Talk:War/Archive 4

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Religion as a cause of war

Under "Motivation," why no mention of Wars of Religion? Many examples in history books. Indeed, chapters (or whole books) with that title. Surely religion merits a mention, if only in a discussion of whether it is/is not a cause of war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.7.6.162 (talk) 10:03, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

You are free to write it. Aaker (talk) 15:25, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.38.221.233 (talk) 21:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

2008 Alliances

Is that image still up to date? If so can we list it as 2009? Cs302b (talk) 01:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Conclusion of wars

Just a thought, but having said so much about the theoris of why and how wars begin, and conducted, is it not out of place to write something on their conclusions? --Mrg3105 12:39, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

vandalism

there's still some silly hedgehog poopy stuff in the section below Termination of War, but i'm not good enough to know how to revert certain sections to old versions, i always just Undo stuff i find. Murderbike 01:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Large numbers of individuals

"A war is a conflict between two or more groups that involve large numbers of individuals". Is this true? Is it thus wrong to say two bitter individual rivals engaged in some form of conflict are not "warring"? Are we not thus incorrect if we were to tell someone who has intensely displeased us, "This means war" to forewarn prolonged revenge? In my opinion, a war only usually involves large numbers of people. Should the intro be changed? VolatileChemical 16:17, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe so, no. This article is on "war" itself, not "warring", which is a different concept/idiom, and can relate to two housewives disagreeing over a boundary. I don't beleive this article should be extended to cover that, since "warring" is really just a synonym for "disagreement" in that instance. A war necessarily involves relatively large numbers of people. Armed contention between smaller groups is not normally called a war. - PocklingtonDan 08:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

You disagree with my suggestion? Well, I hope you know this means warring. VolatileChemical 23:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Could be go a little deeper?

And theorize how warfare is essential for human evolution? For humans to jump and leap in change (social and technological) and revaluat ones self and surroundings? I think the imprtance of warfare in the develpoment of mankind needs to be stated.

-G

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.117.157.7 (talk • contribs) 19:01, 8 January 2007.

while it does make certain advances, it probally has killed at least a few thousand people who would have made valuable advances for humanity —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.115.204.217 (talk) 04:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Current religious statements on war

I don't think this section should be here, can we delete it?

• I find it cumbersome that every article from war to dinosaurs is being tagged with sections on "christian perspectives on...". The idea of the encyclopedia is to give a summary of the topic and notable ideas about it. The perspective here adds nothing that is not already covered in the mention of pacifism.
• The article would be absurd if it had to have a "perspective on" section for every religious or other organisation on the planet.
• It is hypocritical to mention the current Christian stance towards war without mentioning Christians' long historical fondness for it. - PocklingtonDan 08:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Seriously though, I don't know what this section is doing here. I am deleting it for the time being. If someone wants to make it into a decent encyclopediac section, they should go for it. What's there, though, probably shouldn't be. ILikeThings 10:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Unclear sentence

I found this phrase in the "demographic theories" section:

" often have no access to a legal sex life before a career can earn them enough to provide for a family."

I may just be demonstrating a severe lack of literacy, but what the leaping prostitutes does that even mean??? Could someone with an IQ higher than mine rewrite that? --132.69.234.73 16:17, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

It actually makes perfect sense, although it is indeed slightly cryptic. Read as follows: "... often have no access to a legal sex life before they have an opportunity to start a career which enables them to earn enough money to get married (i.e. have legal sex) and provide for a family." I.e. students/apprentices can't get married, so they have to make do with prostitutes, which they can't afford anyway, so they get pissed off, which makes them ideal recruiting material in the event of a war. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.7.6.162 (talk) 13:18, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

More Vandalism

User http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/66.31.15.94 deleted the entire article and replaced it with the single word "yo." Reverted to previous. Carthago delenda est 00:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Why?

Here's the age old question. Why is there war?

....

That is outside the purview of an Wikipedia entry on this topic, and is more appropriately addressed under the topic "Philosophy." Carthago delenda est 00:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Prose

For a " Core Topic" there is some horrendous prose in this article. Such gems as "How a war affects the political and economic circumstances in the peace that follows usually depends on the "facts on the ground"." are not really shining examples. — MichaelLinnear 02:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Termination of War

The last paragraph under termination of war in the Conduct of war section seems to be irrelevent to that section, and it's kind of confusing. It reads:

"Even though we think the only wars do involve guns and spears and such, war could be anything that two people argue over. When two people always argue and always fight. Another term is "an uphill battle" this means how ever hard you try you will end up working twice as hard."

I'm going to delete it since it doesn't really make sense and doesn't belong there --Fastman99 20:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I moved this to the end of the page, for ease of reading Thanks for removing that; it looks like clear-cut sillyness. Good eyes. Skittle 22:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Demographic Theories: Youth Bulge

Quote from that subsection:

"It was also contradicted by the post-World War II Baby Boom, which saw great opposition to war amongst the so-called Youth Bulge (See Youth culture)."

My take on this statement would be that the western post WW II babyboom was a mini-youth bulge that never reached the critical mass of 30-40% of the population. Youth bulge theory doesnt say that surplus males necessarily result in war. It says more generally that they will - if well fed and well educated - create SOME type of social unrest (see the list in the article), and rebellion such as that the babyboomer counterculture movement practiced might be seen as a mild form of such social unrest corresponding to the mini-size of the postwar babyboom "youth bulge".

It should be interesting to note that the then developing "youth counterculture" did indeed develop their own forms of unrest, "resistance" and even some forms of violence (with its most probably violent branches in the german "Red Army Faction", whose origins can be traced back to the West German student protest movement in the late 1960s).

And maybe the fact that most of the excess males of that mini-youth-bulge could be absorbed into the job system could be seen as the main factor that eventually made the counterculture movement a harmless part of the commercial mainstream of western society. It never sufficed to provide enough excess males to fill up both the job system and armies that could have been used for expansionist warfare. Rather, the vietcong threatened the U.S. army in Vietnam by the sheer number of young men they could send into guerilla warfare.

Also, the mini youth bulge created by the post world war II baby boomers was never able to reverse the long term trend of falling birth rates (usually termed "demographic transition") observable in all western nations (which youth bulge theorists might identify as the main "pacifying" factor of western european nations who had, in their own youth bulge period, been excessively expansionist and colonialist). It should be interesting to note that almost all of europe shows sub-replacement fertility rates by now, the U.S. still being at replacement level (2,1 kids per woman´s lifetime), but with a longterm trend downwards.

I would conclude that the post world war II babyboom does not contradict youth bulge theory - this belief is due to imprecise perception - but that it rather supports it. Thus, I think the sentence I quoted at the beginning could be deleted from the article; but there might also be a need for a separate, more extensive article on "youth bulge theory". Thewolf37 15:05, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

War: Definition

I don't know if this was discussed before (point me in the right direction) but...

I think that the current definition of war is somewhat inadequate. War is a human activity much more complex than just "violent conflict between two or more groups that involve large numbers of individuals."

War is not even on the same plane with an individual or a group of individuals for that matter. People is just one of the many areas war involves.

I searched Google for the definition and found one which, I guess, was here before and which is, in my opinion, much more fitting for this article:

War is a state of widespread conflict between states, organisations, or relatively large groups of people, which is characterised by the use of violent, physical force between combatants or upon civilians. Other terms for war, which often serve as euphemisms, include armed conflict, hostilities, and police action (see limitations on war below). War is contrasted with peace, which is usually defined as the absence of war.

I would also add some of the many areas war touches such as politics, economics, science, culture etc.

Any thoughts? --Zealander 01:45, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this at the very least needs some extended discussion. Just by way of example, I was reading an author critical of the current conflict in Iraq who brought up the suggestion that it does not meet the definition of war and thus should not be considered in the category of war. He cited an academic who had a book length treatment of the subject (that is, the definition of war), but I don't have the reference handy right now. The idea of "war" for some connotes some sort of moral acceptability which is not given to other things like "fighting", "murder" etc. The current definition on the page seems a bit too broad, and its breadth can be construes as providing that moral acceptability to actions which some would dispute as properly belonging to the category of "war". ````Paul Baxter <paulthepianoman@yahoo.com> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.79.76.247 (talk) 12:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

War need not be violent, as in the case of economic was, or war on illegal cigarette importers, and can even be beneficial to humanity, such as war on obesity ;) I speak from experience of having participated in voluntary and mercenary capacity in several recent campaigns on bureaucracy, ignorance, and intolerance. Currently serving in the Fourth War against Federal Bureaucracy, in the Postal Services campaign, counter-franchise special operations unit ;)--Mrg3105 (talk) 05:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Here are Two Dictionary Definitions

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=war :

1. S: (n) war, warfare (the waging of armed conflict against an enemy) "thousands of people were killed in the war"
2. S: (n) war, state of war (a legal state created by a declaration of war and ended by official declaration during which the international rules of war apply) "war was declared in November but actual fighting did not begin until the following spring"
3. S: (n) war, warfare (an active struggle between competing entities) "a price war"; "a war of wits"; "diplomatic warfare"
4. S: (n) war (a concerted campaign to end something that is injurious) "the war on poverty"; "the war against crime"

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/war : 1 a (1): a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations (2): a period of such armed conflict (3): state of war b: the art or science of warfare c (1)obsolete : weapons and equipment for war (2)archaic : soldiers armed and equipped for war2 a: a state of hostility, conflict, or antagonism b: a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end <a class war> <a war against disease> c: variance, odds 3

Both clearly differentiate between the original meaning - armed conflict - and the evolved meaning, any kind of conflict. Current article definition does not clearly make these distinctions, is rambling, has some POV and questionably sourced (no page numbers) info. And what's with this "organisms"?? I'll suggest a shorter more accurate and clear one soon. Including after I look at past definitions in history of this article. Carol Moore 13:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

what about some pictures?

I'd add some pictures from various conflicts taking example on the German wikipedian article on war. First of all it is mutual mass murder, isn'it? I was thinking of random photos of less-known 20th century wars and some historical miniatures. 84.167.200.25 16:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Teen "Vandalism"

User 69.70.123.170´s edit had me rofl ... and made me think, maybe this could be read as a hint that this article (and maybe the disciplines researching war) suffer from a lack of conceptual clarity. Imagine yourself as a teen having to write a paper on the subject of "war" and being confronted with an article such as this one.

I don´t believe in oversimplification ... but in this case, I sympathize with this user´s desire for SOME simplification. A theory should be as simple as possible (occam´s razor) ... but not simpler.

If this kind of edit is more frequent ... it MIGHT be a hint that the article (and maybe the scientific disciplines concerned) lacks conceptual clarity. Seen this way, this kind of edit wouldnt represent "vandalism", but useful feedback :-) --Thewolf37 20:52, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Death toll in wars

what is the death toll in each war, and in total? 75.25.104.42 20:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

for a start and some hints on literature, try

* The 66 most lethal conflicts after 1950 (sorted by number of people killed)

* Wars and Casualties of the 20th Century (sorted chronologically)

* Genocides 1900-2000 (sorted by number of people killed)

--Thewolf37 00:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Anything that is credible? -G

Matthew White has a Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Man-made Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century online and discusses the credibility of the numbers - maybe another useful starting point for finding sources that might fit your criteria for credibility. --Thewolf37 20:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I suggest moving DEATH TOLLS IN WARS to a new page, and then providing good references for each war. Right now this section is pretty weak. --Dylanfly 18:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

It's worth putting in a total death toll section, with various estimates. The upper limit of the listed wards is just under 0.5 billion, which sounds plausible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fig wright (talk • contribs) 08:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Are modern wars some of the worst polluters in the world?

I've heard that wars that we are waging today can seriously pollute the environment due to the bombs and missles. Jramirez23 March 13, 2007 7:43 PM UTC

..

How about a cite? And "I've heard" doesn't count. Carthago delenda est 19:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

nah the current weapons have the potential to do some real damage but realy arent used often enough if say china russia uk france the usa got into an actual full scale non nuclear war that could do some extreem enviormental damage but war does seem to do alot of littering--Ggohtrin 14:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

There is DPU, environmental damge, fires, relatively maximal pollutants in such fire, oil being a strategical target, industry and transport being that, (un)exploded munition, woodcut, usually there is a deposit of war_byproducts, otherways useless extreme chemicals and materials must be produced,etc. etc., and it all uses maximum amounts of fuel with minimum regulations. maintaining armys elsewhere, evrything to do with war, pollutes. militairy industry is more then 60% of us export, as such something in the ordre of 6-18% of the worlds pollution is produced for that only. I do think that military industries these days apply practical environmental knowledge where they can at low cost or to great effect. It is not so that it is a sector that deserves to be cheered for it's environmental prestations. Untill perhaps 2000 the military complex was especially backward in that respect. Although in europe some industry became better regulated somewhat before that through general regulation. Elsewhere probably military industry and activity has similar priority, as a result the situations there will be probably worse then here, limited even less by investment and more to the technological advance. 62.194.105.42 (talk) 01:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted about your link on genocides of the 20th Century, that genocide is more specific than merely being a campaign which results in the death of many people, it refers specifically to an attempt to wipe or destroy an identifiable group, including practices and policies which do not include outright killing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.167.36.40 (talk) 19:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Overall Lack of Clarity

I agree strongly with TheWolf37 above. This article is badly thought out and badly executed. The causes of war are not well understood - why spend many, many long paragraphs explaining all the different ways that wars may start? Do we focus in minute detail on how forest fires may start? Is there some other topic in Wikipedia in which the main article goes on exploring various unproved theories about the phenomenon's origin?

Perhaps the question (of how wars start) deserves its own article, but the main article here is certainly out of whack. Let's rethink. How do you deal with a topic in an encyclopedia? How are other social phenomena that matter dealt with in Wikipedia? What, besides its origin, matters about war? WardHayesWilson 22:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

War matters because it can destroy civilizations. It can create or destroy countries. War matters because it can kill civlians in shocking numbers. War matters because it is an important human activity that seems to occur again and again with great regularity. War is frequently a part of human history.

(What's interesting in this regard is that war is rarely an insitution - like the church - that is constantly present. War is one of the very few important human occurances that is intermitant.)--WardHayesWilson 04:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

You could say the same thing about any social problem, such as crime. Entire books have been written on different theories for what causes crime, without emerging on a single definitive answer. Does that mean that half the criminal justice curriculm is worthless? Almost everything about war 'matters' because war has pretty much defined the political, technological, and social landscapes of history as we know it. Pick up any history book and you'll see that the periods of the greatest change and upheaval surround eras of war. 208.79.15.102 (talk) 09:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Citations

This needs more citations, espescially under "psychological theories". This sounds like Original Research.

23:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

American "Civil War" was not a civil war at all.

Under the "By Cause" section of "Types of War and Warfare" I attempted to remove the American "Civil War" from the "Civil" row because by definition, it was not a civil war: a civil war is a conflict in which two more more factions fight for control of a nation's government.

ok. move to where? and union thought as civil war even though south didn't.

The English Civil War of the 1640s and the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s involved two factions that sought to control the governments of their respective countries. The seceding Southern states were *not* trying to take over the United States government; they wanted to declare themselves independent. It was not a civil war, and should not be labeled as such. - Quigley —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.228.44.118 (talk) 02:58, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Incorrect. They were trying to take over the United States government... just not in all the areas it controlled. They were very much attempting to replace it in the South. It is labeled correctly. Two or more factions fighting to control a nations government... so you mean, like the Blue and the Grey fighting over the government of the South? Civil War. Unorthodox perhaps, but still fits the definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.132.178.226 (talk) 10:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Not being American (Aussie actually) - wasn't it technically a war of secession called the "Civil War"? (Seriously - I've never really studied the causes etc of it in detail - just the tech, battles etc.)Akitora (talk) 11:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Akitora on this one although i must admit that my knowledge is also patchy being a devilish redcoat! The South wanted their own government that was seperate from the Northern one. (User:Willski72)Willski72 (talk) 21:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, Akitora has a point. As wars of secession have become increasingly common, this article should note that the war in America called, variously, the Civil War and The War Between the States, is actually an example of a war of secession. Like most such wars, it was unsuccessful. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't be daft! At essence a war is about states, what for their time and place constitute states, contending through organised physical violence. The Civil war in America 1861 - 65 was between two governments contending for the control of Souther Society. This is still a war. what distinguishes it as a civil war is that the contending parties were both drawing support from the same society. Hm, I hope that makes sense. What this article needs more than anything else is a decent definition of what constitutes a war. Something that can differentiate War from other conflicts and from pseudo wars where the term is used as a metaphor to dramatise a situation.The Unclean (talk) 15:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Unclean (talk • contribs)

There are broadly speaking, two types of civil wars: those fought between parties for control of the government of the entire state and those fought when one part of a society tries to break off and form its own state (secessionist civil wars). The US Civil War was the latter type.

• Then was the American Revolution a civil war also? Where I live some folks prefer to call it the War of Southern Independence. To me the distinction is that the Confederacy was a fully functional nation, not merely a faction within a nation. At that time the states were still virtually independent nations themselves, and the US was more of a coalition than a nation, at least in the eyes of the southerners. Just my $0.02. LewisWasGenius (talk) 13:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Dying soldier calling for his mother

where would be the article to learn more about this phenomenon? The Umbrella Corporation 01:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Intro

"War is a prolonged state of violent, young men, large-scale conflict involving two or more groups of people."... shouldn't that read "War is a prolonged state of open, large-scale conflict involving two or more groups of people." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.132.178.226 (talk) 11:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

Someone added this edit, "barbie invaded the hawaians and captured hawain ken and they lived happily ever after," under the demographic theories section —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.98.121.2 (talk) 15:05, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

That's not vandalism. It really happened. Hawain Ken FTW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.52.16.9 (talk) 08:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

NPOV Evolutionary Psychology

I welcome rewrites to what I posted in this section as I recognize that writing in the proper encyclopedia style is not my strong suit. What had stood as the "Evolutionary Psychology" view of war however was both incorrect and not nuetral and I felt it needed to be changed. The source was one published paper in Mankind Quarterly, which is not an Evolutionary Psychology journal, and the paper does not conform to established methodologies in the field. As I point out in my post the content also is not consistent with the Theory of Evolution and so it cannot be consistent with Evolutionary Psychology. Finally the published paper does not cite any other sources on the topic within Evolutionary Psychology. It is just the views of one person who claims it is based on Evolutionary Psychology. He does attempt to use some EP theoretical sources, but this is far short of what makes a true EP theory of war.

My attempted correction is based on one recent book published by a professor recognized as working within Evolutionary Psychology and using its methodology and sources and one still unpublished paper which is my own. The paper has been presented at a Symposium on the Psychology of War and postered at a Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference (the EP conference). I think a look at my references http://theroadtopeace.blogspot.com/ compared to the references of the other paper http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/17/194059/296 will be illuminating as to which source is a serious scholarly effort, which is required for such a topic, and working within Evolutionary Psychology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tribalypredisposed (talk • contribs) 12:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Anthropological explanations

This section has no citations, could someone please verify or trim? SedatedGodzilla 05:27, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Box

There is a box at the bottom of the War page that needs editing (the dates of Alexander the Great are wrong, for example). The box seems to be in the wrong place, and I cannot discover how to edit it. Help? Rick Norwood (talk) 15:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Quest for Neutrality

War has been with the humanity since we had family groups attacking each other for the same resources of food and water. With the invention of farming, culture, as some call it, the groups grew bigger. The human population of the world has been growing at an exponential rate for the last few hundred years, while it was fluctuating in a low but steady number for over 500 hundred years, and back in antiquity, had been before the invention of farming some 10000 years ago. A hundred thousand years ago the number of humans on Earth was in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands.

They had to compete with each other for the same scarce food and water there was, and so do we today, only through proxy. There's not enough for all of us, so wars occur. Either because of a good reason, or only because people want to compete. It's not about survival, it's about competition for survival. That's why people make short term choices that in the long term turn out to be mistakes. They only look at what's in it for them in the short term.

Oh, did I say neutrality? I meant objectivity, but that's beyond the scope of this wiki. Sorry about that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.155.201.80 (talk) 00:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

it was not thousands a hundred kA ago, there have never been only 1000s of chimpansees or even tigers or lions, excempting catastrophical ecological niches (and then still) there have logically been 100000(s) already for millions of years, considering something like 120k lions for africa is low.62.194.105.42 (talk) 02:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Feminist Theories?

Surely we should mention that there has been speculation upon the connection between war and masculinity. In fact, I don't see anything gender-related here at all, despite the masculinity of the vast majority of heads of state.

Bleedingcherub (talk) 21:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

War is not really connected to masculinity. It is due to the fact that many leaders both present and past were men. If you look there were also wars started by women, though most were small due to the lack of influence they held in those times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LtGeneral Snow (talk • contribs) 22:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

But that doesn't answer the point that there is a body of theorising from feminist perspectives about war.The Unclean (talk) 15:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

LC move

I have no objection to the move, but a cited reference is not uncited. Rick Norwood (talk) 16:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

edit wars

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_Jafar

the current article got wrong facts. HumayunMirzaJR (talk) 12:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Should this paragraph be added to the morality section?

The killing of other human beings for gain or benefit is always morally wrong, and this transcends cultures. However, when war happens, it is not about right or wrong, but win or lose, victory or defeat, live or die. In this scenario, anything goes, until the losing side is either annihilated, surrendered, or fled to a place the victor does not care about chasing after. When soldiers engage in fierce combats, they do not care about dying anymore, but about living by the second and killing as many of the enemy as they can. The goal is to inflict as much damage on the enemy and end the war in the shortest time possible, and it is often this reason that atrocities are committed. Whether the actions are morally justified is not considered in the heat of the moment during battle, but after the war has ended. In battle, it is morally justified to kill the other person to save one's own life, because everyone knows they would have done the same thing had they been placed in the same situation.

It's a logical conclusion and should be included.--24.63.227.223 (talk) 03:29, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

This is based on a number of assumptions and there is nothing 'logical' about it. The problems start with the very first sentence that states 'the killing of human beings for gain or benefit is always morally wrong, and this transcends cultures.' This is neither proven, nor logical, nor objectively true. It is an opinion, and is therefore not a 'logical conclusion.' The second big problem is your assumption that soldiers do not care about living or dying, but only killing, and that morality goes out the window. This is blatantly false, and it is clear that you have never been a soldier, or have ever even spoken to a soldier who has been in combat. All told, it sounds like you wrote this after playing a video game. Regardless, this content is not verifiable, encyclopedic, or logically conclusive, and it has no place in Wikipedia. 208.79.15.102 (talk) 09:35, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Seriously misleading

The current definition of war is unsatisfactory. Whoever created the definition "War is any violent conflict on a large scale" did not read the discussion page before making this change.

War is not any violent conflict on a large scale. Certainly the violent competition between hundreds of men in which people are regularly hurt and occasionally killed fits the definition above. It also, however, fits the National Football League. The Chicago riots of 1968 also fit the above-defintion. The reason we have words like 'riot' and 'donnybrook' and 'melee' is that it is possible to have a variety of large-scale conflicts which are not war.

In addition, no one would describe a conflict fought with bare hands as a war, no matter what the scale.

One might argue that the violent suppression of rebellion was not war, yet it certainly involves violence and can have large scale. Does the Armenian genocide, for instance, fit this definition?

This simple definition has admirable brevity and is conceptually clear. It does not, however, adequately describe the phenomenon and must be changed. WardHayesWilson (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 14:49, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

11/08/2004, contact address, jonathan.dowdall@kcl.ac.uk, (User talk:jdowdall) "War is any large scale, violent conflict" It has been noted that this phrase 'simply will not do', and comments have been made as to what needs to be changed. Here are a few thoughts on both the opening statement and the comments left by other users.

This opening statement, and subsequent attempts at a more accurate appraisal all fall far short of a satisfying defintion. Comments already suggested include references to "Nation State", "Polity" and even more perplexingly, land ownership as a pre-requisite for the armed forces required to define war as seperate from conflict or violence. Furthermore, the inclusion of "large scale", indicating size is a factor, raises questions about which scale is best used. (Many wars have seen very small casualties for some sides and a great many for the other, so scale would seem subjective, and best avoided. Also, scale is rarely referenced elsewhere in the article, so it seems out of place in the opening statement.)

All such points negate some fundamental elements required to appreciate the meaning of war, though they are relevent in varying degrees.

As a starting point, I would suggest referencing, Clausewitz, Carl Von, (1976) "On War", (Princeton and New Jersey Press). This is the better of several English translations of the text and the copy verifyed for academic use at the War Studies Department of Kings College London. It's classic idiom "[War is] a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means." (pg.87) summarizes succintly a complex topic, whilst aptly bypassing needless complications in defining the exact nature of the political units involved.

To press the point that it is not the existance of, but the nature of, these political units which matters when discussing war, I would then suggest refrencing, Keegan, John, (1994) "A History Of Warfare", (Pimlico). A study of warfare both ancient and modern, a staggeringly short-handed summary might read as follows. (not a direct qoute) 'Warfare is a cultural entity defined by many possible factors.' It might then be useful to list the possibilities, such as technology, religion, population density and geography, the underlying message being the universality of warfare in concept, but its infintiely variable manifestation based on the societies which wage it.

This would seem a wiser introduction to the historical run-down which the article contains, as in each era we see radically different applications and forms of war.

I would happily draft an alternative opening paragraph based on these thoughts if there are no immediate objections?

Sino-Japanese War

Under the death tolls section, the Sino-Japanese war is listed as 1937-1945 - but most of this was actually part of WW2. Could someone add a note to this article clarifying whether death tolls for the Sino-Japanese war are overlapping with WW2?

Also, I'm sure there's been discussing on this, but it doesn't seem right to include Spanish Flu death as part of WW1. Considering that millions dies in places that saw no combat (the USA), it seems that these are two separate events that simply happened at the same time.

the epidemic was directly linked to the millions of mal-nourished and filthy soldiers who picked up and carried the Spainish Flu from the fields of Europe to their families around the world. The mass movement of population which caused the outbreak, and the poor hygiene and health of the war strained population, directly added to the strains severity. If the figures for ww2 deaths can include starvation in Russia, then the Flu Epidemic of ww1 is equally applicable as a direct result of war.

2nd September. 2008 jdowdall —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdowdall (talk • contribs) 15:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

The information on deaths that occured in the Sino-Japenese war is also included in the death toll for World War II. Basically, we are counting the same deaths twice. We either need to only include deaths that occured prior to 1939 in the Sino-Japenese War totals or completly delete the information and make a not on the WWII total that says, including the Sino-Japanese War.

ie: World War II (including Sino-Japenese war) or Sino-Japenese War (prior to 1939).

But the total deaths would need to be changed to reflect the new annotation, if we do the later. I would prefer to delete the Sino-Jpanese War info in favor of just having it all fall under the headline "WWII".--Jojhutton (talk) 19:34, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Sino-Japanese War is always a part of World War II, it just didn't occur in Europe; WWII started early for China. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.213.67.53 (talk) 13:09, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Historical causes of war edit by 71.188.7.72

I'd like to discuss this rather massive edit. While it is not without merit, some of the discarded previous content seems to be unnecessarily discarded--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Amarah

In editing the above article, Battle of Amarah, which lasted two days, the question is raised...is this a war or does its brevity, alone,hinder the use of "war" to descibe it in an encyclopedia...(I don't want to get into an editing war with either side)--Buster7 (talk) 17:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Opening Sentence

"War is the state of prearranged conflict that creates an environment conducive to combined hostile efforts between two engaging parties in order to facilitate the transfer of power."

This sentence is thoroughly confusing compared to the otherwise coherant opening paragraph defining war. The number of variables placed upon War, whilst clearly designed to remove ambiguity, actually obscures the nature of war behind endless inaccurate provisions. For instance,

"Prearranged conflict." - I presume this attempts to allude the idea that War is a recognised legal and societal condition recognised by both parties. However, that is now what "prearranged" really indicates. Does prearranged mean both parties agree to carry out a conflict before it starts? What about surprise attack at the opening of war? "Prearranged fails" to convey the understanding that war is a recognised societal norm by indicating something about prior knowledge in an individual conflict.

"Environment" - War does not create an environment, it creates a legal, political and moral condition that stands apart from peace. Condition would be the word used by realists and liberals alike to descrubes war's unique standing in international relations. Environment is not satisfactory and unnsessecarily distorts clear thought on the subject of war.

"Combined hostile efforts" - It would seem this attempts to make clear that war (to qoute Clausewitz) "is not an isolated event." War takes more then a single blow, making co-ordination nessecary. However, who is combined in this effort and in what sense are their actions "combined"? Does it mean that war is only war if everyone fighting on each side works together? The word "combined" is a poor choice. Presumabley the use of the word combined is in fact supposed to indicate reciprocity. the meeting of two forces leads to a reciprical application of force, as otherwise it would not be war but an occupation, genocide or simply murder. To used the word "combined" and not reciprical is too completely miss the point.

"Two engaging parties" - A good attempt at avoiding a state-centric definition of war, but perhaps "units" would be a better term to use regarding the literature on this subject. Also, why two? War may involve more then two engaging parties.

"Facilitate the transfer of power." - Just plain wrong. Firstly, is all war about facilitating the transfer of power? Is not some so called "primitive warfare" about taking hostages or woman? Was not some feudal warfare fought over religious beliefs linked to goals exterior from the physical world, such as the salvation of the soul during the crusades? Moreover, why transfer of power? Can it truely be said that power changes hands at the end of a war? Or is it more clear (using Clausewitizian logic) to say that in losing a war one side is disarmed, and thus rendered powerless, so that the other side can subject them to its will using its power. Power is not transfered, but one side is reduced so that the other can force it under its remaining power. The point about power and War is the gap between a units will, its intentions and desires, and its ability to make others do its will. The gap between a unit which desires another to submit to it and the actual practice can be achieved many ways, but rendering them powerless through war is a historically proven method. War is a method, a means, to WHATEVER POLITICAL GOAL A UNIT HAS. That goal could be anything, from feudal religous faith, to tribal feuds to Imperial domination. "Power transfer" is hopelessly inaccurate to encapsulate such an idea.

In short, the later paragraph qoutes Clausewitz and Keegan in its definitions, two concise and intelligent theorists on war. However, this opening sentence captures none of their logic and none of their clarity. It is convoluted and inaccurate, and needs to b changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdowdall (talk • contribs) 11:02, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

What is the obsession with consistent edits about scale being a fundamental attribute of the parties which may wage war! Do they intent to ellaborate by defining which size group constitutes a party which may wage war? Is ten people enough? is five? Or is the scale irrlevant, and the important element is that warfare is the manifestattion of a political will into violent means by a political community towards an external end-goal? Scale. Is. Irrelevant.

I agree totally. The lede was much better a long time ago. The guardians of the gates have been asleep on guard duty. Fix it, please. Just be careful that your definition does not apply to a)a riot or b)battles between police and criminals (such as those in the US during prohibition).Rick Norwood (talk) 13:06, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

The important element is the political unity of the actors involved, and their representation of a political community. As long as you maintain this distinction other forms of violence cannot be confused with war, despite passing simalairities between means etc.

Very interesting, very interesting all you are saying. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjoohhnnyy (talk • contribs) 17:25, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

A few intro changes I added

I added in the following blurbs

"With the aspects of warfare (weapons, strategy, etc.) always changing, the battlefield doctrine on way wars have been fought have been almost absolutely ratified before, during, and after every major war. This was clearly evident in the 18-20th century where the industrial revolution had a major influence on the art of the military where the techniques of gunpowder warfare was nearly erradicated by the year 1900.

Organizations and Nations abroad may take extreme measures to both prevent and instigate warfare. This may take many forms including espionage, sanctions, embargos, and protests"

"A proxy war is a war that results when two powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly."

"Also many other actions may be undertaken by military forces during a war, this could include weapons research, prison internment, assassination, occupation, and in some cases genocide may occur."

"War is still hell anyway you look at it" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sgt igor (talk • contribs) 02:33, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to edit these at your will —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.139.229 (talk) 04:30, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

War reenactment link?

Could we add a link to American Civil War reenactment to show that if men still want war, they can pretend to die & kill others? Stars4change (talk) 06:28, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Spurious French-English-Persian connection

"The French word 'Guerre' and the English word 'War' and their equivalents, are believed to have been taken from the Persian word 'Kar', meaning war"

This is a complete nonsence. Kar is cognate to German kreig, but not to English war. It can be verified through any etymological dictionary, such as American Heritage. I suggest to remove this nonsence.--79.111.84.169 (talk) 18:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe there is a link between the middle-lowgerman `Ur-luig´ (modern dutch: orlog) an `war´! This conjunction aims to an unpublished abbreviation-theory of mine, which combines the early writing of `uuarre´, `uuerre´ a.s.o. to the first part of the saxon `Urluig´ - which means the `contractless status between communities´. The modern-german `Krieg´ established in the 15th century and means every possessional struggle between two parties. So, maybe `War´ is just a relict of an older anglosaxon form of `urluig´. Besides: After this explanation, `War´ would be also the archetypical meaning for a runic symbol (Ur) (excuse my `kraut´english)--139.30.24.119 (talk) 16:40, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I was able to find this on Take Our Word For It:

As for the English word war, it comes from Old North French werre "war," a dialectical form of Old French guerre "war." In the early 12th century it was wyrre in English, then uuerre, and then werre. The Old North French term comes from prehistoric Germanic *werra "confusion, strife."

Dictionary.com confirms this. If you scroll down the page, the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD) entry indicates that Germanic "werra" derives from the Indo-European root "wers-" meaning "to confuse, or mix up." I tried to look it up on the AHD's list of Indo-European roots on Bartleby.com, but that reference doesn't appear to exist anymore. Anyway, I hope this helps.--Pariah (talk) 16:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Morality of War

The sentence 'One major depression, the Great Depression, was ended because of World War II,' is highly POV, and without citation. Can someone who supports this viewpoint find a cite, and reword this as a cited opinion, not a fact? Most historians agree that, in the US at least, FDR ended the Great Depression, and by the time WWII came around, the economy had recovered completely.Loverevolutionary (talk) 19:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this statement needs rewording and a citation. It is important to remember that there may not be a consensus opinion to relate here, and in this case there probably is not one narrative that "most historians" would agree on. Given enough wine, a hundred years and a locked room, we might be able to get a group of historians to settle on an ending date to the Great Depression. There are certainly those who argue that war is an economic booster and those who argue the opposite; we need to cover those arguments in this article, though probably not in very great detail. --Gimme danger (talk) 20:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Just mentioning that this section seems sort of weasly wordly, and someone registered ought to set out to fix that. I am referring, of course, to the bit about how certain philosophers with a positive attitude to the waging of war never participated in one themselves. There is no reasoning as to why this should be relevant, and in case there's any doubt: It's not. --88.88.218.62 (talk) 16:46, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Definition

"War" can mean a variety of things; this is not well explained in the article's definition. I suggest that the article is made a disambugation page stating that it may refer to - a type of social relationship (aka 2 entities being "at war" or "[[Being in conflict|in conflict") - the duration of a conflict; aka a period of conflict

At the Being in conflict page, it may be described that a conflict or war can be solved by either in a armed or unarmed fashion (the latter being divided into "talking it out" or "fighting it out; using unarmed combat"

Finally, it should be mentioned that the opposite of war isn't peace (the latter being essantially a period of no conflict, it is "finding practical solutions to ensure that no conflicts can arise" (see http://gracetopia.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/the-opposite-of-war-isnt-peace-its-creation/) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.66.161 (talk) 08:09, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Quote

Perhaps include this quote:

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. -Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi

And one from the Bible. Isaiah 2:4 "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." That means all nations on earth will end the wage system (Capitalism) so that making wars & weapons won't "create jobs" that are harmful. Stars4change (talk) 05:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Bosnian Genocide spurious numbers, no citations

I've added text to the Bosnian Genocide in the list to indicate that the Bosnian Civil War page, which has suitable references, indicates that the death toll on all sides was 100,000, not the 350,000 that this page implies without citations. If someone wants to add a citation, or simply delete the 350,000 number, feel free to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.197.173.134 (talk) 23:31, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Only the Srebrenica Massacre was found to be an act of Genocide, where the death toll was 8000. I am renaming the entry "Bosnian War (1992-1995)" and putting in the number 97,207 which is the total death count both military and civilian deaths (including the 8000 of Srebrenica) on all sides of the war. I am also deleting the entry "Bosnian War of Independance" since that has no date, source or link to an article. Zalgo 05:44, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Possible plagiarism

I've come across quite a few large paragraphs in different sections that were copied verbatim from published sources, including other encyclopedias and general reference books, all without cites. It wouldn't be right to add a source at the end of a large copied paragraph, and it would be time consuming to try to paraphrase them. These are all major philosophical and geopolitical topics that would be risky trying to rephrase. Any suggestions? --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 08:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Could you post evidence of the plagiarism you say you've found? If it is indeed plagiarism we need to remove the material and warn the editor(s) who included it. On a side note, the whole article needs rewriting, especially the lead. It is full of jargon and has poor style. Fences&Windows 01:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

What part of the lead do you feel needs to be rewritten? Why do you think it is poorly styled, and how do you feel it could be fixed? Thanks, Scott P. (talk) 23:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I've tightened up the lead, paring it down to 4 paragraphs as recommended per WP: Lead section guidelines. Any comments or discussion on this lead condensation would be welcome here. Thanks, Scott P. (talk) 16:16, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

One quick example is War#Motivations in "Economic theories:

When the unemployment rate is high, people may be making less purchases than they were a year or two ago, and overall output is flat. But when the country decides to prepare for war, the government needs to equip its soldiers with the extra gear and munitions needed in order to win the war. Corporations win contracts to supply boots, bombs and vehicles to the army. Many of these companies will have to hire extra workers in order to meet this increased production. If the preparations for war are large enough, large numbers of workers will be hired reducing the unemployment rate. Other workers may need to be hired to cover reservists in private sector jobs who get sent overseas. With the unemployment rate down we have more people spending again and people who had jobs before will be less worried about losing their job in the future so they'll spend more than they did. This extra spending will help the retail sector, who will need to hire extra employees causing unemployment to drop even further.

It's verbatim from the book Collateral Damages, by Luis Cesar Nunes (2008) p. 8. A lot of other material was from other books or encyclopedia (Columbia was one I remembered seeing.) The biggest problem I see in all this, personally, is not so much the plagiarism, since that can be fixed by abbreviating and adding citations (still a big project), but the fact that there is so much material that is of a political, economic, and philosophical nature, making it seem valid, and it's all very well written but still without a source. So it essentially becomes an anonymously-written essay. I actually came across a published book that cited this article, so someone can validly cite that book! If it wasn't such an important topic, we could brush it off. But this kind of OR for War poses some serious issues that WP needs to deal with IMO. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 02:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Such plagiarism is a great problem. It seems to have been added by User:62.12.83.223. I've cut out their additions. The content wasn't very good either. Military-industrial complex stuff isn't really part of a political economy approach to war. - SimonP (talk) 05:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

minor edit

could someone with the authority to edit put a red link around the mention of "credible commitment" in the section titled "Rational..."? I'm trying to get an article for the concept written.Enfascination (talk) 13:53, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Done. (Although if, by some chance, you wanted this link as a means to find the place to create the article, please be aware that all you really needed to do was to search for the term, and then click on the redlink following "You may create the page". Alternatively, if you requested the link simply because you could not add it yourself, it's not because you lack "authority" (my lack of authority is equal to yours), but simply because you haven't made ten edits yet. This is explained more at WP:SILVERLOCK.)

War in Iraq insertion

Someone inserted the following text under Morality of War:

"(According to this logic, the recent 2003 US sponsored invasion of Iraq as advanced by the Bush administration was clearly illegal under international law due to the facts that the US was never actually attacked by Iraq, and also that the UN security council did not authorize this war.)"

This is a totally unnecessary addition and an article as commonly visited as this should be watched for unhelpful additions like this.

Agree, I've cut that sentence. - SimonP (talk) 21:08, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

It's back... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.6.142.40 (talk) 18:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

war outcomes

I would like to request to remove the definition of winners and losers from every conflict . because I think it is up to the viewers to decide pending their mentality . I think that should remove alot of the controversies that surround these situations which would protect the validity of the articles here at wikipedia. : )--Nader ecl (talk) 14:44, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Youth bulge theory

While the implications of population growth have been known since the completion of the National Security Study Memorandum 200 in 1974, 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

I don't think Prominent demographer Stephen D. Mumford attributes this to the influence of the Catholic Church is worthy of inclusion because it is surprising or apparently important claims not covered by mainstream sources, claiming that population growth is linked to terrorist threats and that 'prominent' demographer Stephen Mumford blames the Catholic Church. I also believe his claims...are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or that (if people believed his claims they would) significantly alter mainstream assumptions, although Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality sources. If such sources are not available, the material should not be included. He is also not a high-quality source, so the material should not be included.

What do you think? --Actoreng1 (talk) 05:46, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Nobody disagrees? Alright, I'll remove the section. --Actoreng1 (talk) 02:48, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Mattgalli, 16 June 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} As regards Bibliography, you may add: Marina Mancini, Stato di guerra e conflitto armato nel diritto internazionale, Torino, Giappichelli, 2009, ISBN 978-88-348-9597-9 Mattgalli (talk) 12:54, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Not done: thanks. Is this book actually used as a reference for this article? If not, then I don't think it makes sense to add it to the bibliography list. Tim Pierce (talk) 14:33, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Dementium2, 24 June 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} For the list of wars by casualties you should list the Anglo-Zanzibar war, it had 500 causalities from both sides, source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War

Dementium2 (talk) 06:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, please note, we cannot use Wikipedia itself as a source; Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Instead, we can look at the references that article uses, and if appropriate, use them.

The reference for the figure of 500 comes from a book, which is available via Google here.

The book says that "about 500...were killed or wounded". However, the list in this article shows "death toll", and the source does not give a figure for that. The article body text just says, "roughly 500 casualties".

Therefore, to get this request performed, please supply an appropriate reliable source showing the number of people actually killed, and then use another {{editsemiprotected}}. Thanks,  Chzz  ►  08:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Rationalist Theories

These should be a subset of Political Science theories, especially if Blainey is the main cite. James Fearon would be better still. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.67.179.8 (talk) 03:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Civil War in Nepal?

Why is there no mention of the casualties in the Nepalase Civil War? The ten year war (1996-2006) between the Royal Nepalese Army and the Maoist guerillas involved the death of 12,000-13,000 people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gramscitoni (talk • contribs) 13:19, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Image

Perhaps

this image

can be integrated to the article ?

91.182.232.33 (talk) 14:09, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

100% casulties?

"100% of combatants were killed during the Blackfoot Indian raid which annihilated the Assiniboins in 1849.[17]" Really? So the Blackfoots killed all the Assiniboins, but all the raiders died in the battle and/or died of their wounds afterwards (or vice versa)? (Or the Assiniboins killed all the raiders, but all died of their wounds afterwards?) I accept that such an outcome could be possible, but it seems unlikely. Is that what actually happened, or is this supposed to refer to the losing side? (I looked at the original source, and it's ambiguous. Immediately before that claim, it talks about "87-100% killed among the losing side" in primitive warfare, but the next sentence reels off a list of extremely high casulty rates (culminating in this 100%) while only talking about "combatants"). Wardog (talk) 14:51, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The Blackfeet Nation website says: "1849 War party of 800 Blackfoot attack Assiniboine horse raiders and kill 52, while the Blackfoot lost 25."[1] 75.41.110.200 (talk) 04:08, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The absence of war is called peace

"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice." ~ Baruch Spinoza —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.119.217.220 (talk) 16:00, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Horatius1096 (talk) 16:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC)Peace cannot be attained on earth without safeguarding the goods of persons, free communication among men, respect for the dignity of persons and peoples, and the assiduous practice of fraternity. Peace is "the tranquility of order." [St. Augustine, City of God 19, 13,1]

Naming Conventions?

Could there be a section on naming conventions? it would be a interesting topic to look at - why some wars are named after countries involved, others the length of time or the cause of the war... Perhaps it could be linked to a historical development of conceptions of wars or naming bias. I personally would be interested why today we have war names like the 'Kosovo war' or 'Iraq war' but not the 'Kosovar war' or 'Iraqi' war. Wouldn't it be odd to have a name like the France or Japan War?theBOBbobato (talk) 15:27, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is notable enough to include in the article, but it's definitely interesting. I'd like to hear the answer as well. Is there a topic (on WP or not) that covers/discusses the etymology of 'famous' phrases? Who dubbed it the Columbine High School Massacre, or 9/11, or shoe bomber? I'd wager a guess that most of the time the media picks a few names and the most interesting (and usually, but not necessarily accurate) one sticks. Still, I've done no research on the subject. If you find any reliable sources that discuss the etymology and naming of Wars and have the time to do it, write it up :) DubiousIrony ^yell 07:00, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation Repair: "violent conflict"

1. Hi guys! As you may know, there is an ongoing disambiguation repair/removal effort on Wikipedia. I stumbled across this article (war) while checking pages that link to conflict. The intro states "war is a violent conflict". Ideally, conflict would point to the appropriate article (or even a wiktionary page), instead of the disambiguation page. However, Wikipedia does not have a section on violent/political conflicts and I hesitate to point it to group conflict as the article is not the best fit for it. Alternatively, it can be removed as per the MOS/Plain English Words.

So, should we:

1. maintain status quo, let conflict continue to point to a disambiguation page
2. change conflict to point to a wiktionary definition
3. change conflict to point to a more suitable, different article
4. unlink conflict entirely and change it to a plain word

Thoughts? DubiousIrony ^yell 06:54, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Political Science Theories- Democratic Peace

"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."

The capitalised realist view is wrong! The democratic peace theory is a liberal theory, not a realist theory. Hence why it is sometimes named, 'the liberal peace'.

I changed this before but it has been changed back again. Mat 82.12.241.66 (talk) 18:18, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Another war Libya?Is useing no troops but useing cannon, planes etc fired on another foe considered WAR?

OK as I write Planes and missles are raining down on Libya(Mar 19th,2011) Is it considered WAR> iIf no ground troops as the US President Obama has promised will not be sent to Libya. WAR?MARSMUSTEND (talk) 23:46, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Horatius1096 (talk) 14:58, 8 August 2011 (UTC)Libya, and the military action taken there, can be considered a limited war. When one state or non-state actor uses violence on another state or non-state actor in order to bring about a change in policy or behavior, a state of war exists between them. The scope of the violence is incidental and relative to the goals being sought.Horatius1096 (talk) 14:58, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Types of War

I'm new to Wikipedia, so please bear with me.

I'd like to do a significant cleanup on the section "Types of War". There are only two types of war: convention and unconventional. How each of those types of war breaks down is where insurgencies, terrorism, and cold wars enter the picture. For instance, using terrorism as means to accomplish political goals is an unconventional type of warfare. Using bombers to blow up infrastructure of a nation who is acting contrary to you interests is a type of conventional warfare. That is to say, terrorism and insurgency, etc., are just different strategies which either fall under two broad archetypes: conventional and unconventional. I am just outlining the broad strokes here, but the entire section "Types of War" is incorrect and misleading. I will break down why here:

"Conventional warfare is an attempt to reduce an opponent's military capability through open battle."

This is incorrect. Conventional warfare is the use of military and non-military force by one nation to force another nation to adopt policies that the former prefer - or, as Von Clausewitz puts it: "the continuation of politics (or policy, depending on translation) by other means."

"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."

That is incorrect, as both WWI and WWII were conventional wars, and nuclear and chemical weapons were used in both. Total War, in which counter-value tactics are systematically used, is a type of conventional warfare.

"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."

The opposite of conventional warfare is conventional peace. Unconventional Warfare is

"Operations conducted by, with, or through irregular forces in support of a resistance movement, an insurgency, or conventional military operations." FM 3-05.201, (S/NF) Special Forces Unconventional Warfare (U) 28 September 2007

"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."

Asked and answered. Any war in which nuclear weapons are used is a nuclear war.

"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."

This is political not a military distinction. How the contestants in a civil war fight is what determines what type of war it is - for instance, many insurgencies are also civil wars. But not all civil wars are insurgencies.

"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."

Asymmetric warfare and unconventional warfare are basically the same thing. You don't fight unconventionally unless you are asymmetrically weak.

"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."

This describes a tactic, not a type of war. It is entirely inappropriate for this posting.

While claims to authority have limited usefulness in this type of forum, I have a Master's degree in National Security and Intelligence, and have had articles published academically on military matters. I would really like to clean up this section. What should my next step be? Should I just propose the changes on this talk page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Horatius1096 (talk • contribs) 16:53, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Evolutionary Psychology

The section on Evolutionary Psychology is unbalanced. It only presents one particular kind of EP research namely the narrow perspective that focuses on conflictive behavior as the main human adaptation. There is a considerable trend in EP broader defined that balances this view with the opposite view that primates are characterized by the ability to both war and peace - e.g. Frans De Waal. Secondly the section focuses on Pinker and Ashley Montagu and makes it look as if they are in dialogue - Montagu of course being a very early representative of the war =! biologically determined view - but by no means the last or necessarilt the most prominent. The section does not give a well balanced view of evolutionary approaches to warfare.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:56, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

If you have any sources, feel free to add them. Unsourced claims do not count. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 18:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not talking about adding claims I am talking about weight - which in this case I believ requires removing claims and balancing them better. What source is it that suggests to you that describing evolutionary approaches to war as a dialogue between Pinker and Montagu is the best way of covering the topic?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

No one knows if of your claims, regarding weight or something else, are accurate unless you give sources. I changed to sentence regarding Montagu to avoid the impression of responding directly. Satisfied? Miradre (Talk E-mail) 19:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

No, I am not. Here are some secondary sources that I think would be good for determining the balance of the section based on: David Paul Crook, 1994, Darwinism, war, and history: the debate over the biology of war from the "Origin of species" to the First World War, Cambridge University Press. Frans de Waal. 1989. Peacemaking Among Primates. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. Frans de Waal. 2005. Our Inner Ape. New York: Riverhead Books, 2005; Johan M. G. van der Dennen 1995. The Origin of War: The Evolution of a Male-Coalitional Reproductive Strategy, Douglas P. Fry 2007. Beyond War: The Human Potential for Peace. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Just naming a number of thick books that may or may not support your view in some place or other is not constructive or verifiable. I could equally well cite a number of such books and claim they support me. Cite something specific as is required when citing books in Wikipedia. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 19:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not claiming they support me. I am claiming they are the kinds of books that would make a good basis for a section on evolutionary perspectives on motivations for warfare.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with scholarly articles which unlike books are peer-reviewed. Again, if something specific is missing, then please add it. Just vaguely claiming that something is wrong without explaining exactly what is not constructive and does not improve article. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 19:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Academically published books are generally peer reviewed.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:09, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Neither does cherry picking our favorite sources and stacking them in a way that suits our purpose. I will rewrite the section soon.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:17, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

As long as you have sources for added material and claims. Everything is sourced so please explain any removals. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 13:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

• Lewin and Foley's "Principles of Human Evolution" p. 182-3. Notes that there is a general trend towards less sexual dimorphism in hominins - early hominins have more dimorphism than chimps but the sapiens have considerably less. This shows that the argument from dimorphism is flawed. Also it doesn't really have anything to do with Evolutionary Psychology.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

This is not the place to present your own OR. Furthermore, that some other primate may have more sexual dimorphism does not change that there is significant such in humans. Even if it is less than in many other primates and decreasing, then the fact that there is still a significant amount needs explaining. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 13:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

That is nonsense. It is there because our ancestors had it and we haven't gotten rid of it all yet. In any case physical sexual dimorphism is not a theory having to do with evolutionary psychology, but with evolutionary anthropology. I will remove the passage. Evolutionary Psychology argues that coalitionary agression is a contingent on the existence of male-male competition and of group cohesion. E.g. Van Dennen or Tooby and Cosmides. The section is describing something else. Now excuse me, but I've gotten tired of listening to you repeating yourself - I'll go to work.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:04, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense is thinking that males would carry around a large amount of not needed and metabolically expensive body tissues for no purpose. I have cited an evolutionary psychology article regarding this. Obviously anthropology may also study this but this does not mean that the subject is owned by anthropologists. If anthropologists have further views on this, please add them. But do not simply delete what you do not like. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 14:15, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I will rerwite the section to actually present the topic it is supposed to present. David A. Puts is an anthropologist in the article he is criticizing a line of argument made by Evolutionary Psychologists.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I will put back any relevant sourced material that may get lost. I suggest that you discuss deletions of sourced material here. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 14:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I have.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:32, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

You have only presented your own OR opinion that the sourced material is incorrect. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 15:00, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

That is not an accurate summary of what I have written above, no.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:20, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

It is. You made an OR conclusion and criticized a sourced text. But now, in this edit [2], you have also inserted factual inaccuracies not present in the given source such that human have the lowest amount of dimorphism. As well as just deleted sourced arguments you did not like. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 15:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

This edit is weird for other reasons also. You made unexplained deletions of the sourced material by by another author, Lorenz, and instead inserted unsourced material such as the claims regarding a major theory regarding the "mesolithic". Please follow wikipedia policy. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 15:39, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I see you added one source for the dimorphism. Good. Still does not explain why you deleted the Lorenz material. Or why you deleted the argumentation regarding hunting. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 16:04, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Lorentz was cited as the earliest exposition of this view. His book of course doesn't show that he is the earliest and so does not support the claim. If you find a source that it is the earliest then you can set it in, but you won't because he wasn't - Spencer said the same thing and many others before him.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Yanömamö

The question of Yanömämö warfare is one of the great controversies in anthropology. If we include this as an example of warfare in preliterate societies we will have to include the entire debate here - that does not seem like productive use of article space. I am removing the material again - someone will have to include a better example preferably from a non-contested secondary source instead of from highly controversial ones.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Great controversies certainly deserve to be mentioned. Controversy in itself is absolutely not a reason for removal but could rather be a reason so keep due to the fame of the debatte. Feel free to add more material to Yanömämö page if you think there is not enough space here and we can note that here that the controversy is discussed in more detail there. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 14:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Great controversies should be covered in a balanced way, if at all. The question is whether this particular controversy is relevant to get into in this article. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:19, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

As you say, it is one of the great controversies regarding warfare in anthropology and should therefore be mentioned. The exact text can be discussed and the main debate man be in another article. Miradre (Talk E-mail) 15:29, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

"The average man is stronger than 99,9% of women."???

This statement uses a number that I find very unlikely to be true. If it had been 95.7% or some other random number, perhaps, but the 99.9% seems to be a number pulled out of the sky, and I highly doubt it to be verifiable by any sort of peer-reviewed journal. If it were a true fact, I believe it should be easily verifiable by multiple sources, and I did not find this in the link for this section based on the source number 95 that was listed as the basis for the comment.

Please show us where the 99.9% comes from; it seems made up and heavily biased and unfounded by the information in the source you linked to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.33.240.95 (talk) 16:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

potential Science News resource

Future wars may be fought by synapses. Neuroscientists consider defense applications of recent insights into the brain. By Laura Sanders Web edition November 11th, 2011 excerpt "... technologies based on infiltrating brains may soon enter countries’ arsenals, neuroethicists claim in a paper published online October 31 in Synesis. Such “neuroweapons” have the capacity to profoundly change the way war is fought."

See Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Georgetown University Medical Center, brain-machine interfaces, Oxytocin, psychopharmacological, PTSD, bioethicist, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University, Oregon Health & Science University, University of New Mexico, University of Oxford, DARPA

99.190.86.16 (talk) 06:35, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

potential resource SciAm and Science News

From Talk:Politics of global warming#SciAm resource and Talk:Effects of climate change on humans#El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Civil disorder resource ...

• Africa Leads Climate Push as Its People Go Hungry "Africa is leading the push for clean energy policy-making as climate change turns millions of its people into "food refugees," the head of the U.N." Scientific American November 21, 2011 by Katy Migiro reporting for AlertNet, a global humanitarian news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation (www.trust.org/alertnet); excerpt ...

  In the Horn of Africa, some 13 million people are going hungry due to prolonged drought. In Somalia, the crisis is compounded by conflict. ... Scientists say pledges so far to curb emissions will not prevent the planet heating up beyond the two degrees Celsius threshold they say risks more extreme weather, crop failure and major floods. Global average temperatures rose by 0.7C over pre-industrial times during the 20th century. ... He estimated that it could take two to five years to reach another global agreement. The European Union, Russia, Japan and Canada have said they will not sign a second commitment period unless bigger emitters, notably China and the United States, provide firm evidence that they would join too. "The world is going to pay a terrible price for this standoff and Africa in particular," said Achim Steiner.

From within the article, see UNEP, African Development Bank, Lake Turkana, Naivasha, 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Economic migrant and Environmental migrant, starting 1991 the Somali Civil War then War in Somalia (2009–) and OEF-HOA for more context.

• El Niños may inflame civil unrest; Climate pattern correlates with increased risk of conflict By Janet Raloff October 8th, 2011; Vol.180 #8 (p. 16) Science News, regarding Solomon Hsiang of Princeton University and his coauthors at Columbia University report in the Aug. 25 Nature (journal), with comments by statistician Andrew Solow of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and Neil Johnson of the University of Miami and Yaneer Bar-Yam of the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Mass; excerpt ...

  About every seven years, climates in tropical regions swing between conditions dominated by an El Niño and those moderated by a La Niña (cooling in equatorial Pacific waters). During El Niño years, the likelihood that a new civil conflict would erupt in equatorial nations was roughly 6 percent, or twice that for La Niña periods.

Related to Talk:Intertropical Convergence Zone#What it rong with the external link *ITCZ in March 2011 Scientific American ?

99.190.86.93 (talk) 05:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

potential Further Reading resource

Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents (2010) by Ian Buruma ISBN 978-0-691-13489-5, with some historical examples of the value the separation of religion and national governance with the separation of church and state as one example; relating to democratic peace theory. 99.56.123.120 (talk) 08:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello! I just noticed that in the Graph provided in the section : Effects on war on Civilians is coded wrong. The index has the following

1. (color)    3000 - 8000
1. (color)    8000 - 8000
1. (color)    Above 8000

If this is wrong, I would sincerely like the author changing it. If this is correct, please explain

Thanks --122.165.227.44 (talk) 14:12, 31 December 2011 (UTC)KRK 7:41 P.M ( IST )

MISTAKE

Hello! I just noticed that in the Graph provided in the section : Effects on war on Civilians is coded wrong. The index has the following

1. (color)    3000 - 8000
1. (color)    8000 - 8000
1. (color)    Above 8000

If this is wrong, I would sincerely like the author changing it. If this is correct, please explain

Thanks --122.165.227.44 (talk) 14:13, 31 December 2011 (UTC)KRK 7:41 P.M ( IST )

Deadliest Wars

Can the Mongol Conquests or Timur's conquests really be thought of as a single war? They strike me as a series of wars. While related to each other, they are still distinct, much like WWI and WWII which are listed separately. I tend to assume if the wars are broken down, they might not rank in the 10 deadliest anymore, though the Mongol conquest of the Khwarezmid Empire may well rank on its own as it was exceptionally bloody. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.44.184.49 (talk) 20:15, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

War can be good and bad. There may be reasons why countries have war but most of all there is really no point. I read this poem called 'The Battle of Blenheim' and it has so much meanings about war. And while his grand-daughter Wilhemine asks if there was point to this war he says he doesn't know...but it was a good victory! Press the link and read it, please. --86.174.29.24 (talk) 20:19, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Formatting Error on Mobile Version of article

Between the "Warfare by terrain" and "Behaviour and conduct in war" section, I think there is a missing "close" tag, as half of the article is inside the same "box" that encloses all the sub-types of "Warfare environment". Hopefully this can be fixed (I would have fixed it myself if I could).

Thanks! -- 32.175.193.135 (talk) 18:36, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I tried to fix this...did it work? I can't see the problem but I found what I thought was the culprit.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 21:01, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Lock the page

After all, war never changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.4.130.45 (talk) 23:24, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Ten Largest Wars.

This section seems to only list nine of the largest wars, not ten. Just curious if I am missing something. If not, I will change the title to reflect the actual information. Unless someone states something in seven days, I will make the change and hope it was the correct decision. LogicalCreator (talk) 07:53, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Muslim Conquests

Some editors are persisting in adding a multi-million casualty figure related to the Muslim conquests. And others are persisting in deleting the number. This is now a matter of discussion. Please provide your thoughts here. (No changes to the article should take place until we reach consensus. This is the required WP:BRD process. Thanks.)--S. Rich (talk) 04:42, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

every society and religions have some bad people and some good people not just Muslims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raljarf (talk • contribs) 10:09, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Explaining my edit

Most of my edit is things like punctuation. Here are the changes that need explanation the most:

This edit somehow went unreverted since 2009. It may have been well intended, but it was added between an author's initial and last name. It went into a reference, and the text it references has no particular relevance to this edit. I removed it.

"... World War II, being 60 million plus, surpasses all other war-death-tolls by a factor of two." But the table that immediately follows shows the Mongol conquests with 60 million deaths. I removed "by a factor of two".

"since the United States declared war on Afghanistan and Iraq". The U.S. announced those attacks, but "declare war" has a special meaning in U.S. politics; see Declaration of war by the United States. Thus this article actually says the opposite: "The Bush administration, for its part, did not seek a declaration of war by Congress ..." So I bypassed the issue by making it "since the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq". Art LaPella (talk) 00:54, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

links

>> Syria's conflict: Three years on (Lihaas (talk) 18:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)).

Possible copyright problem

This article has been revised as part of a large-scale clean-up project of multiple article copyright infringement. (See the investigation subpage) Earlier text must not be restored, unless it can be verified to be free of infringement. For legal reasons, Wikipedia cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions must be deleted. Contributors may use sources as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously. Diannaa (talk) 23:08, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Religion

See religious war &c. You can discount and caveat it as a legitimate reason for conflict, but it is certainly one humans themselves have previously understood and continue to understand as the reason for various wars. It is nothing apart from a failure of WP:BIAS to have the only commentary on religious war at this page be secular western theorists arguing that it's only ever a post hoc rationalization of what people actually did for other reasons. — LlywelynII 04:31, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Paraguayan War

It seems odd to cite Steven Pinker as an authority on the death toll of the Paraguayan War. It seems outside his expertise; surely there's a more reliable source for the statement in the lede that 60% of Paraguay's population died in that conflict? Q·L·1968 ☿ 19:20, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, nobody wants to take up the charge? Maybe I'll start hunting around myself... Q·L·1968 ☿ 18:54, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

War as an Unnatural Human Phenomenon

An anonymous user ( 174.96.209.146) removed a section I added to this article yesterday. I'm going to reinsert the section into the article. It's a short but well documented paragraph that discusses an important aspect of war. I'm going to copy the paragraph here in case the same anonymous user deletes it again.

"War is not a natural human phenomenon, and humans are not genetically programmed to engage in war. Several human societies exist today that do not engage in war , and before the rise of state societies (4000-2000 BC) endemic warfare was more the exception than the rule . The sophisticated and large ancient Indus Valley Civilization existed for two millennia without engaging in internal or external warfare , and no evidence exists that the Jomon of Japan, for over 10,000 years, ever engaged in war . See also Keeping the Peace by Kemp and Fry; Fry’s Beyond War; Montagu’s Learning Non-Aggression; Howell and Willis’ Societies at Peace; and Sponsel and Gregor’s Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence."

I'd be more than happy if others could improve the section, but to delete it wholesale with no discussion contradicts Wikipedia guidelines.

Athana (talk) 15:01, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

That paragraph should be re-worked as the way is written doesn't really fit wikipedia. Also the way the paragraph is written it makes it look like it was a fact an not a point of view argued by the scholars mentioned as sources. And it should be checked if the sources fit wikipedia guidelines(notability and neutrality).

Personally I think this should be more studied and perhaps expanded as to explain as if war is not a natural phenomenon in humans, then why is so common and to try to explain the contraction in what is said in this paragraph and what is said in other part of the war article, for example the first paragraph in the history part of the article

Dr.VonQuack (talk) 05:29, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

References

Total War

Isn't total war usually defined as a war where an entire country's resource and labor pool is mobilized for the war effort? Compassionate727 (talk) 14:46, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Not really. See Total war. It emphasizes non-military targets. --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:07, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Nine largest (by death toll)

number of deaths within this section is not consistent with articles. See for example Tamerlane & Dungan. pyl (talk) 19:52, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Historic Famous Battles under History section

This seems to be missing a lot and appears unbalanced. For example why are there: no famous air battles, only two naval battles, no battles after WWII, no battles from Africa, Asia, Central or South America, only one mention of fighting in ancient times/pre 1400s? It appears quite eurocentric Also, of the battles mentioned, why no words on what makes them famous and where are the citations backing up their claim to fame? Just wondering, thanks. Coolabahapple (talk) 16:33, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm wondering as well, but more along why have the section at all? How does a list of pictures of some battles help understand war? It's kind of pretty, but problematic, as noted. I don't see a way to "fix" this. If no one objects, I'll just remove the whole section. --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:26, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

To me, the section is just some potentially interesting trivia, directing the reader to the pages of famous battles that aren't necessarily relevant to this article. I wouldn't object to its deletion, but I don't disapprove of it enough to delete it myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1Halpo1 (talk • contribs) 22:22, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The phrases "trivia" and "aren't necessarily relevant" clarified my questions into objections. I'm removing it. --A D Monroe III (talk) 23:01, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Edit request - conflict zone

conflict zone redirects here, yet there is no hatnote for Conflict Zone, so a hatnote needs to be added:

{{redirect|conflict zone|the 2001 videogame|Conflict Zone}}

"conflict zone" redirects here. For the 2001 videogame, see Conflict Zone.

-- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:21, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Done /~huesatlum/ 15:25, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

War aims section?

I don't get this section. Apparently there's this thing, called "war aims", which some people may have, or just declare, or not, and which may be classified as tangible, explicit, positive, or not. So what? This tells me nothing.

Now, a section on "Causes of war" would be good, and might be related to this (but I can't tell -- too little info). But that would need sources.

If someone can't find sources to expand this into "causes", then I'm for deleting this section. --A D Monroe III (talk) 15:12, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Religious groups

"Religious groups have long formally opposed or sought to limit war as in the Second Vatican Council document..."

The Vatican Council document quoted is from the 1960s and post-dates for example all of the "nine largest by death toll". So unless "long" is interpreted as meaning "a couple of years or decades" (a ridiculous short period in this context) the example does not support the statement. And there is little else to support the statement elsewhere. For example, the linked article "Anti-war movement" only mentions a couple religious "fringe groups" that appear to be the exception rather than the rule.

In fact, it seems a lot more accurate (and surely easier to support if you bother to look for sources) to state that "Religious groups have long formally used their religion to initiate, continue and justify acts of war (and terror)".

So I suggest removing this misleading and insulting first paragraph of the section.110.23.118.21 (talk) 07:36, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Definition

War is social cannibalism.

Tusk Bilasimo (talk) 04:44, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 February 2016

27.97.207.249 (talk) 05:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. /wiae /tlk 06:12, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

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External links modified

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External links modified

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I have just modified 3 external links on War. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Corrected formatting/usage for http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/about/timeline-of-stop-the-war-events-2001-2011
• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.gonzagajil.org/content/view/72/26/
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Cheers.—^{cyberbot II}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 10:46, 12 April 2016 (UTC)