is eternal vigilance, but the pressence of peace quite naturally reduces the tendency to be vigilant.