War...?

What Is War? Truly what is war?... When you think of war, what comes to mind? Guns? Maybe Tanks or Fighter Jets?

Or maybe something deeper, as Death or Destruction. War Crimes even? How about the effects of war, hm? How about the economic and political struggles of war?

Maybe your an exostentialist? So you think war is simply a struggle of great human mids put together on a grand scale. Perhaps? Or could war be about possesion? Of materials? Of something that you once held dear, like persay a nation, or a person lost to war.

Nationalism is strong in war, but is it the cause? It doesen't answer what war is, persay, but it may offer a reason why. Why would we drive ourselves to take things of other humans?

Thus in retrospect hurting our own species? It is difficult to decypher the code of war. Is war about about people or things? Or both? Or neither?? War can't be explained in nation's temrs.

War can be between 2 people. 200 people. 200,000 people. Or no people at all. Is war really about fighting, or pride, or survival, or technology? Maybe war isin't about anything at all. Maybe even, war is just a state of mind in all of our emotions that drives us to do savage or proper deeds.

War is just a word, to desrcibe battle? A state of being? Fighting amongst nations? Internal and external struggles? A campaign against a person, or a people? What is war? Truly what is War??


War you say? War to me is just another emotional roadblock on our way to everlasting Peace. We'll make one day, damnit, I know it.


Mace

if you would, allow me to play the devils advocate.

War, is the be all end all, the maker and the destroyer. War gives both birth and death. Those killed by it, make born the anti-war sentiment in others, but it also bears a deeper effect. War is social, and most certainly instinctive, you can look at packs of lions for proof.

However, i feel its better to think of war as what we would be without if war never existed.

First that comes to mind is how we are in a population crisis of our own, Earth can only sustain so many people, war is the 3rd highest reason for death, and while death is not good, when speaking of the environment, it is actually benificial to our survival. without war, we would have billions if not trillions more people on this planet, and you cannot, and should not predict what would happen in such a society.

As such war is a neccesity in this light, an evil neccesity but one all the same, asking what a world without war would be like is much the same as asking what a world without insects, or bacteria is like.

War is instinctive, war has occured throughout society, and it has brought many things to the world.

Just consider how your reading this, the U.S. Army invented the internet as a means to communicate to the front lines faster than radio. Interstate highways were first built in Germany to enable faster travel of tanks. Most technaligy is designed first for war, then for public.

As such i believe that a world of peace, without war, is much like a world of people who are unable to show feeling, they cannot have aggresion nor can they have thought, for these are instinctive to be turned to war.

Always something to ponder on ... I offer some paper and a pen to those who also wish to state their opinions on the meaning of war.

Mace

The meaning of war is not to die for you country, but to make the other poor bastard die for his. (I cant remember who said this.) While Eve and Macedonian both make excellent points, I have to disagree with both. The basic meaning of war is not to reach an "ultimate peace" as Macedonian said or "war is the 3rd highest reason for death" as Eve said, but rather war is a much more basic and primordial feeling all humans naturally encounter. War is a response to an external threat. War, is the ultimate assurance of our own survival through violent and destructive means.

Macedonian said: "Is war really about fighting, or pride, or survival, or technology? Maybe war isin't about anything at all. Maybe even, war is just a state of mind in all of our emotions that drives us to do savage or proper deeds."

Yes, the only means by which you can achieve anything in war is by fighting. Without the use of violent measures war would simply be politics. Granted, simply the use of politics by humans is a miracle as the ideology to defend ourselves by any means necessary (violence) is simply instinctive. We have reached a higher degree of thinking and functioning by trial and error. This higher function does dominate our modern thought processes because it is demanded of us through this world. Unfortunately, this higher thinking and reasoning can only do as so much good as something we are taught can easily be removed by basic survival instincts passed down through many generations of warlike habits.

As for the second part of his statement: "war is just a state of mind in all of our emotions that drives us to do savage or proper deeds."

War is not a state of mind. War is a state of being. War engulfs the very core of us and demands everything we have. It is a physical, emotional, and mentally toiling human state of acting towards one another. Nothing within the reaches of human imagination can surpass the affects of War on a human kind.

That is what I think war is. A necessary means of our survival. An act of mankind that is necessary for us to survive and live. As Eve said, many a good things have come from it. I await what we develop next.

ah, but if a i may say, just for clarification, i merely pointed out for a fact that war is the 3rd highest cause of death in the world.

i meant to give war in the perspective of the naturalists, and while you do kill the environment, that is only a testement to the advancement of our warfare compared to other species. as i said, what i meant for war to be is the instictive part of us.

and Patton said that, i think in his Blood and Guts speech.

You can always rely on Patton for a good piece of information

Who else would like to elaborate?

Mace