WAR

War is an intense armed conflict[a] between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces. Warfare refers to the common activities and characteristics of types of war, or of wars in general.[2] Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely legitimate military targets, and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant suffering and casualties.

The earliest evidence of prehistoric warfare is a Mesolithic cemetery in Jebel Sahaba, which has been determined to be about 13,400 years old.[6] About forty-five percent of the skeletons there displayed signs of violent death, specifically traumatic bone lesions.[7]

Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago,[8] military activity has occurred over much of the globe. Estimates for total deaths due to war vary wildly. For the period 3000 BCE until 1991, estimates range from 145 million to 2 billion.[9] In one estimate, primitive warfare prior to 3000 BCE has been thought to have claimed 400 million victims based on the assumption that it accounted for the 15.1% of all deaths.[10] For comparison, an estimated 1,680,000,000 people died from infectious diseases in the 20th century.[11]

In War Before Civilization, Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois, says approximately 90–95% of known societies throughout history engaged in at least occasional warfare,[12] and many fought constantly.[13]

Keeley describes several styles of primitive combat such as small raids, large raids, and massacres. All of these forms of warfare were used by primitive societies, a finding supported by other researchers.[14] Keeley explains that early war raids were not well organized, as the participants did not have any formal training. Scarcity of resources meant defensive works were not a cost-effective way to protect the society against enemy raids.[15]

William Rubinstein wrote "Pre-literate societies, even those organized in a relatively advanced way, were renowned for their studied cruelty.'"[16] The invention of gunpowder, and its eventual use in warfare, together with the acceleration of technological advances have fomented major changes to war itself.

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, 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]

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."[20]

A distinctive feature of war since 1945 is that combat has largely been a matter of civil wars and insurgencies.[21] The major exceptions were the Korean War, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, the Eritrean–Ethiopian War, and the Russo-Ukrainian War.

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 the overall decline in conflicts had stalled.[22]

World peace is the concept of an ideal state of peace within and among all people and nations on Planet Earth. Different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations have varying concepts on how such a state would come about.

A nuclear disarmament symbol, commonly called the "peace symbol"

Various religious and secular organizations have the stated aim of achieving world peace through addressing human rights, technology, education, engineering, medicine, or diplomacy used as an end to all forms of fighting. Since 1945, the United Nations and the five permanent members of its Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have operated under the aim to resolve conflicts without war. Nonetheless, nations have entered numerous military conflicts since then.

violence, genocide, and terrorism.[8]

Market-oriented socio-economics are integrated not with personal ties but the impersonal force of the market where most individuals are economically dependent on trusting strangers in contracts enforced by the state. This creates loyalty to a state that enforces the rule of law and contracts impartially and reliably and provides equal protection in the freedom to contract – that is, liberal democracy. Wars cannot happen within or between nations with market-integrated economies because war requires the harming of others, and in these kinds of economies, everyone is always economically better off when others in the market are also better off, not worse off. Rather than fight, citizens in market-oriented socio-economies care deeply about everyone's rights and welfare, so they demand economic growth at home and economic cooperation and human rights abroad. Nations with market-oriented socio-economies tend to agree on global issues[8] and not a single fatality has occurred in any dispute between them.[6]

Economic norms theory should not be confused with classical liberal theory. The latter assumes that markets are natural and that freer markets promote wealth.[9] In contrast, Economic norms theory shows how market-contracting is a learned norm, and state spending, regulation, and redistribution are necessary to ensure that almost everyone can participate in the "social market" economy, which is in everyone's interests.[citation needed]

Marxism: World peace via world revolution

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According to the dialectic materialist theory of Karl Marx, humanity under capitalism is divided into just two classes: the proletariat—who do not possess the means of production, and the bourgeoisie—who do possess the means of production. Once the communist revolution occurs and consequently abolishes the private propriety of the means of production, humanity will not be divided and the tension created between these two classes will cease.[10]

Mutual assured destruction

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Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy based on rational deterrence in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both belligerents.[11][12] Proponents of the policy of MAD, which as a term was coined in 1962 during the Cold War, attributed this to the increase in the lethality of war to the point where it no longer offers the possibility of a net gain for either side (a form of Nash equilibrium), thereby making wars pointless.[citation needed]

Peace through strength

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The term is traced back to the Roman Emperor Hadrian (reigned CE 117 – 138), but the concept is older. In the Indian epic Ramayana (7th to 4th centuries BCE) Lord Rama is quoted as saying "Bhay Bin Hoye na Preet", meaning once prayers for peace fail, one may need to instill fear to bring peace. In 1943, at the peak of World War II, the founder of the Paneuropean Union, Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, argued that after the war the United States (U.S.) was bound to take "command of the skies" to ensure the lasting world peace:

But the inauguration of such a glorious century of peace demands from us abandonment of old conceptions of peace. The new Angel of Peace must no longer be pictured as a charming but helpless lady with an olive branch in her hand, but like the Goddess of Justice with a balance in her left and a sword in her right; or like the Archangel Michael, with a fiery sword and wings of steel, fighting the devil to restore and protect the peace of heaven.[13]