Why do we wage war and fight wars?

Question

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4924034461280278026&q=Why+We+Fight&hl=en educational link "Why we fight" Award winning documentary on US War throughout history.

Is there anyone out there who knows that it's not an ethical or moral judgment but a way to be in control of our most valuable resources? - Because, if we let them go to another power, we're toast.

Answer 1

War can be desribed as an aggressive method to achieve certain objectives e.g land domination, people extermination, conquering limited resources or just simply to show strength to other to gain respect...theoritically, if human have mutual respect to co-exist with each other, war wouldn't had taken place. So, in a nutshell war is nothing but only some greed, selfish powerful authorities who have the ability to manipulate fellow weak people to help them get what they want...as long as there is a lustful greed inside us war will not stop.

Answer 2

Wars happen because each nation has its own army.
If we ask why, the answer is mainly: for historical reasons a nation without an army is regarded as a vulnerable anomaly.
But a nation with an army is liable to find itself at war since, if one has an army, it seems wasteful not ever to use it.
But embarking on a war involves sustaining heavy casualties and, if the fighting affects a nation s own territory, much costly structural loss.
Traditionally the casualties were mainly soldiers, trained to be fearless warriors, but over the last century they have increasingly included whole civilian populations.
It is thus a nonsense to pretend that wars are still the preserve of males of military age.
Even the soldiers, if they have been conscripted, are seldom keen to fight (the same could be said for the politicians who send them to war!).
If the UN were to be empowered to set up a global security force and if EVERY member state of the UN was required to put its army and all its weaponry at this security force s sole disposal, either for its own peacekeeping purposes or for safe removal, the responsibilty for keeping the peace would pass from the nation to the UN.
This would be a wonderful turnaround from our inherited, lamentable situation and is perfectly possible if only enough human beings around the globe can overome their historical conditioning sufficiently to move into a new life-affirming and planet-protecting mode of thought and action.
This is the real challenge of our age. See http://www.garrettjones.talktalk.net

Answer 3

War is of course even older than the human race itself. Unfortunately I have never heard a complete set of "necessary conditions"(to borrow a term from mathematics), or a set of conditions which MUST be fulfilled before a group of people will engage in war. Necessary conditions can often be demonstrated for the case of violent acts by a single person, but it becomes much more complex when dealing with a group.

Thus I can only speculate; however I believe one of these conditions is the *belief* that the risks of war are worth the possible rewards. Of course this is almost never true, at least from an objective sense. This is the real tragedy of war; for all the damage it causes, it rarely accomplishes anything meaningful.

This leads to the natural question, are wars *ever* justifiable? The intuitive answer is yes. At least, (as other posters have pointed out,) if our family or our future is directly threatened. In that case we may have no choice but to kill others to defend ourselves. This argument can also be extended to pre-emptive warfare, where it may be better to try to exterminate an enemy that has the means and motive to attack us. But we can never really understand the motivations or circumstances of people we don't know personally. And it seems to Me that history is not in favor of this kind of reasoning.

So I can only say this, that we cannot yet abandon warfare, as long as there are those who are unwilling to compromise, or to consider the needs of others.

Answer 4

The first and very basic course is the fact that we are animals, and most certainly evolved from animals, and if you believe in creation-we have the body of animals and many of the charactaristics and also share many. All animals have the concept and capacity of self defence. As you get higher in the evolutionary ladder(say chimpanzees) you get the excircise of violence in agressive behaviour for various selfish reasons. Mainly food, mates and political power.
When you get to human beings then not only do you get all of the above but also the intelligence to use that which we have been given(the concept, ability and the means to violence). We can either USE or MISUSE. From time memorial humans used violence to achieve many ends. Add to the fact of the old hunting parties under a leader and it is a small step from the means of slaughtering animals to slaughtering humans, a medium step from the reasons of slaughtering animals to slaughtering humans and a large, but not imposible step, from the moral choice of slaughtering animals to slaughtering humans.
In the stone age there was only a very few means and reasons why we were violent to each other. But when, in the new stone age, we began to accumulate possessions and develope, we had the hunting parties under a leader transformed into raiding parties under a chief for the purpose of organised war. Then from the bronze age onwards-chiefs became lords and kings, raiding parties became armies and more organised armies, the means became metal, missiles weapons, horses and machines, and the reasons became food, territory, women, slaves, possessions, power, glory, view of law and place in posterity. Later on nobler motives were added. Civilizing, trade and development, freedom, justice, religion, grandeure and empire. Later still race and ideology became reasons.
It developed because we had the capacity, concept, means and moral choice. When we wage war we make a moral choice and because we are what we are if we make a good moral choice then great and happy things can come out of it. However, if we make a wrong or bad moral choice then evil comes out of it.
So we fight wars because we have the concept, the means, the capacity and the reasons. Some fight wars to steal what others have and to enslave and humble others. Some fight wars to defend against such agression. Others fight wars to enforce a corrupt system for greedy, corrupt and selfish parts of their society. Still others fight wars to correct such injustices.

You see, war-or the ability to fight wars(organised and planned violence, generally with developed means) is the wielding of the instrument known as intelligent violence. It is like any other instrument. It can be used for good or evil. What makes it good or evil is the reasons why, the justifications, the conduct of the war, the treatment of the enemy's people, the terms in victory and the aim of what to accomlish or what comes of the war, after the war has ended. Why do we fight wars? We do so because we make a moral choice with the capacity we have. We are all responsible for our the moral choices we make-and after all-MORAL CHOICES HAVE PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES. Hope this helps.

Answer 5

Monuments where Soldiers Lie

I strode among monuments in a row.
What men died to make it so?
Under monuments where soldiers lie
Why did so many have to die?

What was so precious to cost a life
in wild and maniacal strife?
A maniac of fearful force I am told.
What idiot would be so bold
as to seek the mold
of one from days of old?

One developed of the Spartan line
whose form came down the vine
of history to plague us yet again
and once more begin
to build monuments where soldiers lie.

In freedom’s name they died
But upon closer scrutiny
this is not really so.
They died for the certainty
that merchant’s wealth would still flow,
for which they made monuments on high,
monuments where soldiers lie

Sadly,
not one of our fights
were for freedom’s light
Despite what we are told
they were only for merchant’s gold.
So now there are monuments set just so.
Too many monuments where soldiers lie
set so neatly in a row.


Money rules the world. If our freedoms did not yield merchant’s gold, they would not exist.

Answer 6

Are you asking a question?

We fight to protect our way of life and for the contiuation of our family. It is the same reason as sex. to keep your family going into the future.
There is only so much space on the Earth and you want to have enough of it to have kids and grandkids. If you are not willing to kill to keep your family safe then you will live at the mercy of those who will.
its why cops have guns.

Answer 7

No one likes war. Only an absolute idiot would want war. But when the time rolls around, it's fight or be consumed.

Answer 8

A lack of imagination. We go for the simple, but most costly solution.

Answer 9

The Bible says that there will always be wars and rumors of wars

Answer 10

We fight wars to test our weapons and destroy other country's weapons so that they have to buy them and make us rich.