Military history

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War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties[1][2] typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence. [3] [1] The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war is usually called peace.

In 2003, Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley identified war as the sixth (of ten) biggest problems facing the society of mankind for the next fifty years.[4] In the 1832 treatise "On War", Prussian military general and theoretician Carl Von Clausewitz defined war as follows: "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."[5]

While some scholars see warfare as an inescapable and integral aspect of human culture, others argue that it is only inevitable under certain socio-cultural or ecological circumstances. Some scholars argue that the practice of war is not linked to any single type of political organization or society. Rather, as discussed by John Keegan in his History Of Warfare, war is a universal phenomenon whose form and scope is defined by the society that wages it.[6] Another argument suggests that since there are human societies in which warfare does not exist, humans may not be naturally disposed for warfare, which emerges under particular circumstance.[7] The ever changing technologies and potentials of war extend along a historical continuum. At the one end lies the endemic warfare of the Paleolithic[citation needed] with its stones and clubs, and the naturally limited loss of life associated with the use of such weapons. Found at the other end of this continuum is nuclear warfare, along with the recently developed possible outcome of its use, namely the rather sobering potential risk of the complete extinction of the human species.



Mural of War (1896), by Gari Melchers.

The English word war derives from the late Old English (c.1050) words wyrre and werre; the Old North French werre; the Frankish werra; and the Proto-Germanic werso. The denotation of war derives from the Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, and the German verwirren: “to confuse”, “to perplex”, and “to bring into confusion”.[8] Another posited derivation is from the Ancient Greek barbaros, the Old Persian varhara, and the Sanscrit varvar and barbara. In German, the equivalent is Krieg; the equivalent Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian words for war is guerra, derived from the Germanic werra (“fight”, “tumult”).[9] Etymologic legend has it that the Romanic peoples adopted a foreign, Germanic word for war, to avoid using the Latin bellum, because, when sounded, it tended to merge with the sound of the word bello (beautiful).[10]

History of warfare

Before the dawn of civilization, war likely consisted of small-scale raiding. One half of the people found in a Nubian cemetery dating to as early as 12,000 years ago had died of violence.[11] Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago,[12] military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace (Beer 1981: 20)."[13]

In War Before Civilization, Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois, says that approximately 90–95% of known societies throughout history engaged in at least occasional warfare,[14] and many fought constantly.[15]

The percentages of men killed in war in eight tribal societies, and Europe and the U.S. in the 20th century. (Lawrence H. Keeley, Archeologist)

William D. Rubinstein wrote that "Pre-literate societies, even those organised in a relatively advanced way, were renowned for their studied cruelty . . . in 1826 Shaka and an army of 50,000 literally destroyed the Ndwandwe, a rival tribe. This report stated that the Ndwandwe numbered at least 40,000: 'they were all put to death' ".[16]

In Western Europe, since the late 18th century, more than 150 conflicts and about 600 battles have taken place.[17]

The Human Security Report 2005 documented a significant decline in the number and severity of armed conflicts since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. However, the evidence examined in the 2008 edition of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management's "Peace and Conflict" study indicated that the overall decline in conflicts had stalled.[18]

Recent rapid increases in the technologies of war, and therefore in its destructiveness (see Mutual assured destruction), have caused widespread public concern, and have in all probability forestalled, and may hopefully altogether prevent the outbreak of a nuclear World War III. At the end of each of the last two World Wars, concerted and popular efforts were made to come to a greater understanding of the underlying dynamics of war and to thereby hopefully reduce or even eliminate it all together. These efforts materialized in the forms of the League of Nations, and its successor, the United Nations.

Shortly after World War II, as a token of support for this concept, most nations joined the United Nations. During this same post-war period, with the aim of further delegitimizing war as an acceptable and logical extension of foreign policy[citation needed], most national governments also renamed their Ministries or Departments of War as their Ministries or Departments of Defense, for example, the former US Department of War was renamed as the US Department of Defense .

In 1947, in view of the rapidly increasingly destructive consequences of modern warfare, and with a particular concern for the consequences and costs of the newly developed atom bomb, the initial developer of the concept of this bomb, Albert Einstein famously stated, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."[19] Fortunately, the anticipated costs of a possible third world war are currently no longer deemed as acceptable by most, thus little motivation currently seems to exist on an international level for such a war.

Still since the close of World War II, limited non-nuclear conflicts continue, and surprisingly enough, some outspoken celebrities and politicians have even advocated for the proclamation of another world war.[20] Mao Zedong urged the socialist camp not to fear nuclear war with the United States since, even if 'half of mankind died, the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist'.[21]

Ten largest wars (by death toll)

Three of the ten most costly wars, in terms of loss of life, have been waged in the last century. These are of course the two World Wars, then followed by the Second Sino-Japanese War (which is sometimes considered part of World War II, or overlapping with that war). Most of the others involved China or neighboring peoples. The death toll of World War II, being 60 million plus, surpasses all other war-death-tolls by a factor of two. This may be due to significant recent advances in weapons technologies, as well as recent increases in the overall human population.

Types of Warfare

War, to become known as one, must entail some degree of confrontation using weapons and other military technology and equipment by armed forces employing military tactics and operational art within the broad military strategy subject to military logistics. War Studies by military theorists throughout military history have sought to identify the philosophy of war, and to reduce it to a military science.

In general, modern military science considers several factors before a National defence policy is created to allow a war to commence: the environment in the area(s) of combat operations, the posture national forces will adopt on the commencement of a war, and the type of warfare troops will be engaged in.

Conventional warfare is an attempt to reduce an opponent's military capability through open battle. It is a declared war between existing states in which nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons are not used or only see limited deployment in support of conventional military goals and maneuvers.

Ruins of Guernica (1937). The Spanish civil war was one of Europe's bloodiest and most brutal civil wars.

The opposite of conventional warfare, unconventional warfare, is an attempt to achieve military victory through acquiescence, capitulation, or clandestine support for one side of an existing conflict.

Nuclear warfare is warfare in which nuclear weapons are the primary, or a major, method of coercing the capitulation of the other side, as opposed to a supporting tactical or strategic role in a conventional conflict.

Civil war is a war where the forces in conflict belong to the same nation or political entity and are vying for control of or independence from that nation or political entity.

Asymmetric warfare is a conflict between two populations of drastically different levels of military capability or size. Asymmetric conflicts often result in guerrilla tactics being used to overcome the sometimes vast gaps in technology and force size.

Intentional air pollution in combat is one of a collection of techniques collectively called chemical warfare. Poison gas as a chemical weapon was principally used during World War I, and resulted in an estimated 91,198 deaths and 1,205,655 injuries.[citation needed] Various treaties have sought to ban its further use. Non-lethal chemical weapons, such as tear gas and pepper spray, are widely used, sometimes with deadly effect.

Warfare environment

The environment in which a war is fought has a significant impact on the type of combat which takes place, and can include within its area different types of terrain. This, in turn, means that soldiers have to be trained to fight in a specific types of environments and terrains that generally reflects troops' mobility limitations or enablers. These include:

Warfare by objective

Warfare by doctrine

Warfare by terrain

Behaviour and conduct in war

The nature of warfare never changes, only its superficial manifestations. Joshua and David, Hector and Achilles would recognize the combat that our soldiers and Marines have waged in the alleys of Somalia and Iraq. The uniforms evolve, bronze gives way to titanium, arrows may be replaced by laser-guided bombs, but the heart of the matter is still killing your enemies until any survivors surrender and do your will.

Ralph Peters[35]

The behaviour of troops in warfare varies considerably, both individually and as units or armies. In some circumstances, troops may engage in genocide, war rape and ethnic cleansing. Commonly, however, the conduct of troops may be limited to posturing and sham attacks, leading to highly rule-bound and often largely symbolic combat in which casualties are much reduced from that which would be expected if soldiers were genuinely violent towards the enemy.[36] Situations of deliberate dampening of hostilities occurred in World War I by some accounts, e.g., a volley of gunfire being exchanged after a misplaced mortar hit the British line, after which a German soldier shouted an apology to British forces, effectively stopping a hostile exchange of gunfire.[37] Other examples of non-aggression, also from World War I, are detailed in "Good-Bye to All That." These include spontaneous ceasefires to rebuild defences and retrieve casualties, alongside behaviour such as refusing to shoot at enemy during ablutions and the taking of great risks (described as 1 in 20) to retrieve enemy wounded from the battlefield. The most notable spontaneous ceasefire of World War I was the Christmas truce.

The psychological separation between combatants, and the destructive power of modern weaponry, may act to override this effect and facilitate participation by combatants in the mass slaughter of combatants or civilians, such as in the bombing of Dresden in World War II.[citation needed] The unusual circumstances of warfare can incite apparently normal individuals to commit atrocities.[38]

Effects of war

“Nations customarily measure the ‘costs of war’ in dollars, lost production, or the number of soldiers killed or wounded. Rarely do military establishments attempt to measure the costs of war in terms of individual human suffering. Psychiatric breakdown remains one of the most costly items of war when expressed in human terms."
No More Heroes, Richard Gabriel[17]
Disability-adjusted life year for war per 100,000 inhabitants in 2004.[39]
  no data
  less than 100
  more than 8800
The Apotheosis of War (1871) by Vasily Vereshchagin

On soldiers

Soldiers subject to combat in war often suffer psychological and physical casualties, including depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, disease, injury, and death.

"In every war in which American soldiers have fought in, the chances of becoming a psychiatric casualty - of being debilitated for some period of time as a consequence of the stresses of military life - were greater than the chances of being killed by enemy fire."
No More Heroes, Richard Gabriel[17]

During World War II, research conducted by US Army Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall found that, on average, only 15% to 20% of American riflemen in WWII combat fired at the enemy.[36] In Civil War Collector’s Encyclopedia, F.A. Lord notes that of the 27,574 discarded muskets found on the Gettysburg battlefield, nearly 90% were loaded, with 12,000 loaded more than once and 6,000 loaded 3 to 10 times. These studies suggest that most soldiers resist firing their weapons in combat, that- as some theorists argue- human beings have an inherent resistance to killing their fellow human beings.[36] Swank and Marchand’s WWII study found that after sixty days of continuous combat, 98% of all surviving soldiers will become psychiatric casualties. Psychiatric casualties manifest themselves in fatigue cases, confusional states, conversion hysteria, anxiety, obsessional and compulsive states, and character disorders.[36]

14–18: Understanding the Great War, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Annette Becker[17]

Additionally, it has been estimated that anywhere from 18% to 54% of Vietnam war veterans suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.[36]

Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white American males aged 13 to 43 died in the American Civil War, including about 6% in the North and approximately 18% in the South.[40] The war remains the deadliest conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers. United States military casualties of war since 1775 have totaled over two million. Of the 60 million European soldiers who were mobilized in World War I, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured.[41]

Why?, from The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra), by Francisco Goya, 1812-15. A collection of depictions of the brutalities of the Napoleonic-Peninsular War.

During Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, more French soldiers died of typhus than were killed by the Russians.[42] Felix Markham thinks that 450,000 crossed the Neman on 25 June 1812, of whom less than 40,000 recrossed in anything like a recognizable military formation.[43] More soldiers were killed from 1500-1914 by typhus than from all military action during that time combined.[44] In addition, if it were not for the modern medical advances there would be thousands of more dead from disease and infection. For instance, during the Seven Years' War, the Royal Navy reported that it conscripted 184,899 sailors, of whom 133,708 died of disease or were 'missing'.[45]

Les Grandes Misères de la guerre depict the destruction unleashed on civilians during the Thirty Years' War.

It is estimated that 378 000 people died due to war each year between 1985 and 1994.[46]

On civilians

Many wars have been accompanied by significant depopulations, along with destruction of infrastructure and resources (which may lead to famine, disease, and death in the civilian population). Civilians in war zones may also be subject to war atrocities such as genocide, while survivors may suffer the psychological aftereffects of witnessing the destruction of war. During the Thirty Years' War in Europe, for example, the population of the German states was reduced by about 30%.[47][48] The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.[49]

Estimates for the total casualties of World War II vary, but most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, comprising around 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians.[50] The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties.[51] Since a high proportion of those killed were young men, the postwar Soviet population was 45 to 50 million fewer than post–1939 projections would have led one to expect.[52] The largest number of civilian deaths in a single city was 1.2 million citizens dead during the 872-day Siege of Leningrad.

On the economy


Typically speaking, war becomes very intertwined with the economy and many wars are partially or entirely based on economic reasons such as the American Civil War. In some cases war has stimulated a country's economy (World War II is often credited with bringing America out of the Great Depression) but in many cases, such as the wars of Louis XIV, the Franco-Prussian War, and World War I, warfare serves only to damage the economy of the countries involved. For example, Russia's involvement in World War I took such a toll on the Russian economy that it almost collapsed and greatly contributed to the start of the Russian Revolution of 1917.

World War II

One of the starkest illustrations of the effect of war upon economies is the Second World War. The Great Depression of the 1930s ended as nations increased their production of war materials to serve the war effort.[53] The financial cost of World War II is estimated at about a $1944 billion U.S. dollars worldwide,[54][55] making it the most costly war in capital as well as lives.

By the end of the war, the European economy had collapsed with 70% of the industrial infrastructure destroyed.[56] Property damage in the Soviet Union inflicted by the Axis invasion was estimated to a value of 679 billion rubles. The combined damage consisted of complete or partial destruction of 1,710 cities and towns, 70,000 villages/hamlets, 2,508 church buildings, 31,850 industrial establishments, 40,000 miles of railroad, 4100 railroad stations, 40,000 hospitals, 84,000 schools, and 43,000 public libraries.[57]

Factors ending a war

Women and priests retrieve the dead bodies of Swabian soldiers just outside the city gates of Constance after the battle of Schwaderloh. (Luzerner Schilling)

The political and economic circumstances, in the peace that follows war, usually depend on the facts on the ground. Where evenly matched adversaries decide that the conflict has resulted in a stalemate, they may cease hostilities to avoid further loss of life and property. They may decide to restore the antebellum territorial boundaries, redraw boundaries at the line of military control, or negotiate to keep or exchange captured territory. Negotiations between parties involved at the end of a war often result in a treaty, such as the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which ended the First World War.

A warring party that surrenders or capitulates may have little negotiating power, with the victorious side either imposing a settlement or dictating most of the terms of any treaty. A common result is that conquered territory is brought under the dominion of the stronger military power. An unconditional surrender is made in the face of overwhelming military force as an attempt to prevent further harm to life and property. For example, the Empire of Japan gave an unconditional surrender to the Allies of World War II after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (see Surrender of Japan), the preceding massive strategic bombardment of Japan and declaration of war and the immediate invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Union. A settlement or surrender may also be obtained through deception or bluffing.

Many other wars, however, have ended in complete destruction of the opposing territory, such as the Battle of Carthage of the Third Punic War between the Phoenician city of Carthage and Ancient Rome in 149 BC. In 146 BC the Romans burned the city, enslaved its citizens, and razed the buildings.

Some wars or aggressive actions end when the military objective of the victorious side has been achieved. Others do not, especially in cases where the state structures do not exist, or have collapsed prior to the victory of the conqueror. In such cases, disorganised guerilla warfare may continue for a considerable period. In cases of complete surrender conquered territories may be brought under the permanent dominion of the victorious side. A raid for the purposes of looting may be completed with the successful capture of goods. In other cases an aggressor may decide to end hostilities to avoid continued losses and cease hostilities without obtaining the original objective, such as happened in the Iran–Iraq War.

Some hostilities, such as insurgency or civil war, may persist for long periods of time with only a low level of military activity. In some cases there is no negotiation of any official treaty, but fighting may trail off and eventually stop after the political demands of the belligerent groups have been reconciled, a political settlement has been negotiated, the combatants are gradually killed or decide the conflict is futile, or the belligerents cease active military engagement but still threatens each other. An example is the Chinese Civil War which essentially ceased by 1950 but the People's Republic of China fought diplomatically to isolate Taiwan, but it still threatens Republic of China (commonly, "Taiwan") with an invasion. For this reason,some historians consider the war not ended but continuing.

List of ongoing wars

Conflicts in the following list are currently causing at least 1,000 violent deaths per year, a categorization used by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program[58] and recognised by the United Nations.[59][60] The UN also use the term "low intensity conflict," which can overlap with the 1,000 violent deaths per year categorisation.[61]

1964 Colombian Armed Conflict  Colombia 50,000+ 1,000+[62]
1978 Afghan civil war  Afghanistan 600,000–2,000,000[citation needed] 10,461+ [64]
2003 Iraq War  Iraq 102,344–1,455,590[68][69] 4,571+[70]
2004 War in North-West Pakistan  Pakistan 30,452[71] 7,435[72]
2004 Shia Insurgency in Yemen  Yemen and  Saudi Arabia 25,000[73] 8,000
2006 Mexican Drug War  Mexico 39,392+[74] 24,374[75]
2009 Sudanese nomadic conflicts  Sudan 2,000–2,500[76] 708
2011 2011 Syrian uprising  Syria 3,000+[77] 3,000+

Efforts to stop wars

Execution at Verdun at the time of the mutinies of 1917, when parts of the French Army refused to conduct further offensive operations.

Anti-war movements have existed for every major war in the 20th century, including, most prominently, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. In the 21st century, worldwide anti-war movements occurred ever since the United States declared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2001, the US government decided to invade Afghanistan to fight against international terrorism that caused the September 11 attacks. Opposition to the War in Afghanistan spread all over the world. Protests occurred in cities in Europe, Asia, and all over the United States, criticizing its ineffectiveness and illegitimacy. However, they did not stop the US engagement in the war. As of now, the public view worldwide does not seem to favor the war. Organizations like Stop the War Coalition, based in the United Kingdom, keep working on campaigning against the War. They raise awareness of the war, organize demonstrations, and lobby the governments.[78]

There also exist significant worldwide opposition to the Iraq War. The US engaged in the war to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction that the Iraqi government allegedly had developed. Critics oppose the war based on the argument of violation of sovereignty, civilian deaths, absence of the UN approval, and lack of justification. However, they did not stop the involvement again. Since then, the US government has been harshly criticized by the public, domestically and internationally, for its conduct during the war, especially in the killings of civilians. Even though the government has been counting the US soldiers up until now, they have refused to release numbers on the civilian deaths.[79] Individual projects like Iraq Body Count project tries to reveal the actual number of deaths from the war based on journalistic data, showing the civilian effort to face the truth of war.

Mexican Drug War, with estimated casualty of 40,000 since December 2006, has been recently facing a fundamental opposition.[80] In 2011, the movement for peace and justice has started a popular middle-class movement against the war. It has won the recognition of President Calderon who started the war, but has not ended the war.[81]

Governments also use the method of disarmament to stop and prevent the cost of war.


Motivations for war may be different for those ordering the war than for those undertaking the war. For example, in the Third Punic War, Rome's leaders may have wished to make war with Carthage for the purpose of eliminating a resurgent rival, while the individual soldiers may have been motivated by a wish to make money. Since many people are involved, a war may acquire a life of its own from the confluence of many different motivations.

The Jewish Talmud describes in the BeReshit Rabbah commentary on the fight between Cain and Abel (Parashot BeReshit XXII:7) that there are three universal reasons for wars: A) Economic, B) Ideological/religious, and C) Power/pride/love (personal).[82]

The Ottoman campaign for territorial expansion in Europe in 1566, Crimean Tatars as vanguard. The Tatars essentially sought booty, especially slaves.

In Why Nations Go to War, by John G. Stoessinger, the author points out that both sides will claim that morality justifies their fight. He also states that the rationale for beginning a war depends on an overly optimistic assessment of the outcome of hostilities (casualties and costs), and on misperceptions of the enemy's intentions.

As the strategic and tactical aspects of warfare are always changing, theories and doctrines relating to warfare are often reformulated before, during, and after every major war. Carl Von Clausewitz said, 'Every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions.'.[83] The one constant factor is war’s employment of organized violence and the resultant destruction of property and/ or lives that necessarily follows.

Psychoanalytic psychology

Dutch psychoanalyst Joost Meerloo held that, "War is often ... a mass discharge of accumulated internal rage (where)... the inner fears of mankind are discharged in mass destruction."[84] Thus war can sometimes be a means by which man's own frustration at his inability to master his own self is expressed and temporarily relieved via his unleashing of destructive behavior upon others. In this destructive scenario, these others are made to serve as the scapegoat of man's own unspoken and subconscious frustrations and fears.

Other psychoanalysts such as E.F.M. Durban and John Bowlby have argued that human beings are inherently violent.[85] This aggressiveness is fueled by displacement and projection where a person transfers his or her grievances into bias and hatred against other races, religions, nations or ideologies. By this theory, the nation state preserves order in the local society while creating an outlet for aggression through warfare. If war is innate to human nature, as is presupposed and predetermined by many psychological theories, then there is little hope of ever escaping it.

The Italian psychoanalyst Franco Fornari, a follower of Melanie Klein, thought that war was the paranoid or projective “elaboration” of mourning.[86] Fornari thought that war and violence develop out of our “love need”: our wish to preserve and defend the sacred object to which we are attached, namely our early mother and our fusion with her. For the adult, nations are the sacred objects that generate warfare. Fornari focused upon sacrifice as the essence of war: the astonishing willingness of human beings to die for their country, to give over their bodies to their nation.

Despite Fornari's theory that man's altruistic desire for self-sacrifice for a noble cause is a contributing factor towards war, in history only a tiny fraction of wars have originated from a desire for war from the general populace.[87] Far more often the general population has been reluctantly drawn into war by its rulers. One psychological theory that looks at the leaders is advanced by Maurice Walsh.[88] He argues that the general populace is more neutral towards war and that wars only occur when leaders with a psychologically abnormal disregard for human life are placed into power. War is caused by leaders that seek war such as Napoleon and Hitler. Such leaders most often come to power in times of crisis when the populace opts for a decisive leader, who then leads the nation to war.

Evolutionary theories

Several theories concern the evolutionary origins of warfare. There are two main schools one sees organized warfare as a emerging only in the mesolithic, as a result of the emergence of complex social organization, higher population density and political organization and competition over resources. The other school tends to see human warfare simply as an extension of animal behavior, such as territoriality and sexual competition.[89]

This school argues that since organized warlike behavior patterns are also found in many other primate species such as chimpanzees,[90] as well as in many ant species,[91] this suggests that between group conflict is a general feature of animal social behavior. Biologists studying primate behavior have added to the debate, documenting warlike activities among several primate species and seeing similarities to humans.[92] Others argue that while war may be a natural phenomenon, the development of technology and complex social organization has accelerated the scale of warfare to exceptional levels among modern humans, starting at some point in the mesolithic, and escalating with the development of weaponry and large-scale state formations.[93]

One line of evidence for violent conflict among the ancestors of humans is sexual dimorphism. In species that have high levels of male competition over females, males tend to be larger and stronger than females. Humans, have considerable sexual dimorphism, although lower than our nearest primate relatives.[94] The average man is stronger than 99,9% of women. The strength difference is greater for upper-body strength than for lower-body strength. Men are also larger, faster, and more aggressive. Their skeleton, especially in the vulnerable face, is more robust. This suggests that male competition has been an important factor in human evolution.[95]

Steven Pinker in his book The Blank Slate argues that raiding or warfare between groups of humans in the ancestral environment was often beneficial for the victors. This includes gaining control over scarce resources as well as the women of the defeated or raided group. Various features of modern warfare such as alliances between groups and preemptive wars were likely part of these conflicts. In order to have a credible deterrence against other groups (as well as on an individual level), it was important to have a reputation for retaliation, causing humans to develop instincts for revenge as well as for protecting a group's (or an individual's) reputation ("honor"). Pinker argues that the development of the state and the police have dramatically reduced the level of warfare and violence compared to the ancestral environment. Whenever the state breaks down, which can be very locally such as in poor areas of a city, humans again organize in groups for protection and aggression and concepts such as violent revenge and protecting honor again become extremely important.

Ashley Montagu strongly denied universalistic instinctual arguments, arguing that social factors and childhood socialization are important in determining the nature and presence of warfare. Thus, he argues, while human aggression may be a universal occurrence, warfare is not, and would appear to have been a historical invention, associated with certain types of human societies.[96] This argument has been supported by ethnographic research conducted in societies where the concept of aggression seems to be entirely absent - e.g. the Chewong of the Malay peninsula.[97] Crofoot and Wrangham have instead argued that warfare, if defined as group interactions in which "coalitions attempt to aggressively dominate or kill members of others groups", is a characteristic of most human societies. Those in which it has been lacking "tend to be societies that were politically dominated by their neighbors".[98]

Economic theories


Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry? - Woodrow Wilson, September 11, 1919, St. Louis.[99]
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. - Major General Smedley Butler (simultaneously the highest ranking and most decorated United States Marine (including two Medals of Honor) and Republican Party primary candidate for the United States Senate) 1935.[100]
For the corporation executives, the military metaphysic often coincides with their interest in a stable and planned flow of profit; it enables them to have their risk underwritten by public money; it enables them reasonably to expect that they can exploit for private profit now and later, the risky research developments paid for by public money. It is, in brief, a mask of the subsidized capitalism from which they extract profit and upon which their power is based. - C. Wright Mills, Causes of World War 3, 1960.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. - Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 17, 1961.

Marxist theories

The Marxist theory of war is quasi-economic in that it states that all modern wars are caused by competition for resources and markets between great (imperialist) powers, claiming these wars are a natural result of the free market and class system. Part of the theory is that war will only disappear once a world revolution, over-throwing free markets and class systems, has occurred. German Communist Rosa Luxembourg theorized that imperialism was the result of capitalist countries needing new markets. Expansion of the means of production is only possible if there is a corresponding growth in consumer demand. Since the workers in a capitalist economy would be unable to fill the demand, producers must expand into non-capitalist markets to find consumers for their goods, hence driving imperialism.[101]

Demographic theories

Demographic theories can be grouped into two classes, Malthusian theories and youth bulge theories.

Malthusian theories


Pope Urban II in 1095, on the eve of the First Crusade, spoke:


This is one of the earliest expressions of what has come to be called the Malthusian theory of war, in which wars are caused by expanding populations and limited resources. Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) wrote that populations always increase until they are limited by war, disease, or famine.[103]

This theory is thought by Malthusians to account for the relative decrease in wars during the past fifty years, especially in the developed world, where advances in agriculture have made it possible to support a much larger population than was formerly the case, and where birth control has dramatically slowed the increase in population.

Youth bulge theory

Median age by country. A youth bulge is evident for Africa, and to a lesser extent for South and Southeast Asia and Central America.

Youth bulge theory differs significantly from Malthusian theories. Its adherents see a combination of large male youth cohorts - as graphically represented as a "youth bulge" in a population pyramid - with a lack of regular, peaceful employment opportunities as a risk pool for violence.

While Malthusian theories focus on a disparity between a growing population and available natural resources, youth bulge theory focuses on a disparity between non-inheriting, 'excess' young males and available social positions within the existing social system of division of labour.

Contributors to the development of youth bulge theory include French sociologist Gaston Bouthoul,[104] U.S. sociologist Jack A. Goldstone,[105] U.S. political scientist Gary Fuller,[106][107][108] and German sociologist Gunnar Heinsohn.[109] Samuel Huntington has modified his Clash of Civilizations theory by using youth bulge theory as its foundation:

I don't think Islam is any more violent than any other religions, and I suspect if you added it all up, more people have been slaughtered by Christians over the centuries than by Muslims. But the key factor is the demographic factor. Generally speaking, the people who go out and kill other people are males between the ages of 16 and 30. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s there were high birth rates in the Muslim world, and this has given rise to a huge youth bulge. But the bulge will fade. Muslim birth rates are going down; in fact, they have dropped dramatically in some countries. Islam did spread by the sword originally, but I don't think there is anything inherently violent in Muslim theology.[110]

Youth Bulge theories represent a relatively recent development but seem to have become more influential in guiding U.S. foreign policy and military strategy as both Goldstone and Fuller have acted as consultants to the U.S. Government. CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson referred to youth bulge theory in his 2002 report "The National Security Implications of Global Demographic Change".[111]


A total fertility rate of 2.1 children born by a woman during her lifetime represents a situation of in which the son will replace the father, and the daughter will replace the mother accounting for a small proportion of deaths to factors such as illness and accidents. Thus, a total fertility rate of 2.1 represents replacement level, while anything below represents a sub-replacement fertility rate leading to population decline.

Total fertility rates above 2.1 will lead to population growth and to a youth bulge. A total fertility rate of 4-8 children per mother implies 2-4 sons per mother. Consequently, one father has to leave not 1, but 2 to 4 social positions (jobs) to give all his sons a perspective for life, which is usually hard to achieve. Since respectable positions cannot be increased at the same speed as food, textbooks and vaccines, many "angry young men" find themselves in a situation that tends to escalate their adolescent anger into violence: they are

  1. Demographically superfluous,
  3. Often have no access to a legal sex life before a career can earn them enough to provide for a family. See: Hypergamy, Waithood.

The combination of these stress factors according to Heinsohn[112] usually heads for one of six different exits:

  1. Emigration ("non violent colonization")
  2. Violent Crime
  3. Rebellion or putsch
  4. Civil war and/or revolution
  6. Conquest (violent colonization, frequently including genocide abroad).

Religions and ideologies are seen as secondary factors that are being used to legitimate violence, but will not lead to violence by themselves if no youth bulge is present. Consequently, youth bulge theorists see both past "Christianist" European colonialism and imperialism and today's "Islamist" civil unrest and terrorism as results of high birth rates producing youth bulges.[113] With the Gaza Strip now being seen as another example of youth-bulge-driven violence, especially if compared to Lebanon which is geographically close, yet remarkably more peaceful.[114]

Among prominent historical events that have been linked to the existence of youth bulges is the role played by the historically large youth cohorts in the rebellion and revolution waves of early modern Europe, including French Revolution of 1789,[115] and the importance of economic depression hitting the largest German youth cohorts ever in explaining the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s.[116] The 1994 Rwandan Genocide has also been analyzed as following a massive youth bulge.[117]

While the implications of population growth have been known since the completion of the National Security Study Memorandum 200 in 1974,[118] neither the U.S. nor the WHO have implemented the recommended measures to control population growth to avert the terrorist threat. Prominent demographer Stephen D. Mumford attributes this to the influence of the Catholic Church.[119]

Youth Bulge theory has been subjected to statistical analysis by the World Bank,[120] Population Action International,[121] and the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.[122] Detailed demographic data for most countries is available at the international database of the United States Census Bureau.[123] Statistic data about historical development of demographic and economic parameters over the last 200 years for each country can be visualized at Gapminder.[124]

Youth bulge theories have been criticized as leading to racial, gender and age "discrimination".[125]

Rationalist theories

Rationalist theories of war assume that both sides to a potential war are rational, which is to say that each side wants to get the best possible outcome for itself for the least possible loss of life and property to its own side. Given this assumption, if both countries knew in advance how the war would turn out, it would be better for both of them to just accept the post-war outcome without having to actually pay the costs of fighting the war. This is based on the notion, generally agreed to by almost all scholars of war since Carl von Clausewitz, that wars are reciprocal, that all wars require both a decision to attack and also a decision to resist attack. Rationalist theory offers three reasons why some countries cannot find a bargain and instead resort to war: issue indivisibility, information asymmetry with incentive to deceive, and the inability to make credible commitments.[126]

Issue indivisibility occurs when the two parties cannot avoid war by bargaining because the thing over which they are fighting cannot be shared between them, only owned entirely by one side or the other. Religious issues, such as control over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, are more likely to be indivisible than economic issues.

A bigger branch of the theory, advanced by scholars of international relations such as Geoffrey Blainey, is that both sides decide to go to war and one side may have miscalculated.

Some go further and say that there is a problem of information asymmetry with incentives to misrepresent. The two countries may not agree on who would win a war between them, or whether victory would be overwhelming or merely eked out, because each side has military secrets about its own capabilities. They will not avoid the bargaining failure by sharing their secrets, since they cannot trust each other not to lie and exaggerate their strength to extract more concessions. For example, Sweden made efforts to deceive Nazi Germany that it would resist an attack fiercely, partly by playing on the myth of Aryan superiority and by making sure that Hermann Göring only saw elite troops in action, often dressed up as regular soldiers, when he came to visit.

The American decision to enter the Vietnam War was made with the full knowledge that the communist forces would resist them, but did not believe that the guerrillas had the capability to long oppose American forces.

Thirdly, bargaining may fail due to the states' inability to make credible commitments.[127] In this scenario, the two countries might be able to come to a bargain that would avert war if they could stick to it, but the benefits of the bargain will make one side more powerful and lead it to demand even more in the future, so that the weaker side has an incentive to make a stand now.

Rationalist explanations of war can be critiqued on a number of grounds. The assumptions of cost-benefit calculations become dubious in the most extreme genocidal cases of World War II, where the only bargain offered in some cases was infinitely bad. Rationalist theories typically assume that the state acts as a unitary individual, doing what is best for the state as a whole; this is problematic when, for example, the country's leader is beholden to a very small number of people, as in a personalistic dictatorship. Rationalist theory also assumes that the actors are rational, able to accurately assess their likelihood of success or failure, but the proponents of the psychological theories above would disagree.

Rationalist theories are usually explicated with game theory, for example, the Peace War Game, not a wargame as such, rather a simulation of economic decisions underlying war.

Political science theories


There are several different international relations theory schools. Supporters of realism in international relations argue that the motivation of states is the quest for security. Which sometimes is argued to contradict the realist view, that there is much empirical evidence to support the claim that states that are democracies do not go to war with each other, an idea that has come to be known as the democratic peace theory. Other factors included are difference in moral and religious beliefs, economical and trade disagreements, declaring independence, and others.

Another major theory relating to power in international relations and machtpolitik is the Power Transition theory, which distributes the world into a hierarchy and explains major wars as part of a cycle of hegemons being destabilized by a great power which does not support the hegemons' control.

Military adventurism can sometimes be used by political leaders as a means of boosting their domestic popularity, as has been recorded in US war-time presidential popularity surveys taken during the presidencies of several recent US leaders.[128]

Morality of wars

"The morning after the battle of Waterloo", by John Heaviside Clarke, 1816

The seeming contradiction between warfare and morality has led to serious moral questions, which have been the subject of debate for thousands of years.[129] The debate, generally speaking, has two main viewpoints: Pacifists, who believe that war is inherently immoral and therefore is never justified regardless of circumstances, and those who believe that war is sometimes necessary and can be moral.

There are two different aspects to ethics in war, according to the most prominent and influential thought on justice and war: The Just War Theory.[130][131] First is Jus ad bellum (literally translated as "right to war"), which dictates which unfriendly acts and circumstances justify a proper authority in declaring war on another nation. There are six main criteria for the declaration of a just war: first, any just war must be declared by a lawful authority; second, it must be a just and righteous cause, with sufficient gravity to merit large-scale violence; third, the just belligerent must have rightful intentions - namely, that they seek to advance good and curtail evil; fourth, a just belligerent must have a reasonable chance of success; fifth, the war must be a last resort; and sixth, the ends being sought must be proportional to means being used.[132][133]

Once a just war has been declared, the second standard, or aspect, is put into effect. Jus In bello, which literally translates to "right in war", are the ethical rules of conduct when conducting war. The two main principles in jus in bello are proportionality and discrimination. Proportionality regards how much force is necessary and morally appropriate to the ends being sought and the injustice suffered.[134] The principle of Discrimination determines who are the legitimate targets in a war, and specifically makes a separation between combatants, who it is permissible to kill, and non-combatants, who it is not.[134] Failure to follow these rules can result in the loss of legitimacy for the just war belligerent, and so thereby forfeit the moral right and justice of their cause.[131]

In besieged Leningrad. "Hitler ordered that Moscow and Leningrad were to be razed to the ground; their inhabitants were to be annihilated or driven out by starvation. These intentions were part of the 'General Plan East'." —The Oxford Companion to World War II.[135]

The Just War standard is as old as Western Civilization itself, and still has significant impact on thinking about the morality of wars and violence today.[136] Just War Theory was foundational in the creation of the United Nations and in International Law's regulations on legitimate war.[129]

These two positions generally cover the broad philosophical and ethical bents mainstream society. However, there are several theories on and about War which are in the minority in culture, but which, because of the influence they have had in recent history, demand mention here. These strains of thought on human society and war can be broken up into two main camps: Marxist and Fascist, both of which view war as purely practical.

Marxism, and other such historicist ideals, hold that history advances through a set of dialectics (as stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus: thesis, antithesis, synthesis). Marx, and his followers, in particular held that history advances through violence. Marxism-Leninism, in fact, held the belief that outright incitement to violence and war was necessary to topple Capitalism and free the proletariat. In these theories, the question of ethics has no place, as the value of the war is entirely dependent on whether it advances the revolution or synthesis.

Fascism, and the ideals it encompasses, such as Pragmatism, Racism, and Social Darwinism, hold that violence is good.[137][138][citation needed] Pragmatism holds that war and violence can be good if it serves the ends of the people, without regard for universal morality. Racism holds that violence is good so that a master race can be established, or to purge an inferior race from the earth, or both. Social Darwinism thinks that violence is sometimes necessary to weed the unfit from society so that civilization can flourish. These are broad archetypes for the general position that the ends justify the means.

See also

Possible causes
General reference
War-related lists
Law of war
Related Topics


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  • War — • In its juridical sense, a contention carried on by force of arms between sovereign states, or communities having in this regard the right of states Catholic Encyclopedia. Kevin Knight. 2006. War     War …   Catholic encyclopedia











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