This is a very strange historic rewriting that's popped up everywhere in the last weeks. Did the Cold War not exist? There have been wars, genocides, coups, and regime changes practically continuously, and international media has consistently reported on them. Western media just didn't highlight them because: {they didn't involve major US security interests / involved "non-white" countries that "we wouldn't expect to be peaceful anyway"}.
Ukraine is a local conflict, just like Syria was. It involved proxy wars with the same major players. But it "feels" more significant, because now it's on "our" border. It all seems so artificial.
This conflict isn't a "turning point" in history, it isn't "war returning after 70 years of peace". It's a local conflict of which there have been dozens in recent decades. World War 3 will happen much later, and won't involve these countries[0]. There is no principled or logical reason for people to care about Ukraine and not Yemen, Ethiopia, and Myanmar, expect for people caring about what the TV tells them to care about.
[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/george-friedman-on-wo...
https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war-casualties-600-yea...
Conflict deaths really fall off a Cliff after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So you're right the cold war was only cold in certain regions, but peace in 'the west' did make a difference.
It’s simply pointing to the per-world-capita death rate due to war after ww2 where it dropped precipitously.
