Issue 392 War: The Endless Waltz August 1, 2014

There is now a dismissed school of thought that believed that war was an integral part of humanity and that we as a species cannot escape it.  But, I believe that as unfortunate as it may be, war is an inevitable part of not only our past history as human beings, but our future history as well.  Let's discuss.

War is endless:  Unfortunately, war is going to continue to keep slapping humanity in the face time and time again.  Reason being is that war is fought for a multitude of reasons.  The most justifiable is typically self-defense.  But that requires an attacker.  As such, why would another nation attack another?  Nazi Germany did so out of revenge and the concept of uniting the Germanic peoples to rule over the others they deemed genetically inferior.  Terrorist groups like Al Qaeda seek to rid the world of the infidels (non-Muslims) and unite the world into a Caliphate.  So you have anger, religion, and race all as reasons for starting a war.  Others like the ancient Trojan War was fought over a queen who left her husband to be with the king of Troy.  Many of these are in truth trivial reasons to go to war and do battle.  But, religion, ethnicity, race, revenge, and fear are all common throughout human history.  Even the American Revolution was fought in part because of simple anger over abuses by the British Crown.  Add onto that the desire for one's voice to be heard in government and you have a recipe for a revolution.  However, there is one other type of war, the war for resources and territory.  This occurs when a country's resources like metals and other natural resources dwindle.  It can also occur when there is economic trouble.  But, the most common reason which results in the former is that the country’s population has grown so large that the economy of the country cannot hope to keep up.  From there excuses that defame the neighboring countries and make their peoples look less human occur to justify war.  So these are, but not limited to, the reasons for war.  Conflict is inevitable, but how far we take it is up to us.

Conclusion:  You can see why it is dismissed by most current historians, for this view means that you would have to believe that humanity is inherently violent.  Although, I do believe we are a violent species due to the natural aggression we have, I personally believe that we can rise above such things. War of course is typically started by our world leaders, not the basic populace.  So if we really want to make war part of ancient history and stop this Endless Waltz of blood and terror, we need to be careful in whom we elect as world leaders.  Then and only then we may have a chance to avert war.