The 100 years war, the battles of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms, the siege of Troy, the conquests of Genghis Khan and the rise of the Mongol Empire- Even in the past, man has relied on war as a solution to his problems, a tool to get what he wishes, be it blazing ambition, raging desires, morality, religion, or the tangled web of power and politics. Even when problems can be solved by negotiations and compromising, Man resolves conflicts with what he sees as the simplest of ways: war. Human greed is insatiable, likewise human opinion, beliefs, and morals are hard to quash. Man has always let his heart rule his mind, labeling massacres and bloodshed with honor and valour, backing them with causes he deems "worthwhile", fueling the furnace of war. Menelaus besieged Troy simply due to desire: he was willing to risk his army for Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships. Genghis Khan the conquerer slaughtered and slaughtered again to expand the vast, ever-growing Mongol Empire to cover most of Eurasia.
However, war is also waged within the animal kingdom: wolf packs tear each other apart upon meeting, Jane Goodall herself documented a war between groups of chimpanzees in 1974. In fact, the essence of war is similar to that of the wild: kill or be killed. Therefore it can be argued that "war" is a manifestation of this animalistic aggression displayed in the wild, the human version of this animal behavior. While animals fight due to territoriality and competition, this behavior, perhaps, manifests itself in Man as warfare, which Man supports with reasons such as desire (not unlike animal survival and competition) as well as beliefs, led by decisive leaders who seek war (e.g. Napoleon and Hitler).
While the nature and the essence of war remains unchanging, its manifestations shift from shape to shape throughout the ages. The first men fought with primitive spears of wood and sharp stone, clubs of stone and wood. Following that, swords and spears were forged with metal, increasing their potential for destruction. Human ingenuity has also spawned various weapons such as the cannon, developed with the discovery of gunpowder, and the chariot, pulled by beasts tamed by man for the sole purpose of war. As the modern age approached, ornate armour of bronze morphed to camouflage uniforms, arrows were replaced by pellets of metal and heat-seeking missiles, steeds and mounts of war were transformed into machines with pelts of titanium and steel. The destructive potential of these weapons constantly increase as mankind adds its emerging technology to boost its capacity for war. The advancement of technology has accelerated the destructiveness of human modern warfare to unacceptable and irrational levels.
However, war is also waged within the animal kingdom: wolf packs tear each other apart upon meeting, Jane Goodall herself documented a war between groups of chimpanzees in 1974. In fact, the essence of war is similar to that of the wild: kill or be killed. Therefore it can be argued that "war" is a manifestation of this animalistic aggression displayed in the wild, the human version of this animal behavior. While animals fight due to territoriality and competition, this behavior, perhaps, manifests itself in Man as warfare, which Man supports with reasons such as desire (not unlike animal survival and competition) as well as beliefs, led by decisive leaders who seek war (e.g. Napoleon and Hitler).
While the nature and the essence of war remains unchanging, its manifestations shift from shape to shape throughout the ages. The first men fought with primitive spears of wood and sharp stone, clubs of stone and wood. Following that, swords and spears were forged with metal, increasing their potential for destruction. Human ingenuity has also spawned various weapons such as the cannon, developed with the discovery of gunpowder, and the chariot, pulled by beasts tamed by man for the sole purpose of war. As the modern age approached, ornate armour of bronze morphed to camouflage uniforms, arrows were replaced by pellets of metal and heat-seeking missiles, steeds and mounts of war were transformed into machines with pelts of titanium and steel. The destructive potential of these weapons constantly increase as mankind adds its emerging technology to boost its capacity for war. The advancement of technology has accelerated the destructiveness of human modern warfare to unacceptable and irrational levels.
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