Ehh, depends on the framing. Increases in proxy wars are still a very bad sign even if they’re not the all out global superpowers trying to annihilate each other. Sure, it’s not more deaths, but it is a sign of high instability. The WWII point is also relevant since that’s when the world shifted to using proxy wars, so it’s basically saying we’re going through the greatest instability measured since this metric started being useful.