The question of "why we fight wars" is addressed by George Hageman- Military History Podcast- Philosophy of War 1 & 2.

http://militaryhistorypodcast.blogspot.com/2008/03/philosophy-of-war-1.html

http://militaryhistorypodcast.blogspot.com/2008/04/philosophy-of-war-2.html

"
Lawrence Keeley, "90-95% societies engage in war". What compels homo sapiens to kill each other?

War is Rational:
Sun Tzu- political struggles eventually lead to conflict. Clausewitz- extended this "war is a mere continuation of policy by other means". Machiavelli completed this entire line of thought by saying that war was the most efficient means of attaining any political goal.

War is Inevitable:
Hobbes- humans inherently violent. Raymond Dart and Robert Ardrey found a scientific basis for this by claiming that homo sapiens became the dominant humanoid through their martial prowess (and we have kept this prowess ever since). Another group of philosophers attributes reckless aggression by testosterone in males.

Sun Tzu's Art of War
Clausewitz's On War
Machiavelli's The Prince
Mao's Quotations
Hobbes' Leviathan

War is Necessary:
Aristotle- Nicomachean Ethics- "we fight war so that we may live in peace". Echoes famous thinkers including Marx (an advocate of a final proletarian revolution in order to establish a worker's paradise) and Zoroaster (the first monotheist to discuss the final battle of judgment between good and evil).

War is Logical:
Using Darwin's logic, mankind continues to fight wars because it is the means through which our species survives. Thomas Malthus adapted this into a population argument, stating that humans fight wars in order to keep populations small and manageable. Samuel Huntington took this one step further by saying that war negates massive youth bulges. Lastly, John Nash (the economist) proved, through game theory, that war is a more logical choice than peace.

War is Accidental:
AJP Taylor- all wars are unintended escalations of smaller conflicts. Warmongering is neither inherent nor unavoidable. Taylor's ideas link closely to the pacifistic ideas of Tolstoy and Gandhi.

Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
Communist Manifesto by Marx
Holy Avesta, Holy Bible, Holy Qur'an
Origin of Species by Darwin
An Essay on the Principle of Population by Malthus
Environmental Science by Richard Wright
Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington
"

The following may be of interest:

http://en.unesco.org/courier/may-1985/why-war-letter-albert-einstein-sigmund-freud

AJP Taylor (mentioned above), in his ground-breaking book 'The Origins of the Second World War', tries, and in my view succeeds, in showing that Hitler did not want to fight a war against Britain or France. In effect the war was an error caused by misunderstanding and mistrust.

Very few wars are caused by deliberate aggression. Mostly the combatants want to avoid war but stumble into it because of errors in perceptions and fear of the other.

The biggest problem is that potential adversaries mistrust the motives and intentions of their eventual opponent. It is well accepted that WW1 was a war where almost none of the combatants want to fight. But they equally felt that they couldn't be seen to be weak in the face of what they saw as provocations.

It is often felt that wars are about disputes over resources but this is rarely true. But it is often about the fear of one side or both that the other craves resources or that resources will be withheld.

Avoiding war is about ensuring that the other side doesn't misunderstand our position. WW2 occurred because the democracies failed to make it clear at which point they would fight.

So the problem with the Afghanistan debacle is that it sends messages to the CCP and the Islamists which may not be true. At this point I would expect that they feel the west is a paper tiger, unwilling to defend its interests. And with the current regime in Washington, that's probably true. But it won't always be true and its likely they, or we, won't recognise the cut-off point.

The legacy of 9/11:

http://washingtonpost.com/magazine/interactive/2021/how-911-changed-tv-art-sports-education-more/

Keep Islam from becoming a force in Australia, we already have to many Muslims, and the vast majority will support Islamic extremists when the time comes.

Expect warfare on our streets in the future.

Is Mise,

And that is precisely why we need strong
gun laws in this country.