War is controversial, unfortunate, and certainly misunderstood; it is a transforming agent, a catalyst for change. Nonetheless, many people focus on war's negative consequences, while positive effects are downplayed. War is a necessary evil in the sense that it stabilizes population, encourages technological advances, and has a very high economic value. Without war, the overpopulation of the human race is inevitable. It is this reason that war is a useful tool by not only Mother Nature, but also humans themselves to institute population control.
Humans have engaged in war for thousands of years. The earliest recorded instance is circa 2700 BCE. Of course, the fighting extends much further back as this was near the advent of writing. Even Confucius observed "... war checks population growth" speaking in relation to what problems overcrowding would institute (Neurath 6). Tertullian, a Christian author circa 200 CE stated "...pestilence, famine, wars and earthquakes have come to be regarded as a blessing to overcrowded nations, since they serve to prune away at the luxuriant growth of the human race" (8). These two statements, separated by almost 700 years and a vast distance coincide on one major point: that war is a useful tool to govern overpopulation. The ramifications of overpopulation are so great, that it is being reported in multiple news agencies that a "Sixth Extinction" is underway, caused solely by the human's enthusiastic attempts at procreation and manipulation of Earth (Eldredge). In fact, just as population grows exponentially, so did the deaths resulting from war; a trend that continued up until the end of World War II, after which worldwide deaths from war decline dramatically and rest at around one million per ye...
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...al advancements in the terms of civil, medical, and defensive advancements. At the same time, it has a galvanizing effect on economy through not only new innovations, but a lower unemployment rate and higher per capita output. War has saved economies from disaster, promoted the welfare of health, and the quality of life for not just humans. War may be hell, and it may be wrong, but war is certainly necessary.
Works Cited
Kojima, Hideo. Metal Gear Solid 4.Konami Digital Entertainment. 2008. PlayStation3 BD-ROM
Neurath, Paul. From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back. New York: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 1994.
Eldredge, Niles. The Sixth Extinction. June 2001. 30 March 2010.
“The Manhattan Project.” Modern Marvels. Prod. Don Cambou and Sean Dash. The History Channel 4 Jun. 2002. Television.
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War is the bane of humanity’s existence, it is an indiscriminate killer, just as deadly as
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War is such a debatable topic of whether it is just to wage a war on our neighbours or invade a country.One thing is very clear there are consequence and a cost. Martin Luther once stated,“War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families”. This was exactly what did. War was not a fun game like what Jessie Pope described it as in her poem, ‘Who’s for the game’. What war did was it changed people and society. The war caused soldiers to suffer from PTSD, it left families to face the feeling of grief and it crippled the economy.
The lives and prosperity of millions of people depend on peace and, in turn, peace depends on treaties - fragile documents that must do more than end wars. Negotiations and peace treaties may lead to decades of cooperation during which disputes between nations are resolved without military action and economic cost, or may prolong or even intensify the grievances which provoked conflict in the first place. In 1996, as Canada and the United States celebrated their mutual boundary as the longest undefended border in the world, Greece and Turkey nearly came to blows over a rocky island so small it scarcely had space for a flagpole.1 Both territorial questions had been raised as issues in peace treaties. The Treaty of Ghent in 1815 set the framework for the resolution of Canadian-American territorial questions. The Treaty of Sevres in 1920, between the Sultan and the victorious Allies of World War I, dismantled the remnants of the Ottoman Empire and distributed its territories. Examination of the terms and consequences of the two treaties clearly establishes that a successful treaty must provide more than the absence of war.
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