Originally Posted by Trollheart

There's another point that hasn't been adequately discussed here. It's something Orwell was particularly interested in when he put forward the theory that "the purpose of war is not to win but to perpetuate the conflict". You can see how this has worked even recently, with both Thatcher and Bush Jr getting the public on their side when they went to war, and how it increased their popularity. Often, the "God is on our side" idea works to a leader's advantage in waging what could even be an unjust and unjustified war. Look at the Crusades: what right had the Pope to go trying to take the Holy Land back from the Moors, yet he and his bishops convinced all the kings of Europe that Jerusalem had been seized, when in fact all the Muslims were doing was taking it back from we Christians, who had usurped it in the first place.

War exists as a tool, a reason to justify often barbarous treatment ("This is war!") and make landgrabs that otherwise would not be possible in peacetime. It's an excuse to suspend the usual conventions of human relationships and treat those we were only recently friends with as our deadliest enemies.

And because it gives us that power (and **** what anyone says, we like it) then it's always a possibility in the back of the minds of world leaders. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the likes of England and France were always going to war. Why? Were there grievances? Sure, but they were historical. Nothing new had happened to justify going to war. The simple truth of the matter is that war was "good for business". A king or queen who went to war always had popular support and looked "strong", and there never needed to be any real justification for that. In the "House of Cards" trilogy by Micheal Dobbs, as his power begins to slip and his popularity wanes, the Prime Minister arranges "a small war", and everyone's attention is diverted from the problems at hand.

So it's also a useful instrument for the unscrupulous. Humans are by nature competitive (what? Yes we are! Bet you anything! Okay then, first to the end of the street and back...) and forever trying to one-up each other, and countries vie one against the other for the upper hand. If America was not the power it is today you can be sure it would be struggling to attain that superiority, and Iran is certainly attempting to gain power over the Middle East with its nuclear program, intending on wiping out its great enemy Israel, who are in turn trying to reduce Gaza to dust, month on and month off, all in the name of "national security".

There's no doubt Man is genetically tuned towards the need for war, if only to keep him sharp and alert, and stop him from becoming complacent. You can bet that at this point, at some meeting in some city in some country, someone is plotting a coup, a terrorist attack, even laying plans for a war.

It's just how we are. I'd love it if we could change it, but I think we can no more subdue our desire for conflict and challenge than we can stop the sun rising in the morning.