Essay on war
War has been a part of human culture since it's birth. It has led to a great many massacres and has shown us the evil that exists within the souls of humanity. Some have even gone as far as saying that war is human nature. To better understand the reasons behind war and how it affects others, I've examined several different societies and cultures so as to better understand the necessity of war and see the cause of their external war attitude. To do so, different variables from two topics (military institutions and external war attitude) were matched up and crossed so as to look into the answers to these questions. The variables were then calculated and through these graphs, I was able to find different societies in which
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Warfare to the Somalis was seen as a division of labor that was the principal means of acquiring cattle. In times of war, peasants would be taken from /their/his/ home/s/ for months at a time. Warfare was organized by the chiefs on behalf of the kin and it was the duty of every able bodied man to take part in it (pg 133 Philip)." In order for one to become wealthy within a society, they must earn it through the privilege of authority. This comes from the reward of conduct pleasing to one's superiors. For the most part, the wealth of a man comes from the exercise of poetical virtues, obedience to authority, wisdom in council, and courage in war.
During battle, leadership among the Somalis is led by a general who the king feels will be the right one only after having a consultation with the appropriate spirits. He also selected the people of certain sazas "to guard the king." These people did so simply by staying home. The leaders of the armies were forceful during wartime. "Every able bodied man was expected to turn out, but though the penalty for cowardice in the field was instant death by burning, people who simply stayed at home were merely fined on their chief's return (P. 193 Philips)."
The generals were important as a moral rallying-point. It is said that the army would lose heart if their general is killed in battle , but as soon as his successor is found, their courage would return. The decision to engage in war was made mainly by the king and his orders
attitude....Complete destruction of Poland is the military aim. To be fast is the main thing.
The Great War , or as it is known now, World War One was a global conflict fought between the Allied Powers ; Great Britain, France, Russia, and the United States along will other smaller nations and the Central Powers ; Germany, Austria – Hungary, Turkey/Ottoman Empire and other small nations from 1914 to 1918. World War One began from a series of tumultuous events, that in turn affected the balance of alliances that had been made between countries at that time in the world.
“A Splendid Little War” was an alternative title to the Spanish American War named by Ambassador John Hay to his good friend Theodore Roosevelt. This war was one of the shortest wars of all time, lasting only about four months. Surprisingly, the main cause of death in this war wasn’t by being shot, but by dying of diseases such as Yellow Fever, Malaria and other diseases. Only 9,413 Spaniards were killed by wounds and combat and 53,540 were killed by many diseases. In this “Splendid Little War” America was able to free Spain's overseas empire which included Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The United States was also hungry for foreign good that weren’t available to them in the homeland. After an easy victory over Spain, American was able to control islands in the seas such as Cuba, The Philippines and Guam. After this war, Spain was no longer a world power and the United States was on its way to the top.
Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War is a novel that is a personal view of the Vietnam War from the perspective of a Vietnamese soldier. Like the American novel “The things they carried”, this novel brings about the effects of war on people, and especially how it defeats the human capacity for things such as love and hope. Bao Ninh offers this realistic picture of the Vietnam War’s impact on the individual Vietnamese soldier through use of a series of reminiscences or flashbacks, jumping backwards and forwards in time between the events most salient in memory, events which take on a different theme each time they are examined. His main protagonist Kien, who is basically Bao himself, looks back not just at his ten years at
“World War II and the Depression are now nearly as far back as we can go in living memory, and so the loom large in our active folk story. And many who lived then were too young to understand it in its depth; they remember only that the war was a great victory” (Adams 115).
It was the ancient Greek philosopher, Empedocles, who first established the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. He also stated that everything in the world is structured by and rooted in these four elements. However during times of conflict and violence, humans begin to disturb this harmony. When this happens, the elements stop representing life and start representing a form of destruction. Throughout Robert Ross’s journey in The Wars, Timothy Findley exemplifies this theory by displaying the four elements in two diverse ways: benevolent and harmful.
War, a state of armed conflict between different nations and states. Both nations Texas and Mexico were disputed on their countries borders. Many Americans felt like they wanted to go to war with Mexico and used any reason no matter how big or small to do it. America tried to meet with Mexican representatives to settle the borders, but neither side did much talking. The United States was not just in going to war with Mexico due to them picking on the smaller country (Mexico), Mexico was just defending the borders Mexico thought they had, and Polk sent troops near the border of Mexico and was unclear on his intentions.
The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.
“The world must know what happened, and never forget.” (World War 2) General Eisenhower reflecting upon the world war II, and acknowledging it as a pertinent event in the history of the United States of America. War is war, it is not pretty or humane, but what it is, is a diplomatic way in which to settle disputes and aggressions between countries. By analyzing these wars of the past, the people of the country can learn many things, be it mistakes made by one side, strategy from someone else or battle field etiquette. And it is through this analysis that the human race is able to further itself to not repeat the mistakes made by their ancestors. There are many lessons to be learned from looking at the
It can be hard to fully comprehend the effects the Vietnam War had on not just the veterans, but the nation as a whole. The violent battles and acts of war became all too common during the long years of the conflict. The war warped the soldiers and civilians characters and desensitized their mentalities to the cruelty seen on the battlefield. Bao Ninh and Tim O’Brien, both veterans of the war, narrate their experiences of the war and use the loss of love as a metaphor for the detrimental effects of the years of fighting.
“War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. This famous quote is from James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr., who served as the 39th President of the United States. It implies that war can be justified under strict circumstances where it can be necessary, but it is still abhorrent. War is defined as a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country. Justification refers to the action of showing something to be right or reasonable. War brings many negative and catastrophic impacts not just to the country, but to the people living in the country as well, which this paper
The Experience Of War Many authors have written about war themes, some extracts of the stories and poems that I have read and researched are The Upturned Face by Steven Crane .It is about a fictional war being fought in an imaginary Europe. Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell describes his senses and feeling of getting shot in the neck during battle. Exposure by Wilfred Owen,describes the horrors and reality of being in the trenches of the First World War. And The Making of Me by Robert Westall is about a shell-shocked grandfather who has the responsibility of looking after his grandchild.
The Reason for Going to War Since the beginning of the war on Iraq, over 8243 civilians, 11000 Iraqi soldiers and 642 Coalition soldiers have died. There has not been one day since a US soldier was killed and since the beginning of the occupation, 39750 bombs have been dropped and $117 billion dollars have been spent. And no weapons of mass destruction have been found.
Auxiliaries are just as unreliable and dangerous as the mercenaries, but they are loaned to a ruler from others. The most desirable troops are the natives, the citizens and subjects. Mixed troops are less desirable than fully native troops because they are a mixture of natives and mercenaries or auxiliaries. These descriptions are accompanied by examples to help the reader better understand the roles different types of troops served and how effective each type was for the rulers mentioned.
Loyalty or Nang (Ghayrat) is defined by two sets of normative practices: honorable actions in battle and proper defense of honor. Norms of battle includes rules about who may be attacked, e.g., not civilians, or the proper distribution of war spoils. Honor is given to those who e.g. show fighting skills. It is not unusual for women to engage in battle, although more often their role is to support the male fighters by displaying their head shawl (Paroanai) to spur on the fight. They also reject dishonorable fighters and reward honorable fighters with distinction and are determined differently depending on the community. The social organization of Nang and Qalang creates, among different kinds of honorable fighters. Among the former, where there is more social and economic equality, all warriors who participate equally in the fighting are all honorable. Among the Qalang groups, on the other hand, being an honorable fighter depends on one’s social and economic class: the Khans are the warlords commanding the group and are considered on par with the Nang warriors participating in attacks. (Ahmed:1976)