   #copyright

War

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Military History and War

   War
   Military history
                        Eras
   Prehistoric · Ancient · Medieval
   Gunpowder · Industrial · Modern
                    Battlespace
   Air · Information · Land · Sea · Space
                      Theaters
   Arctic · Cyberspace · Desert
   Jungle · Mountain · Urban
                      Weapons
   Armoured · Artillery · Biological · Cavalry
   Chemical · Electronic · Infantry ·
   Mechanized · Nuclear · Psychological
   Radiological · Ski · Submarine
                      Tactics

   Amphibious · Asymmetric · Attrition
   Cavalry · Conventional · Fortification
   Guerrilla · Hand to hand · Invasion
   Joint · Maneuver · Siege · Total
   Trench · Unconventional
                      Strategy

   Economic · Grand · Operational
                    Organization

   Chain of command · Formations
   Ranks · Units
                     Logistics

   Equipment · Materiel · Supply line
                        Law

   Court-martial · Laws of war · Occupation
   Tribunal · War crime
              Government and politics

   Conscription · Coup d'état
   Military dictatorship · Martial law
   Militarism · Military rule
                  Military studies

   Military academy · Military science
   Polemology · Philosophy of war
   Peace and conflict studies
                       Lists
   Authors · Battles · Civil wars
   Commanders · Invasions · Operations
   Sieges · Raids · Tactics · Theorists
   Wars · War crimes · War criminals
   Weapons · Writers

   Wars may be prosecuted simultaneously in one or more theaters of war.
   Within each theatre, there may be one or more consecutive military
   campaigns. Individual actions of war within a specific campaign are
   traditionally called battles, although this terminology is not always
   applied to contentions in modernity involving aircraft, missiles or
   bombs alone in the absence of ground troops or naval forces.

   The factors leading to war are often complicated and due to a range of
   issues. Where disputes arise over issues such as sovereignty,
   territory, resources, religion, or ideology and a peacable resolution
   is not sought, fails, or is thwarted, then war often results.

   A war may begin following an official declaration of war in the case of
   international war, although this has not always been observed either
   historically or contemporarily. A declaration of war is not normally
   made in internal wars.

Conduct of war

   The exact conduct of war will depend to a great extent upon its
   objectives, which may include factors such as the seizure of territory,
   the annihilation of a rival state, the subjugation of another people or
   recognition of one's own people as a separate state. Typically any
   military action by one state is opposed, ie is countered by the
   military forces of one or more states. Therefore, the ultimate
   objective of each state becomes secondary to the immediate objective of
   removing or nullification of the resistance offered by the opposing
   military forces. This may be accomplished variously by out-maneuvering
   them, by destroying them in open battle, by causing them to desert or
   surrender, or to be destroyed by indirect action such pestilence and
   starvation.

Limitations on war

   At times throughout history, societies have attempted to limit the cost
   of war by formalising it in some way. Limitations on the targeting of
   civilians, what type of weapons can be used, and when combat is allowed
   have all fallen under these rules in different conflicts. Total war is
   the modern term for the targeting of civilians and the mobilization of
   an entire society, when every member of the society has to contribute
   to the war effort.

   While culture, law, and religion have all been factors in causing wars,
   they have also acted as restraints at times. In some cultures, for
   example, conflicts have been highly ritualised to limit actual loss of
   life. In modern times increasing international attention has been paid
   to peacefully resolving conflicts which lead to war. The United Nations
   is the latest and most comprehensive attempt to, as stated in the
   preamble of the U.N. Charter, "save succeeding generations from the
   scourge of war."

   A number of treaties regulate warfare, collectively referred to as the
   laws of war. The most pervasive of these are the Geneva Conventions,
   the earliest of which began to take effect in the mid- 1800s.
   Battle of Waterloo
   Enlarge
   Battle of Waterloo

   It must be noted that in war such treaties may be ignored if they
   interfere with the vital interests of either side; some have criticised
   such conventions as simply providing a fig leaf for the inhuman
   practice of war. By only illegalising "war against the rules", it is
   alleged, such treaties and conventions, in effect, sanction certain
   types of war.

Termination of war

   How a war affects the political and economic circumstances in the peace
   that follows usually depends on the "facts on the ground". Where evenly
   matched adversaries decide that the conflict has resulted in a
   stalemate, they may cease hostilities to avoid further loss of life and
   property. They may decide to restore the antebellum territorial
   boundaries, redraw boundaries at the line of military control, or
   negotiate to keep or exchange captured territory. Negotiations at the
   end of a war often result in a treaty, such as the Treaty of Versailles
   of 1919, which ended the First World War.

   A warring party that surrenders may have little negotiating power, with
   the victorious side either imposing a settlement or dictating most of
   the terms of any treaty. A common result is that conquered territory is
   brought under the dominion of the stronger military power. An
   unconditional surrender is made in the face of overwhelming military
   force as an attempt to prevent further harm to life and property. For
   example, the Empire of Japan gave an unconditional surrender to the
   Allies in World War II after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
   Nagasaki (see Surrender of Japan). A settlement or surrender may also
   be obtained through deception or bluffing.

   Many other wars, however, have ended in complete destruction of the
   opposing territory, such as the Battle of Carthage of the Third Punic
   War between the Phoenician city of Carthage and Ancient Rome in 149 BC.
   In 146 BC the Romans burned the city, enslaved its citizens, and
   symbolically poured salt over the earth to ensure that nothing would
   ever grow there again.

   Some wars or war-like actions end when the military objective of the
   victorious side has been achieved. Conquered territories may be brought
   under the permanent dominion of the victorious side. A raid for the
   purposes of looting may be completed with the successful capture of
   goods. In other cases an aggressor may decide to avoid continued losses
   and cease hostilities without obtaining the original objective.

   Some hostilities, such as insurgency or civil war, may persist for long
   periods of time with only a low level of military activity. In some
   cases there is no negotiation of any official treaty, but fighting may
   trail off and eventually stop after the political demands of the
   belligerent groups have been reconciled, or combatants are gradually
   killed or decide the conflict is futile.

Factors leading to war

   The causes of war are many and varied and have been examined
   historically with a view to understanding war and prosecuting it more
   effectively, and more recently with a view to avoiding it. Most
   basically, the causes of war are those of means, and those of motive:
   that is, for a war to be waged, a state or political unit must be both
   physicaly equipped to prosecute a war, and also motivated to do so.
   Most fundamentally this motivation consists of a basic willingness to
   wage war, but motivations may be analysed more specifically.

   In looking at the motivations for war, one must also consider that
   these may be different for those ordering the war to those undertaking
   the war. In general, for a state to prosecute a war, it must have the
   support of the leader or leaders of the state, the support of the
   military forces and, to a lesser extent, the support of the wider
   populace. For example, in the case of the third Punic War, Rome's
   leaders may have wished to make war with Carthage in order to bring
   about the annihilation of a resurgent rival, the army may have wished
   to make war with Carthage since there was great opportunity for plunder
   in leveling the city of Carthage, and the Roman people may have been
   wiling to make war with Carthage on account of the demonisation of the
   Carthaginians in popular culture, including rumours of child sacrifice.
   Therefore a single war may have many contributory motivations or
   causes. Various theories have been presented historically to explain
   the causes of war:

Historical theories

   Historians tend to be reluctant to look for sweeping explanations for
   all wars. A.J.P. Taylor famously described wars as being like traffic
   accidents. There are some conditions and situations that make them more
   likely, but there can be no system for predicting where and when each
   one will occur. Social scientists criticise this approach, arguing that
   at the beginning of every war some leader makes a conscious decision,
   and that they cannot be seen as purely accidental. Still, one argument
   to this might be that there are few, if any, "pure" accidents. One may
   be able to find patterns which hold at least some degree of
   reliability, but because war is a collective of human intentions, some
   potentially quite fickle, it is very difficult to create a concise
   prediction system.Other factors included are difference in moral and
   religious beliefs, economical and trade disagreements, declaring
   independence, and others.

Psychological theories

   Psychologists such as E.F.M. Durban and John Bowlby have argued that
   human beings, especially men, are inherently violent. While this
   violence is repressed in normal society, it needs the occasional outlet
   provided by war. This combines with other notions such as displacement,
   where a person transfers their grievances into bias and hatred against
   other ethnic groups, nations, or ideologies. While these theories may
   have some explanatory value about why wars occur, they do not explain
   when or how they occur. In addition, they raise the question why there
   are sometimes long periods of peace and other eras of unending war. If
   the innate psychology of the human mind is unchanging, these variations
   are inconsistent. A solution adapted to this problem by militarists
   such as 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.

   If war is innate to human nature, as is presupposed by many
   psychological theories, then there is little hope of ever escaping it.
   One alternative is to argue that war is only, or almost only, a male
   activity, and if human leadership were in female hands, wars would not
   occur. This theory has played an important role in modern feminism.
   Critics, of course, point to various examples of female political
   leaders who had no qualms about using military force, such as Margaret
   Thatcher, Indira Gandhi or Golda Meir.

   Other psychologists have argued that while human temperament allows
   wars to occur, they only do so when mentally unbalanced people are in
   control of a nation. This extreme school of thought argues leaders that
   seek war such as Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin were mentally abnormal.
   Though this does nothing to explain away the thousands of free and
   presumably sane men that wage wars on their behalf.

   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 behaviour, such as territoriality and
   competition. 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. We have similar instincts to
   that of a chimpanzee but overwhelmingly more power. The earliest
   advocate of this theory was Konrad Lorenz. These theories have been
   criticised by scholars such as John G. Kennedy, who argue that the
   organised, sustained war of humans differs more than just
   technologically from the territorial fights between animals. Others
   have attempted to explain the psychological reasoning behind the human
   tendency for warring as a joined effort of a class of higher
   intelligence beings at participating in, experiencing and attempting to
   control the ultimate fate of each human, death.

   In his fictional book Nineteen-Eighty-Four, George Orwell talks about a
   state of constant war being used as one of many ways to distract
   people. War inspires fear and hate among the people of a nation, and
   gives them a "legitimate" enemy upon whom they can focus this fear and
   hate. Thus the people are prevented from seeing that their true enemy
   is in fact their own repressive government. By this theory war is
   another " opiate of the masses" by which a state controls its people
   and prevents revolution.

Anthropological theories

   Several anthropologists take a very different view of war. They see it
   as fundamentally cultural, learned by nurture rather than nature. Thus
   if human societies could be reformed, war would disappear. To this
   school the acceptance of war is inculcated into each of us by the
   religious, ideological, and nationalistic surroundings in which we
   live.

   Many anthropologists also see no links between various forms of
   violence. They see the fighting of animals, the skirmishes of
   hunter-gatherer tribes, and the organised warfare of modern societies
   as distinct phenomena each with their own causes. Theorists such as
   Ashley Montagu emphasise the top-down nature of war, that almost all
   wars are begun not by popular pressure but by the whims of leaders, and
   that these leaders also work to maintain a system of ideological
   justifications for war.

Sociological theories

   Sociology has long been very concerned with the origins of war, and
   many thousands of theories have been advanced, many of them
   contradictory. Sociology has thus divided into a number of schools.
   One, the Primat der Innenpolitik (Primacy of Domestic Politics) school
   based on the works of Eckart Kehr and Hans-Ulrich Wehler, sees war as
   the product of domestic conditions, with only the target of aggression
   being determined by international realities. Thus World War I was not a
   product of international disputes, secret treaties, or the balance of
   power but a product of the economic, social, and political situation
   within each of the states involved.

   This differs from the traditional Primat der Aussenpolitik (Primacy of
   Foreign Politics) approach of Carl von Clausewitz and Leopold von Ranke
   that argues it is the decisions of statesmen and the geopolitical
   situation that leads to war.

Malthusian theories

   Pope Urban II in 1095, on the eve of the First Crusade, wrote, "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
   Sepulcher; wrest that land from a wicked race, and subject it to
   yourselves."

   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.

   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.

Evolutionary psychology theories

   Close to Malthusians is the application of evolutionary psychology to
   analyse why humans wage wars. Wars are seen as the result of evolved
   psychological traits that are turned on by either being attacked or by
   a population perception of a bleak future. The theory accounts for the
   IRA going out of business, but leads to a dire view of current wars.

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 committments.

   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 the 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.

   Intelligence gathering may sometimes, but not always, mitigate this
   problem. For example, the Argentinean dictatorship knew that the United
   Kingdom had the ability to defeat them, but their intelligence failed
   them on the question of whether the British would use their power to
   resist the annexation of the Falkland Islands. 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 committments. 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 genocial 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.

Economic theories

   Another school of thought argues that war can be seen as an outgrowth
   of economic competition in a chaotic and competitive international
   system. In this view wars begin as a pursuit of new markets, of natural
   resources, and of wealth. Unquestionably a cause of some wars, from the
   empire building of Britain to the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet
   Union in pursuit of oil, this theory has been applied to many other
   conflicts. It is most often advocated by those to the left of the
   political spectrum, who argue that such wars serve the interests of the
   wealthy but are fought by the poor; however it is combated by the
   capitalist message of poverty is relative and one poor in one country
   can be the wealthiest in another ideology. Some social activists argue
   that materialism is the supreme cause of war.

Marxist theories

   The Marxist theory of war argues that all war grows out of the class
   war. It sees wars as imperial ventures to enhance the power of the
   ruling class and divide the proletariat of the world by pitting them
   against each other for contrived ideals such as nationalism or
   religion. Wars are a natural outgrowth of the free market and class
   system, and will not disappear until a world revolution occurs.

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 Department of Peace and Conflict Research.

   There are several different international relations theory schools.
   Supporters of realism in international relations argue that the
   motivation of states is the quest for (mostly) military and economic
   power or security. War is one tool in achieving this goal.

   One position, sometimes argued to contradict the realist view, is 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 known as the
   democratic peace theory.Other factors included are difference in moral
   and religious beliefs, economical and trade disagreements, declaring
   independence, and others.

Types of war and warfare

By cause

          Type                                  Example
   Extortionate        Pecheneg and Cuman forays on Rus in 9th–13th centuries AD
   Aggressive          the wars of Cyrus II in 550– 529 BC
   Colonial            Franco-Chinese War
   National liberation Algerian War of Independence
   Religious           Huguenot Wars
   Dynastic            The War of the Spanish Succession
   Trade               Opium Wars
   Revolutionary       French Revolutionary Wars
   Guerrilla

   Marxism, succeeded by the Soviet ideology, distinguished the just and
   unjust war. Just war was considered to be slave rebellions or national
   liberation movements, while the second type carried the imperialistic
   character. Smaller armed conflicts are often called riots, rebellions,
   coups, etc.

   When one country sends armed forces to another, allegedly to restore
   order or prevent genocide or other crimes against humanity, or to
   support a legally recognised government against insurgency, that
   country sometimes refers to it as a police action. This usage is not
   always recognised as valid, however, particularly by those who do not
   accept the connotations of the term.

   " Conventional warfare" describes either:
     * A war between nation-states
     * War where nuclear or biological weapons are not used

   (Compare with unconventional warfare and nuclear warfare.)

   A war where the forces in conflict belong to the same country or empire
   or other political entity is known as a civil war. Asymmetrical warfare
   is a conflict between two populations of drastically different levels
   of military mechanisation. This type of war often results in guerrilla
   tactics. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a common example of
   asymmetrical warfare.

   Military action produces a very small percentage of air pollution
   emissions. 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. Various treaties
   have sought to ban its further use. Non-lethal chemical weapons, such
   as tear gas and pepper spray, are widely used.

By style

   Historian Victor Davis Hanson has described a unique "Western Way of
   War", in an attempt to explain the military successes of Western
   Europe. 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 favour 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, this style of war initially allowed neighbours with limited
   resources to coexist and prosper.

   He argues that Western-style armies are characterised 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, and the defence of
   Rorke's Drift.

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:
     * Arctic warfare or Winter warfare in general
     * Desert warfare
     * Jungle warfare
     * Mobile warfare
     * Naval warfare or Aquatic warfare that includes Littoral, Amphibious
       and Riverine warfare
     * Sub-aquatic warfare
     * Mountain warfare sometimes called Alpine warfare
     * Urban warfare
     * Air warfare that includes Airborne warfare and Airmobile warfare
     * Space warfare
     * Electronic warfare including Radio, Radar and Network warfare
     * Border warfare a type of limited defensive warfare
     * Mine warfare a type of static terrain denial warfare

History of war

   Military activity has been a constant process over thousands of years.
   War was likely to have consisted of small-scale raiding only until the
   historically recent rejection of hunter-gatherer lifestyle for settled
   agricultural and city-based life. This change in lifestyle would have
   meant that when a group came under threat it was less likely to simply
   move on since it would have had crops and a settlement to defend.
   Further, it is widely accepted that the adoption of agriculture led to
   a food surplus, such that some individuals would have been excess to
   requirements for agricultural production and were able to specialist in
   other areas of employment, such as metalworking. The advent of
   gunpowder and the acceleration of scientific discoveries has led to
   modern warfare being highly technological.

Morality of war

   Throughout history war has been the source of serious moral questions.
   Although many ancient nations and some more modern ones viewed war as
   noble, over the sweep of history, concerns about the morality of war
   have gradually increased. Today, war is generally seen as undesirable
   and, by some, 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. Pacifists believe
   that war is inherently immoral and that no war should ever be fought.

   The negative view of war has not always been held as widely as it is
   today. Many thinkers, such as Heinrich von Treitschke, saw war as
   humanity's highest activity where courage, honour, and ability were
   more necessary than in any other endeavour. 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. The defeat and
   repudiation of the fascist states and their militarism in the Second
   World War, the shock of the first use of nuclear weapons and increasing
   belief in the value of individual life (as enshrined in the concept of
   human rights, for example) have contributed to the current view of war.

   Today, some see only just wars as legitimate, and believe that it is
   the responsibility of world organisations such as the United Nations to
   oppose wars of unjust aggression. Other people believe that world
   organisations have no more standing to judge the morality of a war than
   that of a sovereign country.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
