A numerical evaluation of recent conflict

HOW does the civil war in Syria, which pits rebels armed with light weapons against the tanks and jets of the government, compare with the bombs planted by terrorists in Pakistan or the drug war in Mexico? The Global Peace Index 2013 has masses of data on the cost in lives and money of violence, but the chart below gives the clearest picture of how the conflicts fought in 2012 stack up. The report also contains a fancy index on the cost of containing violence relative to each country's economic weight. North Korea comes top; America is alarmingly high, sandwiched between Bahrain and the Central African Republic.