War

Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see War (disambiguation), Wars (disambiguation), Warring (disambiguation), Warfare (disambiguation) and Conflict zone (disambiguation).

War is a big fight between groups, often between countries or governments and their armies. It usually involves a lot of violence and can cause damage and loss of life. People often go to war for reasons like wanting more land, solving political problems, or gaining control over resources.

Throughout history, war has looked very different. Long ago, battles were fought with swords and spears. Later, armies used guns and cannons. In the 1900s, wars included huge battles with many soldiers and even weapons that could cause great destruction, like those used in 1945.

Even though some types of big wars between powerful countries have happened less often since 1945, other kinds of wars, especially those within countries, have become more common. Rules about how wars should be fought have also developed to try to protect people who are not fighting.

Etymology

The word "war" comes from old languages. In Old English, words like wyrre and werre were used. These came from Old French werre, which is similar to the modern French word guerre. The root of this word traces back to an ancient Frankish term *werra, meaning mix-up or confusion. It is also linked to words in Old Saxon and Old High German, and even modern German, all of which mean to confuse or perplex someone.

History

Main article: Military history

Historians debate whether fighting between groups was common in the very early days of humans or if it started later, perhaps with farming or larger communities. It’s hard to tell because there aren’t many remains from very old times. Some think early groups lived together peacefully, sharing tasks like hunting. Evidence of fights between groups seems to grow around 10,000 years ago.

Some researchers say that most societies in history had some form of fighting, big or small. They describe different kinds of early battles, like small surprise attacks or larger ones. These fights weren’t very organized since people didn’t have special training. Without enough resources, building strong defenses wasn’t always practical.

Over the last 5,000 years, as countries formed, fighting continued around the world. In Europe, one of the oldest battlefields found dates back to around 1250 BC. The Bronze Age saw more organized fighting and the use of metal weapons like swords. Later times, such as when gunpowder was invented, brought big changes to how wars were fought.

One historian suggests that wars helped create countries, and countries, in turn, kept having wars. Since 1945, big wars between countries have become less common, and laws have been created to limit how wars are fought. Though battles have become less deadly thanks to better medical care, some types of wars, like civil wars, have actually increased.

Types of warfare

Main article: Types of war

Different kinds of wars exist, each with unique methods and goals. Asymmetric warfare happens when forces with very different strengths fight. Biological warfare uses germs like bacteria or viruses as weapons. Chemical warfare uses poisonous chemicals in battle. Cold warfare is strong rivalry between countries without direct fighting, often involving secret operations or economic pressure. Conventional warfare is fighting between nations without using nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Cyberwarfare targets a country's computer systems to cause damage. Insurgency is when people rise up against a government, sometimes using hidden forces. Information warfare attacks computer networks that support important systems like power grids. Nuclear warfare uses powerful atomic weapons. Radiological warfare spreads harmful radiation to harm areas. Total war means using every possible method to fight, which can greatly affect ordinary people. Unconventional warfare includes secret operations, sabotage, or guerrilla tactics to weaken an enemy.

Aims

Entities thinking about starting or ending a war may create war aims to show their strength or goals. War aims are the things a group hopes to achieve by winning a war.

Fried describes war aims as the land, money, or other benefits a group wants after winning a war.

War aims can be different types:

• Tangible aims are clear goals, like taking land (as when Germany wanted more space in the early 1900s) or getting special trade rights (as in the Anglo-Dutch Wars).
• Intangible aims are less clear but still important, like building a good reputation.
• Explicit aims are announced publicly.
• Implicit aims are understood but not said out loud.
• Positive aims are specific things wanted, while negative aims are things a group wants to avoid.

War aims can change during a conflict and may become the conditions needed for peace.

Effects

Main article: Effects of war

Conflict zones

When a war happens, certain areas within a country or across borders become war zones or conflict zones. Daily life gets interrupted, and travel to or through these areas may become difficult. Sometimes, international visitors are advised to leave these places.

Casualties

Estimates for total deaths caused by war vary a lot. One estimate suggests that early warfare from 50,000 to 3000 BCE might have caused around 400 million deaths, but this is uncertain. For the time from 3000 BCE until 1991, estimates range from 151 million to several billion deaths. Different ways of counting can lead to very different numbers.

Largest wars by death toll

Main article: List of wars by death toll

The deadliest war in history, in terms of total deaths, is World War II, from 1939 to 1945, with 70–85 million deaths. This was followed by the Mongol conquests, which caused up to 60 million deaths. War often leads to damage to buildings and the environment, less money for important services, and big movements of people leaving the affected areas.

On military personnel

People who fight in wars often face injuries, illnesses, and sometimes death. Many also experience mental health challenges because of the stresses of war.

On civilians

See also: Civilian casualties

Most wars cause many civilian deaths, along with the destruction of buildings and resources. This can lead to shortages of food and clean water, and disease. Civilians may also suffer from the lasting effects of witnessing war.

Economic

See also: Military Keynesianism

After a war ends, the losing side may have to pay money to the winners. Sometimes, land is taken from the losing side. War often hurts the economy of the countries involved. For example, World War I greatly weakened the Russian economy and helped lead to big changes in the country.

World War II

World War II was the most expensive war in terms of money spent. By the end of the war, much of Europe's factories and buildings were destroyed. Many cities, towns, and villages in the Soviet Union were damaged or destroyed.

Theories of motivation

See also: International relations theory

There are many ideas about why wars happen, but no clear agreement on the most common reasons. Military thinker Carl von Clausewitz once said, "Every age has its own kind of war, its own limits, and its own special ideas."

Psychoanalytic

Dutch thinker Joost Meerloo believed that "War is often...a way to release built-up anger inside (where)...deep fears are released in mass destruction." Other thinkers have argued that humans have a natural tendency toward aggression. This aggression is directed toward others because of feelings of unfairness or anger toward different races, religions, nations, or ideologies. Some believe that nations help keep order in society but also give people a way to express aggression through fighting.

The Italian thinker Franco Fornari thought war was a way to deal with sadness. He believed war and violence come from our need to protect and defend what we love, like our early family ties. For adults, nations become these sacred objects that lead to warfare. Fornari focused on the idea of sacrifice as the core of war: the amazing willingness of people to die for their country.

Despite these ideas, most wars do not start because people want them. Often, the general public is pulled into war by leaders. One theory suggests that wars happen when leaders, who may not care as much about human life, come to power. Such leaders often rise during times of crisis and then lead nations into war.

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ... the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

— Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg trials, 18 April 1946

Evolutionary

See also: Prehistoric warfare

Some theories look at why warfare might have started from an evolutionary point of view. There are two main ideas: One sees organized warfare beginning in or after the Mesolithic period because of complex social structures and more people competing for resources; the other sees human warfare as an older practice coming from natural behaviors shared with animals, like defending territory or competing for mates.

The second idea argues that since warlike behaviors are seen in many animal species such as chimpanzees, as well as in many ant species, group conflict might be a general feature of animal social behavior. Some who support this idea argue that while war is natural, it has become much stronger because of technology and social organizations such as weapons and states. A study even found that civil war happened in wild chimpanzee groups, leading to a violent split in one group of chimpanzees.

Psychologist and language expert Steven Pinker argued that behaviors related to war may have been helpful for survival in the past because they offered advantages. He also argued that to have believable deterrence against other groups (and even on an individual level), it was important to have a reputation for taking revenge, causing humans to develop instincts for revenge as well as for protecting a group's (or an individual's) reputation ("honor").

Crofoot and Wrangham have argued that warfare, if defined as group interactions in which "groups try to dominate or harm members of other groups", is a feature of most human societies. Those where it has been missing "tend to be societies that were controlled by their neighbors".

Ashley Montagu strongly disagreed with ideas that war is natural, arguing that social factors and how children are raised are important in deciding the nature and presence of warfare. He argues that warfare is not a universal human thing and seems to have been invented at a certain point in history, linked to specific types of societies. Montagu's view is supported by research in societies where the idea of aggression seems completely absent, like the Chewong and Semai of the Malay peninsula. Bobbi S. Low has noticed a link between warfare and education, noting that societies where warfare is common encourage their children to be more aggressive.

Economic

See also: Resource war

War can also be seen as growing out of economic competition in a world where countries compete. In this view, wars start because countries seek control over natural resources and wealth. War has also been linked to economic development by experts who study how states are built and manage their money. While this theory has been used to explain many conflicts, it becomes less convincing as money and information move more freely around the world, or when considering that it is differences in relative wealth, not absolute wealth, that may lead to wars. There are some on the far right of politics who support this idea, particularly fascists, by claiming a strong nation has a natural right to take what weaker nations cannot hold by force.

Marxist

Main article: Marxist explanations of warfare

The Marxist theory of war is partly economic. It says that all modern wars happen because of competition for resources and markets between powerful (imperialist) countries, claiming these wars are a natural result of capitalism. Marxist thinkers Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Rudolf Hilferding and Vladimir Lenin argued that imperialism happens because capitalist countries need new markets. The growth of means of production is only possible if there is also growth in consumer demand. Since workers in a capitalist economy cannot meet this demand, producers must expand into non-capitalist markets to find customers for their goods, which drives imperialism.

Demographic

Demographic theories can be divided into two types: Malthusian and youth bulge theories:

Malthusian

Malthusian theories see growing populations and limited resources as a cause of violent conflict. Pope Urban II in 1095, just before the First Crusade, spoke about the Crusade as a way to address European overpopulation, saying:

For this land which you now inhabit, shut in on all sides by the sea and the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; it scarcely furnishes food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder and devour one another, that you wage wars, and that many among you perish in civil strife. Let hatred, therefore, depart from among you; let your quarrels end. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from a wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.

This is one of the earliest expressions of what is now called the Malthusian theory of war, where wars happen because populations grow and resources are limited. Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) wrote that populations always grow until they are limited by war, disease, or famine. The violent herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria, Mali, Sudan and other countries in the Sahel region have been made worse by land degradation and population growth.

Youth bulge

According to Heinsohn, who created youth bulge theory, a youth bulge happens when 30 to 40 percent of the males in a country are in the "fighting age" group from 15 to 29 years old. This follows periods when birth rates were very high (4–8 children per woman) with a delay of 15–29 years. Heinsohn saw both past European colonialism and imperialism, as well as current unrest and terrorism in some places, as results of high birth rates creating youth bulges.

Notable historical events linked to youth bulges include the role of large youth groups in the rebellion and revolution waves of early modern Europe, such as the French Revolution of 1789, and the impact of economic problems on the largest German youth groups ever in explaining the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s. The 1994 Rwandan genocide has also been studied as following a large youth bulge. Youth bulge theory has been examined using statistics by the World Bank, Population Action International, and the Berlin Institute for Population and Development. Youth bulge theories have been criticized for possibly leading to unfair treatment based on race, gender, or age.

Cultural

Geoffrey Parker argues that what makes the "Western way of war" successful is based mainly in Western Europe and explains its success in conquering much of the world after 1500:

The Western way of war is built on five main foundations: technology, discipline, a very aggressive military tradition, a great ability to innovate and quickly respond to others' innovations and – from about 1500 onward – a unique system for funding war. The mix of all five provided a formula for military success....The results of wars have been decided less by technology, then by better plans, the ability to surprise the enemy, stronger economic power, and above all better discipline.

Parker argues that Western armies were stronger because they focused on discipline, which means "the ability of a group to stay strong when facing the enemy, whether they are attacking or being attacked, without giving in to the natural feelings of fear and panic." Discipline came from practice, marching in formation, target practice, and creating small "artificial family groups" such as the company and the platoon, to improve unity and combat effectiveness.

Rationalist

See also: Bargaining model of war

Rationalism is a way of thinking about international relations. Rationalism (and Neorealism (international relations)) assumes that countries or international groups act in ways that are best for them and want to avoid the costs of war. Under one game theory approach, rationalist theories say that all sides can bargain, would be better off if war did not happen, and try to understand why war still happens. Under another rationalist game theory without bargaining, the peace war game, best strategies can still be found that depend on how many times the game is played. In "Rationalist Explanations for War", James Fearon looked at three rationalist reasons why some countries go to war:

• Issue indivisibilities
• Incentives to misrepresent or information asymmetry
• Commitment problems

"Issue indivisibility" happens when the two sides cannot avoid war by negotiating, because what they are fighting over cannot be shared, but only fully owned by one side or the other. "Information asymmetry with incentives to misrepresent" happens when two countries have secrets about their strengths, and do not agree on either: who would win a war between them, or how much one side would win or lose. For example, Geoffrey Blainey argues that war is a result of mistakes in judging strength. He gives historical examples of war and shows, "war is usually the result of a diplomatic crisis that cannot be solved because both sides have different ideas about their bargaining power." Third, negotiating may fail because the states cannot make reliable promises.

Within the rationalist tradition, some theorists have suggested that people involved in war have normal levels of thinking errors, but are still "as rational as you and me". According to philosopher Iain King, "Most people who start fights think they will win, while most people involved think they will not be hurt...." King says that "Most big military mistakes are due to groupthink " which is a mistake, but still rational. The rationalist theory focused on bargaining is currently being debated. The Iraq War proved to be unusual and questions the use of rationalist theory for some wars.

Political science

The study of war using statistics was started by Lewis Fry Richardson after World War I. More recent collections of data on wars and armed conflict have been made by the Correlates of War Project, Peter Brecke and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. The following sections look at causes of war from the system, society, and individual levels. This way of dividing things was first suggested by Kenneth Waltz in Man, the State, and War and has often been used by political scientists since then.^: 143 

System-level

There are several different schools of thought in international relations. Supporters of realism in international relations argue that the goal of countries is to be secure, and conflicts can happen because it is hard to tell whether one country is defending itself or trying to attack, which is called the security dilemma.^: 145 

Within the realist school as represented by scholars such as Henry Kissinger and Hans Morgenthau, and the neorealist school represented by scholars such as Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer, two main sub-theories are:

1. Balance of power theory: Countries aim to stop any one country from becoming too powerful, and war happens when a country trying to become a leader keeps trying to gain more power. In this view, an international system with more equal power is more stable, and "moves toward one country having all the power make things less stable."^: 147  However, evidence has shown that power polarity is not really a big factor in whether wars happen.^: 147–48 
2. Power transition theory: Leaders keep the world order stable, but they eventually decline, and war happens when a declining leader is challenged by a rising power or tries to stop them in advance. In this view, unlike balance-of-power theory, wars are more likely when power is more evenly shared. This "power preponderance" idea has support from real-world examples.^: 148 

The two theories are not mutually exclusive and can be used to explain different events depending on the situation.^: 148  Liberalism in international relations focuses on things like trade, and its role in discouraging conflict because it can damage economic relationships. Critics say that using military force can sometimes be just as effective as trade at gaining economic benefits, especially historically even if not as much today.^: 149  Also, trade relationships that create strong dependence may increase tensions and lead to conflict. Data on the link between trade and peace are mixed, and some evidence suggests countries at war do not necessarily trade less with each other.^: 150 

Societal-level

• Diversionary theory, also known as the "scapegoat hypothesis", suggests that leaders may use war to distract people or to gain support at home.^: 152  This is supported by studies showing that hostility toward an outside group can increase bonding within a group, and a big "rally effect" has been seen when conflicts begin.^: 152–13  However, studies looking at the use of force to gain political support are less clear.^: 152–53  U.S. presidential popularity during wartime, studied during several recent U.S. leaders, has supported diversionary theory.

Individual-level

These theories say that differences in people's personalities, decisions, emotions, beliefs, and thinking errors are important in deciding whether conflicts become bigger. For example, it has been suggested that conflict is affected by limited thinking and various thinking errors,^: 157  such as prospect theory.

Ethics

The idea of whether war is right or wrong has been discussed for thousands of years.

There are two main ideas about ethics in war: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Jus ad bellum looks at when it is okay for a country to go to war. There are six main rules: the country must be a proper authority, the reason must be serious, the goal must be good, there must be a good chance of winning, war must be the last choice, and the actions must match the goal.

Jus in bello is about how to act during war. There are two main rules: using the right amount of force and only fighting certain people. Using the right amount of force means not using more power than needed. Only fighting certain people means only fighting soldiers, not harmless people. Following these rules helps keep war fair and legal.

Limiting and stopping

Main article: Anti-war movement

Many religious groups have spoken out against war. For example, a big meeting of Christian leaders said that destroying whole cities and their people is always wrong and should never be done.

People have also formed groups to stop wars. These groups have appeared during big wars like World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. More recently, people around the world have protested against wars, such as the United States invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. These protests have taken place in many countries, including Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Pauses

Main articles: Ceasefire and Armistice

During a war, the groups fighting may agree to pauses. A ceasefire is when both sides stop fighting for a while, often because a third party helps them talk. Ceasefires can be part of a formal treaty or just an informal agreement between the fighting groups. They can be short with an end date or meant to last forever.

The main goal of a ceasefire is to stop violence right away. Ceasefires can help meet short-term needs like allowing help to reach people in need, make the conflict less harmful, or move toward solving the problem peacefully. Sometimes, a group may use a ceasefire to its advantage, like resting and regrouping, which can cause problems and make ceasefires harder to keep.