War and Warfare

War no matter how major or minor is devastating. But what seems like one of the most devastating disaster of humans is something that it seems every generation must witness. Today the world is facing the War on Terrorism and the Iraqi War, but less than a decade ago is was the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, and before that the Vietnam War that started in the 1950s and continued well into the 70s, and even before that was the Korean Wars, World War II, and World War I.




Human beings have a history of destruction. At the end of the movie Fifth Element starring Bruce Willis, the “fifth element” asks Korbon (Bruce Willis) “What’s the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?” The “fifth element” asks this after she see pictures and the devastation in the wars that we have fought. She aked this question because it was up to her to save the world from a ball of death and it brings up a good point. But in retrospect, how much death is really the result of war? In the book Peace and Conflict Studies it says that even with 20th century’s modern warfare and its enormous destruction its directly responsible for fewer than 2% of all deaths occurring in the past century. (Barash 16)


War is still horrible even if you put that statistic into the equation.One cannot ignore the indriect killing as well as cost of war. But how does modern warfare compare to pre-modern warfare? According to Peace and Conflict Studies it’s the weapons that have changed warfare over the centuries:

We can identify three major eras of weaponry: (1) the earliest period (encompassing the entire pre-industrial period), based primarily on muscle power; (2) an intermediate period (from approximately the Renaissance until the first half of the 20th century in the West and still the case in most of the rest of the world), powered by chemicals, especially gunpowder, as well as steam and internal combustion engines; and (3) the most recent period, the second half of the 20th century, dominated by the threat of nuclear weapons and other weapons of potential mass destruction (especially biochemical weapons). (Brash 20)

If you look at those three periods and just see how much technology has advanced in the last century you can understand how the idea of war is terrifying. But if we know the chance of mass destruction, will that stop us from unleashing possible obliteration ? The United States felt the fear of a nuclear assault during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960’s. As a result of that it’s hard to rely on the hope that “each side will presume that the other will be deterred by the prospect of annihilation and, therefore, expect the other to back down, while remaining determined to stand firm.” (Barash 22)

Perhaps the most disturbing of all, the fact remains that human beings, including decision makers, are influenced by many things beyond a cool, rational calculation of their perceived best interests. Wars have been initiated for many reasons, often including mistaken judgment or faulty information. And when war takes place, the combatants make use of whatever weapons they have. Never is the history of human warfare has an effective weapon been invented and then allowed to rust without at some time being used. (Barash 23)

Even with that hope people can’t overlook the irrational minds of other people. This world has already faced two world wars, each remarkably more destructive to the last. As Albert Einstein once said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” From the trends that we see in our advances in warfare, when the world has to face World War III be prepared for massive destruction on a global scale. Its unfortunately not a question of “ff” it’s a questions of “when” that will happen.


Works Cited:




Barash, David P., Charles P. Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies. SAGE, 2008.

The Fifth Element. Dir. Luc Besson. Perf. Bruce Willis, Milia Jovovich, and Gary Oldman. Columbia Pictures, 1997.