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This article is about war in general. For other uses, see war (disambiguation) and The War

War is armed conflict between belligerent states, nations, or other parties (e.g. guerillas), prosecuted with military forces aiming to enforce the political will of the victor upon the defeated belligerent.[1] A war usually is an attempt to alter the political balance of power of either the psychological or the material hierarchy; of domination vs. equality, between and among the belligerents. Ideologically, one of the belligerents usually perceives an imperative political requirement to strategically dominate the other belligerent state, nation, or party.[2]

Warfare is characterized by armed aggression, the physical destruction of the country, societal disruption, and high mortality rates for combatants and non-combatants.[3] The campaigns are conducted by military forces of combat and combat support personnel (military intelligence, matériel logistics, propaganda, medical services, etc.); as terrestrial forces, they are a land army, a navy at sea, and an air force aloft. A war can be simultaneously fought in several theaters of war, each with military campaigns in medias res; a battle is a period of continual combat, usually between units of soldiers.

There are varieties of war: a civil war occurs between political and religious factions of citizens in a country. From the English Civil War (1642–1651) resulted the establishment of a new government, the successive Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and the Cromwellian Protectorate (1653–1659), which replaced monarchy. A civil war can also lead to the establishment of a new country (state), as resulted from the Bangladesh Liberation War (1971). In the realm of geopolitics, a proxy war, such as the Vietnam War (1945–1975), is a war fought between hegemons by means of client states whose combat is an extension of the political warfare between the superior, sponsoring powers. (see: Hegemony, Empire, Imperialism)

Anthropologically, warfare is not an exclusively human activity, bellicosity, the propensity for aggressive war, is a behavioural trait found in other primate species, such as the chimpanzee; it also appears in ants.[4] [5][6][7] War is the societal course of political action taken by the group(s) experiencing the need to dominate the other group(s); they are unable and unwilling to accept or permit the possibility of a relationship of fundamental equality between or among the groups, and have opted for armed aggression (warfare) as an extension of political will. Common to the motivation for war is the personal aspect of domination; from nation vs. nation, the behavioural path to man vs. man is violence for personal domination, beyond the scope of formal warfare.[8] In 2003, the American scientist Richard E. Smalley said war was the sixth biggest problem (of ten) facing mankind for the next fifty years.[9]

In A History of Warfare (1993), John Keegan reported that the practice of war is not a function of exclusively one type of political organization or of human society; that war is a universal phenomenon, the form and scope of which are defined by the society that wages it; and that its conduct extends along an existential continuum, from the spears and axes of endemic warfare in prehistory to missile nuclear war among contemporary global alliances.[10] In the 19th-century military science treatise On War (1832), the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) succinctly defined armed conflict: War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.[11]





edit] Etymology

The English word war derives from the late Old English (c.1050) words wyrre and werre; the Old North French werre; the Frankish werra; and the Proto-Germanic werso. The denotation of war derives from the Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, and the German verwirren: “to confuse”, “to perplex”, and “to bring into confusion”.[12] Another posited derivation is from the Ancient Greek barbaros, the Old-Persian varhara, and the Sanscrit varvar and barbara. In German, the equivalent is Krieg; the equivalent Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian words for war is guerra, derived from the Germanic werra (“fight”, “tumult”).[13] Etymologic legend has it that the Romanic peoples adopted a foreign, Germanic word for war, to avoid using the Latin bellum, because, when sounded, it tended to merge with the sound of the word bello (beautiful).[14]

edit] History of warfare

Before the dawn of civilization, war likely consisted of small-scale raiding. One half of the people found in a Nubian cemetery dating to as early as 12,000 years ago had died of violence.[15] Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago,[16] military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace (Beer 1981: 20)."[17]

In War Before Civilization, Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois, says that approximately 90–95% of known societies throughout history engaged in at least occasional warfare,[18] and many fought constantly.[19] For instance, between 1801 and 1840, Māoris engaged in 633 recorded intertribal battles.[20]

The percentages of men killed in war in eight tribal societies, and Europe and the U.S. in the 20th century. (Lawrence H. Keeley, Archeologist)

William D. Rubinstein said that "Pre-literate societies, even those organised in a relatively advanced way, were renowned for their studied cruelty . . . in 1826 Shaka and an army of 50,000 literally destroyed the Ndwandwe, a rival tribe. This report stated that the Ndwandwe numbered at least 40,000: 'they were all put to death' ".[21] Historically, more than a third of the Yanomamö males, on average, died from warfare.[22] American anthropologist Chagnon claimed that men who participated in killings had more wives and children than those who did not.[23]

In Western Europe, since the late 18th century, more than 150 conflicts and about 600 battles have taken place.[24]

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 that the overall decline in conflicts had stalled.[25]

Recent rapid increases in the technologies of war, and therefore in its destructiveness (see Mutual assured destruction), have caused widespread public concern, and have in all probability forestalled, and may hopefully altogether prevent the outbreak of a nuclear World War III. At the end of each of the last two World Wars, concerted and popular efforts were made to come to a greater understanding of the underlying dynamics of war and to thereby hopefully reduce or even eliminate it all together. These efforts materialized in the forms of the League of Nations, and its successor, the United Nations.

Shortly after World War II, as a token of support for this concept, most nations joined the United Nations. During this same post-war period, with the aim of further delegitimizing war as an acceptable and logical extension of foreign policy[citation needed], most national governments also renamed their Ministries or Departments of War as their Ministries or Departments of Defense, for example, the former US Department of War was renamed as the US Department of Defense .

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, the initial developer of the concept of this 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."[26] Fortunately, the anticipated costs of a possible third world war are currently no longer deemed as acceptable by most, thus little motivation currently seems to exist on an international level for such a war.

Still since the close of World War II, limited non-nuclear conflicts continue, and surprisingly enough, some outspoken celebrities and politicians have even advocated for the proclamation of another world war. 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'.[28]

edit] Motivations

Motivations for war may be different for those ordering the war than for those undertaking the war. For a state to prosecute a war it must have the support of its leadership, its military forces, and its people. For example, in the Third Punic War, Rome's leaders may have wished to make war with Carthage for the purpose of eliminating a resurgent rival, while the individual soldiers may have been motivated by a wish to make money. Since many people are involved, a war may acquire a life of its own from the confluence of many different motivations.

The Jewish Talmud describes in the BeReshit Rabbah commentary on the fight between Cain and Abel (Parashot BeReshit XXII:7) that there are three universal reasons for wars: A) Economic, B) Ideological/religious, and C) Power/pride/love (personal).[29]

In Why Nations Go to War, by John G. Stoessinger, the author points out that both sides will claim that morality justifies their fight. He also states that the rationale for beginning a war depends on an overly optimistic assessment of the outcome of hostilities (casualties and costs), and on misperceptions of the enemy's intentions.

As the strategic and tactical aspects of warfare are always changing, theories and doctrines relating to warfare are often reformulated before, during, and after every major war. Carl Von Clausewitz said, 'Every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions.'.[30] The one constant factor is war’s employment of organized violence and the resultant destruction of property and/ or lives that necessarily follows.

edit] Economic theories

War can be seen as a growth of economic competition in a competitive international system. In this view wars begin as a pursuit of markets for natural resources and for wealth. While this theory has been applied to many conflicts, such counter arguments become less valid as the increasing mobility of capital and information level the distributions of wealth worldwide, or when considering that it is relative, not absolute, wealth differences that may fuel wars. There are those on the extreme right of the political spectrum who provide support, fascists in particular, by asserting a natural right of the strong to whatever the weak cannot hold by force.

edit] Marxist theories

The Marxist theory of war is quasi-economic in that it states that all modern wars are caused by competition for resources and markets between great (imperialist) powers, claiming these wars are a natural result of the free market and class system. Part of the theory is that war will only disappear once a world revolution, over-throwing free markets and class systems, has occurred. German Communist Rosa Luxembourg theorized that imperialism was the result of capitalist countries needing new markets. Expansion of the means of production is only possible if there is a corresponding growth in consumer demand. Since the workers in a capitalist economy would be unable to fill the demand, producers must expand into non-capitalist markets to find consumers for their goods, hence driving imperialism.[31]

edit] Evolutionary psychology

A distinct branch of the psychological theories of war are the arguments based on evolutionary psychology. This school tends to see war as an extension of animal behavior, such as territoriality and competition. Animals are naturally aggressive, and in humans this aggression manifests itself as warfare. However, while war has a natural cause, the development of technology has accelerated human destructiveness to a level that is irrational and damaging to the species. The earliest advocate of this theory was Konrad Lorenz.[32]

Biologists studying primate behavior have also added to the debate. Jane Goodall in 1974 documented what she called a war between groups of chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park of Tanzania.[33]

BBC narrator Sir David Attenborough mentioned a 'raid into the territory of their neighbors' by a group of Chimps in the series Planet Earth.[34]

These theories have been criticized by scholars such as John G. Kennedy, who argue that the organized, sustained war of humans differs more than just technologically from the territorial fights between non-human animals. Ashley Montagu strongly denies such universalistic instinctual arguments, pointing out that social factors and childhood socialization are important in determining the nature and presence of warfare. Thus while human aggression may be a universal occurrence, warfare is not, and would appear to have been a historical invention, associated with certain types of human societies.[35]

edit] Behavioral theories

Some psychologists such as E.F.M. Durban and John Bowlby have argued that human beings are inherently violent.[36] This aggressiveness is fueled by displacement and projection where a person transfers their grievances into bias and hatred against other races, religions, nations or ideologies. By this theory the nation state preserves order in the local society while creating an outlet for aggression through warfare. If war is innate to human nature, as is presupposed and predetermined by many psychological theories, then there is little hope of ever escaping it[citation needed].

The Italian psychoanalyst Franco Fornari, a follower of Melanie Klein, thought that war was the paranoid or projective “elaboration” of mourning.[37] Fornari thought that war and violence develop out of our “love need”: our wish to preserve and defend the sacred object to which we are attached, namely our early mother and our fusion with her. For the adult, nations are the sacred objects that generate warfare. Fornari focused upon sacrifice as the essence of war: the astonishing willingness of human beings to die for their country, to give over their bodies to their nation.

While these theories may have some general explanatory value about why war exists, they do not explain when or how they occur. Nor do they explain the existence of certain human cultures completely devoid of war.[38] If the innate psychology of the human mind is unchanging, these variations are inconsistent. A solution adapted to this problem by certain thinkers such as the psychologist, Franz Alexander is that peace does not really exist. Periods that are seen as peaceful are actually periods of preparation for a later war or when war is suppressed by a state of great power, such as the Pax Britannica.[39]

An additional problem with theories that rest on the will of the general population, is that in history only a tiny fraction of wars have originated from a desire for war from the general populace.[40] Far more often the general population has been reluctantly drawn into war by its rulers. One psychological theory that looks at the leaders is advanced by Maurice Walsh.[41] He argues that the general populace is more neutral towards war and that wars only occur when leaders with a psychologically abnormal disregard for human life are placed into power. War is caused by leaders that seek war such as Napoleon and Hitler. Such leaders most often come to power in times of crisis when the populace opts for a decisive leader, who then leads the nation to war.

edit] Demographic theories

Demographic theories can be grouped into two classes, Malthusian theories and youth bulge theories.

edit] Malthusian theories

Malthusian theories see expanding population and scarce resources as a source of violent conflict.

Pope Urban II in 1095, on the eve of the First Crusade, spoke:

"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." [ 42 ]

This is one of the earliest expressions of what has come to be called the Malthusian theory of war, in which wars are caused by expanding populations and limited resources. Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) wrote that populations always increase until they are limited by war, disease, or famine.[43]

This theory is thought by Malthusians to account for the relative decrease in wars during the past fifty years, especially in the developed world, where advances in agriculture have made it possible to support a much larger population than was formerly the case, and where birth control has dramatically slowed the increase in population.

edit] Youth bulge theory

Median age by country. A youth bulge is evident for Africa , and to a lesser extent for South and Southeast Asia and Central America.

Youth bulge theory differs significantly from Malthusian theories. Its adherents see a combination of large male youth cohorts - as graphically represented as a "youth bulge" in a population pyramid - with a lack of regular, peaceful employment opportunities as a risk pool for violence.

While Malthusian theories focus on a disparity between a growing population and available natural resources, youth bulge theory focuses on a disparity between non-inheriting, 'excess' young males and available social positions within the existing social system of division of labour.

Contributors to the development of youth bulge theory include French sociologist Gaston Bouthoul,[44] U.S. sociologist Jack A. Goldstone,[45] U.S. political scientist Gary Fuller,[46][47][48] and German sociologist Gunnar Heinsohn.[49] Samuel Huntington has modified his Clash of Civilizations theory by using youth bulge theory as its foundation:

I don't think Islam is any more violent than any other religions, and I suspect if you added it all up, more people have been slaughtered by Christians over the centuries than by Muslims. But the key factor is the demographic factor. Generally speaking, the people who go out and kill other people are males between the ages of 16 and 30. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s there were high birth rates in the Muslim world, and this has given rise to a huge youth bulge. But the bulge will fade. Muslim birth rates are going down; in fact, they have dropped dramatically in some countries. Islam did spread by the sword originally, but I don't think there is anything inherently violent in Muslim theology."[50]

Youth Bulge theories represent a relatively recent development but seem to have become more influential in guiding U.S. foreign policy and military strategy as both Goldstone and Fuller have acted as consultants to the U.S. Government. CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson referred to youth bulge theory in his 2002 report "The National Security Implications of Global Demographic Change".[51]

According to Heinsohn, who has proposed youth bulge theory in its most generalized form, a youth bulge occurs when 30 to 40 percent of the males of a nation belong to the "fighting age" cohorts from 15 to 29 years of age. It will follow periods with total fertility rates as high as 4-8 children per woman with a 15-29 year delay.

A total fertility rate of 2.1 children born by a woman during her lifetime represents a situation of in which the son will replace the father, and the daughter will replace the mother. Thus, a total fertility rate of 2.1 represents replacement level, while anything below represents a sub-replacement fertility rate leading to population decline.

Total fertility rates above 2.1 will lead to population growth and to a youth bulge. A total fertility rate of 4-8 children per mother implies 2-4 sons per mother. Consequently, one father has to leave not 1, but 2 to 4 social positions (jobs) to give all his sons a perspective for life, which is usually hard to achieve. Since respectable positions cannot be increased at the same speed as food, textbooks and vaccines, many "angry young men" find themselves in a situation that tends to escalate their adolescent anger into violence: they are

Demographically superfluous, Might be out of work or stuck in a menial job, and Often have no access to a legal sex life before a career can earn them enough to provide for a family. See: Hypergamy, Waithood.

The combination of these stress factors according to Heinsohn[52] usually heads for one of six different exits:

Emigration ("non violent colonization") Violent Crime Rebellion or putsch Civil war and/or revolution Genocide (to take over the positions of the slaughtered) Conquest (violent colonization, frequently including genocide abroad).

Religions and ideologies are seen as secondary factors that are being used to legitimate violence, but will not lead to violence by themselves if no youth bulge is present. Consequently, youth bulge theorists see both past "Christianist" European colonialism and imperialism and today's "Islamist" civil unrest and terrorism as results of high birth rates producing youth bulges.[53] With the Gaza Strip now being seen as another example of youth-bulge-driven violence, especially if compared to Lebanon which is geographically close, yet remarkably more peaceful.[54]

Among prominent historical events that have been linked to the existence of youth bulges is the role played by the historically large youth cohorts in the rebellion and revolution waves of early modern Europe, including French Revolution of 1789,[55] and the importance of economic depression hitting the largest German youth cohorts ever in explaining the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s.[56] The 1994 Rwandan Genocide has also been analyzed as following a massive youth bulge.[57]

While the implications of population growth have been known since the completion of the National Security Study Memorandum 200 in 1974,[58] neither the U.S. nor the WHO have implemented the recommended measures to control population growth to avert the terrorist threat. Prominent demographer Stephen D. Mumford attributes this to the influence of the Catholic Church.[59]

Youth Bulge theory has been subjected to statistical analysis by the World Bank,[60] Population Action International,[61] and the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.[62] Detailed demographic data for most countries is available at the international database of the United States Census Bureau.[63] Statistic data about historical development of demographic and economic parameters over the last 200 years for each country can be visualized at Gapminder.[64]

Youth bulge theories have been criticized as leading to racial, gender and age "discrimination".[65]

edit] Rationalist theories

Rationalist theories of war assume that both sides to a potential war are rational, which is to say that each side wants to get the best possible outcome for itself for the least possible loss of life and property to its own side. Given this assumption, if both countries knew in advance how the war would turn out, it would be better for both of them to just accept the post-war outcome without having to actually pay the costs of fighting the war. This is based on the notion, generally agreed to by almost all scholars of war since Carl von Clausewitz, that wars are reciprocal, that all wars require both a decision to attack and also a decision to resist attack. Rationalist theory offers three reasons why some countries cannot find a bargain and instead resort to war: issue indivisibility, information asymmetry with incentive to deceive, and the inability to make credible commitments.[66]

Issue indivisibility occurs when the two parties cannot avoid war by bargaining because the thing over which they are fighting cannot be shared between them, only owned entirely by one side or the other. Religious issues, such as control over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, are more likely to be indivisible than economic issues.

A bigger branch of the theory, advanced by scholars of international relations such as Geoffrey Blainey, is that both sides decide to go to war and one side may have miscalculated.

Some go further and say that there is a problem of information asymmetry with incentives to misrepresent. The two countries may not agree on who would win a war between them, or whether victory would be overwhelming or merely eked out, because each side has military secrets about its own capabilities. They will not avoid the bargaining failure by sharing their secrets, since they cannot trust each other not to lie and exaggerate their strength to extract more concessions. For example, Sweden made efforts to deceive Nazi Germany that it would resist an attack fiercely, partly by playing on the myth of Aryan superiority and by making sure that Hermann Göring only saw elite troops in action, often dressed up as regular soldiers, when he came to visit.

The American decision to enter the Vietnam War was made with the full knowledge that the communist forces would resist them, but did not believe that the guerrillas had the capability to long oppose American forces.

Thirdly, bargaining may fail due to the states' inability to make credible commitments.[67] In this scenario, the two countries might be able to come to a bargain that would avert war if they could stick to it, but the benefits of the bargain will make one side more powerful and lead it to demand even more in the future, so that the weaker side has an incentive to make a stand now.

Rationalist explanations of war can be critiqued on a number of grounds. The assumptions of cost-benefit calculations become dubious in the most extreme genocidal cases of World War II, where the only bargain offered in some cases was infinitely bad. Rationalist theories typically assume that the state acts as a unitary individual, doing what is best for the state as a whole; this is problematic when, for example, the country's leader is beholden to a very small number of people, as in a personalistic dictatorship. Rationalist theory also assumes that the actors are rational, able to accurately assess their likelihood of success or failure, but the proponents of the psychological theories above would disagree.

Rationalist theories are usually explicated with game theory, for example, the Peace War Game, not a wargame as such, rather a simulation of economic decisions underlying war.

edit] Political science theories

The statistical analysis of war was pioneered by Lewis Fry Richardson following World War I. More recent databases of wars and armed conflict have been assembled by the Correlates of War Project, Peter Brecke and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program.

There are several different international relations theory schools. Supporters of realism in international relations argue that the motivation of states is the quest for security. Which sometimes is argued to contradict the realist view, that there is much empirical evidence to support the claim that states that are democracies do not go to war with each other, an idea that has come to be known as the democratic peace theory. Other factors included are difference in moral and religious beliefs, economical and trade disagreements, declaring independence, and others.

Another major theory relating to power in international relations and machtpolitik is the Power Transition theory, which distributes the world into a hierarchy and explains major wars as part of a cycle of hegemons being destabilized by a great power which does not support the hegemons' control.

Military adventurism can sometimes be used by political leaders as a means of boosting their domestic popularity, as has been recorded in US war-time presidential popularity surveys taken during the presidencies of several recent US leaders.[68]

edit] Morality of wars

Throughout history war has been the source of serious moral questions. Although many ancient nations and some modern ones have viewed war as noble, over the sweep of history, concerns about the morality of war have gradually increased. Today, war is seen by some as undesirable and morally problematic. At the same time, many view war, or at least the preparation and readiness and willingness to engage in war, as necessary for the defense of their country and therefore a just war. Pacifists believe that war is inherently immoral and that no war should ever be fought.

Another supporter of war, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, favoured it as part of the necessary process required for history to unfold and allow society to progress. At the outbreak of World War I, the writer Thomas Mann wrote, "Is not peace an element of civil corruption and war a purification, a liberation, an enormous hope?" This attitude has been embraced by societies from Sparta and Rome in the ancient world to the fascist states of the 1930s. Support for war continues to this day, especially regarding the notion of a Just War (necessary wars required to halt an aggressor or otherwise dangerous nation or group).

International law recognizes only two cases for a legitimate war:

1. Wars of defense: when one nation is attacked by an aggressor, it is considered legitimate for a nation along with its allies to defend itself against the aggressor.

2. Wars sanctioned by the UN Security Council: when the United Nations as a whole acts as a body against a certain nation. Examples include various peacekeeping or peace-enforcing operations around the world, as well as the Korean War and 1st Gulf War.

The subset of international law known as the law of war or international humanitarian law also recognises regulations for the conduct of war, including the Geneva Conventions governing the legitimacy of certain kinds of weapons, and the treatment of prisoners of war. Cases where these conventions are broken are considered war crimes, and since the Nuremberg Trials at the end of World War II the international community has established a number of tribunals to try such cases.

A nation's economy is often stimulated by government war-spending. When countries wage war, more weapons, armor, ammunition, and the like are needed to be created and sold to the armies, thus their economies can enter a boom (or war economy) reducing unemployment. A very popular example of this was the United States' ability to overcome the Great Depression with the onset of World War II, emerging afterwards as one of two superpowers (the other being the USSR). Note though that this doesn't result in net increase of a nation's prosperity—see Parable of the broken window; the U.S. went into deep debt as a result of unprecedented war spending File:US Federal Debt.png.

edit] Conduct of wars

The war, to become known as one, must entail some degree of confrontation using weapons and other military technology and equipment by armed forces employing military tactics and Operational art within the broad military strategy subject to military logistics. War Studies by military theorists throughout military history have sought to identify the Philosophy of war, and to reduce it to a Military science.

In general, modern military science considers several factors before a National defence policy is created to allow a war to commence: the environment in the area(s) of combat operations, the posture national forces will adopt on the commencement of a war, and the type of warfare troops will be engaged in.

edit] Behaviour and conduct in war

“ The nature of warfare never changes, only its superficial manifestations. Joshua and David, Hector and Achilles would recognize the combat that our soldiers and Marines have waged in the alleys of Somalia and Iraq. The uniforms evolve, bronze gives way to titanium, arrows may be replaced by laser-guided bombs, but the heart of the matter is still killing your enemies until any survivors surrender and do your will. ” —Ralph Peters[69]

The behaviour of troops in warfare varies considerably, both individually and as units or armies. In some circumstances, troops may engage in genocide, war rape and ethnic cleansing. Commonly, however, the conduct of troops may be limited to posturing and sham attacks, leading to highly rule-bound and often largely symbolic combat in which casualties are much reduced from that which would be expected if soldiers were genuinely violent towards the enemy.[70] Situations of deliberate dampening of hostilities occurred in World War I by some accounts, e.g., a volley of gunfire being exchanged after a misplaced mortar hit the British line, after which a German soldier shouted an apology to British forces, effectively stopping a hostile exchange of gunfire.[71] Other examples of non-aggression, also from World War I, are detailed in Goodbye to all that. These include spontaneous ceasefires to rebuild defences and retrieve casualties, alongside behaviour such as refusing to shoot at enemy during ablutions and the taking of great risks (described as 1 in 20) to retrieve enemy wounded from the battlefield. The most notable spontaneous ceasefire of World War I was the Christmas truce.

It has been postulated that sport serves as an direct alternative to war, and may be regarded as having an equivalent social function. Sipes found war and sporting alternatives to be positively correlated.[72]

The psychological separation between combatants, and the destructive power of modern weaponry, may act to override this effect and facilitate participation by combatants in the mass slaughter of combatants or civilians, such as in the bombing of Dresden in World War II.[citation needed] The unusual circumstances of warfare can incite apparently normal individuals to commit atrocities.[73]

edit] Types of warfare

Conventional warfare is an attempt to reduce an opponent's military capability through open battle. It is a declared war between existing states in which nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons are not used or only see limited deployment in support of conventional military goals and maneuvers.

The opposite of conventional warfare, unconventional warfare, is an attempt to achieve military victory through acquiescence, capitulation, or clandestine support for one side of an existing conflict.

Nuclear warfare is a war in which nuclear weapons are the primary method of coercing the capitulation of the other side, as opposed to a supporting tactical or strategic role in a conventional conflict.

Civil war is a war where the forces in conflict belong to the same nation or political entity and are vying for control of or independence from that nation or political entity.

Asymmetric warfare is a conflict between two populations of drastically different levels of military capability or size. Asymmetric conflicts often result in guerrilla tactics being used to overcome the sometimes vast gaps in technology and force size.

Intentional air pollution in combat is one of a collection of techniques collectively called chemical warfare. Poison gas as a chemical weapon was principally used during World War I, and resulted in an estimated 91,198 deaths and 1,205,655 injuries.[citation needed] Various treaties have sought to ban its further use. Non-lethal chemical weapons, such as tear gas and pepper spray, are widely used, sometimes with deadly effect.

edit] Military posture

Historian Victor Davis Hanson has claimed there exists a unique "Western Way of War", in an attempt to explain the military successes of Western Europe.[citation needed] It originated in Ancient Greece, where, in an effort to reduce the damage that warfare has on society, the city-states developed the concept of a decisive pitched battle between heavy infantry. This would be preceded by formal declarations of war and followed by peace negotiations. In this system constant low-level skirmishing and guerrilla warfare were phased out in favor of a single, decisive contest, which in the end cost both sides less in casualties and property damage. Although it was later perverted by Alexander the Great,[clarification needed] this style of war initially allowed neighbors with limited resources to coexist and prosper.

He argues that Western-style armies are characterized by an emphasis on discipline and teamwork above individual bravado. Examples of Western victories over non-Western armies include the Battle of Marathon, the Battle of Gaugamela, the Siege of Tenochtitlan, the Battle of Plassey and the defense of Rorke's Drift.

edit] Warfare environment

The environment in which a war is fought has a significant impact on the type of combat which takes place, and can include within its area different types of terrain. This in turn means that soldiers have to be trained to fight in a specific types of environments and terrains that generally reflects troops' mobility limitations or enablers. These include: