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Is war obsolete?

Talon

[font=Cambria]Hidden From Mind[/font]
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    Do we really need to be going to war anymore?

    In my opinion..
    War is obsolete. We have the technology to level the entire planet. Why not redirect our focus from war and hatred to peace? If we spent less on military and more on scientific research to benefit the masses, wouldn't we be better off? I don't see a reason to fight anymore. If another world war started, it would probably be the end of the world. Every super power on earth has the firepower to destroy the world at least 3 times over, and from what I've read, America could do it 20 or so times. WHY DO WE NEED THIS TECHNOLOGY? Defense? This isn't defense. This is destruction. Useless destruction. Level a country? What did you do? What did that accomplish? There is now another place on earth covered in radioactive chemicals, and no one can live there. Peace? Does that look like peace to you? War is obsolete the way I see it.
     
    Yeah so I was gonna write up a long post but then realized that a) I find myself to be kinda inarticulate and probably will not be able to properly put my thoughts into words and b) that few people will give a fuck what I have to say on the matter and probably just hand-wave it away anyway.

    So the short version is that so long as people continue to pursue their interests and ideals, war is always inevitable. It's physically impossible for all the varying thoughts and feelings humans hold to not come into conflict. Diplomacy does not and will not always work, and when one cannot be persuaded with words, force is your only option. Human history and my personal experience has shown me that humanity changes far more slowly than the tectonic plates move and because of that, war is here to stay.
     
    As long as there are selfish nations, terrorists, and something everyone wants, there will always be war. No peace treaty or alliance system will prevent war forever. War has been and will always be inevitable.

    I doubt the world will end by world war 3 or by nukes. It is VERY difficult to build even 1 nuke without getting caught. As long as we are careful about nukes, then we should be ok for a long time.

    However, it might be a good idea to begin some colonies on the moon and other planets...you know, just in case.
     
    People call themselves individuals -> people want to feel superior to others -> people will pursue that goal with everything they got

    It's just sad how the focus of war has shifted from "army beats army" to "mass destruction weapons beat civilians". Not that killing people is a good thing, anyway.
     
    Do we really need to be going to war anymore?

    In my opinion..
    War is obsolete. We have the technology to level the entire planet. Why not redirect our focus from war and hatred to peace? If we spent less on military and more on scientific research to benefit the masses, wouldn't we be better off? I don't see a reason to fight anymore. If another world war started, it would probably be the end of the world. Every super power on earth has the firepower to destroy the world at least 3 times over, and from what I've read, America could do it 20 or so times. WHY DO WE NEED THIS TECHNOLOGY? Defense? This isn't defense. This is destruction. Useless destruction. Level a country? What did you do? What did that accomplish? There is now another place on earth covered in radioactive chemicals, and no one can live there. Peace? Does that look like peace to you? War is obsolete the way I see it.

    Well, yeah, war is obsolete from the view of an idealist. There's no 'point' to it aside from furthering a nation's aggression and putting force into its foreign policy. As Nah said, diplomacy will fail at times. Especially when you are considering the aggrandised egos of the various American & Russian administrations over the years.

    Now, off the top of my head I cannot remember which specific treaty or organisation has aimed for this (I think the UN?), but the answer to not allowing war to happen when diplomacy fails is to make war an economic impossibility. That largely fails if the war takes place between a superpower and lesser powers, though. Take America and, well, every single thing it's done in the Middle East since 2001. America (and by extension, the UN) has been able to extend its foreign policy through invasion after invasion despite the economic cost because there's no way America can be held back by the economic cost unlike a theoretical war between China can. A Sino-American war today is currently improbable because of the sheer economic fallout, not that the aforementioned aggrandised egos wouldn't want to go through with it anyway.

    In short, war is obsolete, yes. We don't need to be going to war. But there'll always be the option of doing so until a nation's pride is outweighed by the economic anvil that would fall on them due to the war.
     
    As long as people have conflicting interests and the ability to kill each other over them, there will be war in some fashion.
     
    Simply put, the mere fact that there are still wars popping up here and there means that it isn't.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts

    It may not be as deadly as it's been in the past, but it's still common and destructive enough that calling it "obsolete" is a grossly inaccurate statement.

    At least that's how I see it.
     
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    Also, as far as aforementioned nuclear weapons goes, there is still debate going on as to whether or not nuclear capability would actually be a guarantee of peace (or, considering the world's current state and all, relative peace).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_peace

    Both sides of the argument make some fair points, which is why I'm still on fence about it.

    On one hand, the logic of proponents seems sound enough. It basically amounts to "if a significant number of nations had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire planet (I don't even bother using "several times over" since we only have one planet we live on so far), what reasonably sane nation would dare launch the first missile?" In a way, this can be considered at least partially true considering that despite decades of nuclear weapon stockpiling, the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki are still the only incidence of the use of nuclear weapons in warfare.

    On the other hand, there are nations, terrorist groups, and/or regimes in the world that cannot genuinely be considered "sane." North Korea is one nation that almost always springs readily to my mind when I consider the cons of nuclear stockpiling.
     
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    Do we really need to be going to war anymore?
    I will say no and most here will say no but you have to take in consideration the human tendency. People like to bicker/quarrel about stuff.Which many a times leads to wars.Most of the gang wars happen due to a small conflict of ideals/views which culminates in huge devastation.Also mostly winning a war used to be considered the symbol of greatness,of a nations might.
    So unless each and every person in this world thinks warring as a curse to humanity and vow to never feud then only the wars will stop.Which is impossible!
    People ignore small wars between two peoples,etc but remember the world wars also had started first due to the conflict between two nations.
     
    Do we really need to be going to war anymore?

    In my opinion..
    War is obsolete. We have the technology to level the entire planet. Why not redirect our focus from war and hatred to peace? If we spent less on military and more on scientific research to benefit the masses, wouldn't we be better off? I don't see a reason to fight anymore. If another world war started, it would probably be the end of the world. Every super power on earth has the firepower to destroy the world at least 3 times over, and from what I've read, America could do it 20 or so times. WHY DO WE NEED THIS TECHNOLOGY? Defense? This isn't defense. This is destruction. Useless destruction. Level a country? What did you do? What did that accomplish? There is now another place on earth covered in radioactive chemicals, and no one can live there. Peace? Does that look like peace to you? War is obsolete the way I see it.

    Hmms...

    Well, I think war is a very unfortunate thing when it happens, and it's sad that our disagreements with one another can escalate to the point of physical conflict. So I do think war is obsolete, in the sense that at the end of a war, both sides have taken a huge loss. Maybe the winner gained something, like land or oil, but they still sacrificed a lot of people's lives and spent a ton of money in order to gain it.

    But, I think the reality is, there are a lot of regimes around the world that don't want peace, and scientific research to benefit the "masses" isn't going to make them hate us any less.

    I think an attempt at diplomacy should always be made first. But if you let one country violate treaties, break international laws, etc. without it ever escalating to war, then diplomacy is meaningless.

    tl;dr: War is obsolete, but sometimes it's necessary.
     
    War is a very grey area with no easy, and certainly no correct answer to it. And as such, war should not be treated as something that actually has an answer, but more of a process to lessen it's occurrence.

    If we want to talk about war in an idealistic way, then we have to first look at the world in an idealistic way, and approach the attitudes of all humans in an idealistic way. To do this, we should first look at one society, and see how that behaves, before moving on to a bigger society such as an entire country, and ultimately the world. In said society, in a perfect world, people would all get along nicely, and would be able to pursue their dreams and goals without conflict, without strife. Nobody would be flawed, and every goal would be for the further benefit of society and development. These people would help and support one another equally, and no one would be better off than another, everybody living in total equality. Then if we broaden this view to a country, the same applies, but the country would support its differing counties and states equally, ensuring that every state and county is equal, and receives an equal amount of support. Pushing this into a wider viewing frame, when applied to the world the same would happen. Countries would support each other to develop, to be equal and not be prejudiced against one another. All countries would share benefits equally, and all humans would be able to live safe under the knowledge that everything is equal and sound.

    Now let's be realistic about this. There is no place in this world in which disparity cannot be witnessed. You go to any town, any minor or major city and you will see the wealthy stroll past the poor every single day. The homeless will beg those with a home, the starving will be ignored by the satisfied. States and counties will be favoured by the government, depending on which one will in turn bring the government the most money. Third World countries that were shit upon through debts and technology disparities are still being shit upon by the First World. People are not equal, and never will be. Why are you in your education system? To achieve grades that will help you towards a good job, to earn money to survive. And what happens when someone not particularly good in factual areas is very creative and has genius ideas? They're kicked to the side, because they will not favour the system, they will not benefit the system they live in. This same thing happens to countries.

    When a country does not comply with the system to hand, the countries with power will kick it to the side, and punish it for doing so. When a country steps out of line and does something wrong, those who oppose this view will attack, just as society does to those who don't conform.

    Whilst all people want freedom and the ability to believe in what they choose, and follow the morals they choose, and whilst disparity still exists in this world, there will always be war. Freedom, ideals and money go hand in hand in hand. And if one link is missing, the chain collapses and the system disintegrates into a process of expulsion and punishment. And when this occurs in a large scale between countries, the punishment is war. The biggest piece of evidence for this is World War II. Hitler stepped out of line, disagreeing with the system. He lashed out, and the Allied Forces retaliated, crushing Hitler and putting Germany back into place. The same is happening in the Middle East, as we attempt to form a world that conforms to the rules those with power set. Of course, this is just one part of an argument that goes deeper into money and so on. There are many more sides to this, but I shan't list them now. Instead, I will conclude with this.

    War will forever be the action taken to achieve greater power. As such, it will never become obsolete while humans have the free will to chase their own desires.
     
    I don't think we could say that war is obsolete. We can't predict the future, and there's no telling whether the current international system might collapse one day and make state-to-state war much more common than it is now. With that being said, there are indeed significant barriers to state-to-state conflict nowadays, thanks to the end of the Cold War, international regimes such as the United Nations, as well as economic and cultural connections brought about by globalization. As of now, armed conflict is mostly intra-state conflict as well as those fought between participants and non-participants of the international system (ISIS vs. the states of Iraq and Syria come to mind). It is very difficult for a conflict to escalate to that of a state-to-state conflict, for instance, Russia would find it very much against its interest to escalate the conflict that is in Ukraine at the moment.

    My conclusion is that warfare between states and countries has been significantly curtailed to the point of being considered obsolete for the near future (next 10-20 years), while lower-scale intra-state conflicts and conflicts with non-state actors will continue to be the new "norm" of warfare.
     
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