What drives people to war?

This is the question which has baffled us for years. From prehistoric era to modern world, people have never stopped attacking one another.? Plundering, mass murder & total annihilation of one another has been a trend associated with homo sapiens for thousands of years. While the methods of war have changed over the years, the stimuli behind waging war have also grown to numerous varieties. ?Only going through each era may expose the core reason.

In the prehistory time, two basic needs stimulated the tribes to attack on each other. Food and shelter, which are now termed as economical & territorial gain. ?Once people started settling & started cultivation, civilizations began to form.? The two stimuli based on basic needs were not enough to wage a war. People had enough food & safe places for shelters. Population was lesser than the area available. Apparently there were no reasons left to attack another tribe or nation. Civilizations could now embrace prosperity without violence. Then there came an element which would make civilizations annihilate each other like never before. The religion.

Different religions found their way into human life in different civilizations across the world. Religion brought new ideology & life style. On one hand this element quenched the spiritual needs of people but on the other hand it became a stimulus of war. Wars were fought either to spread or to defend a certain dogma. Instances like ?Pharaoh ?s attack on Israelis in Egypt,? the massacre of Buddhist monks by Hindus in India; ?Romans? murder of Jesus?s? followers,? Meccans attack on ?Muslims of? Madina depicts the ?power? of this stimulus. ?Once these ideologies survived the attacks, the followers waged wars in the similar fashion on others. Jews , Christians, Hindus & Muslims fought for centuries killing millions of followers of one another. Crusades & Arab-Israel conflict are two prominent examples of the religion being as the bone of contention between nations of the world. The vibrancy of this element to fuel a war doesn?t seem to end very soon.

?However, wars can also be tied in with other reasons which cannot be ignored. ?Emergence of nation states in the last few centuries gave birth to another abstract entity. The Nationalism.? People felt proud & superior about their creed, ancestral background, historical achievements & land in which they lived. The pride ?and superiority complex cruised them towards war.? People of the same faith were at daggers drawn. Ironically, the dark side of nationalism was exposed by the most developed nations of the time. French fought British? for centuries before they together combated against Germany & allies in the world war one & two. Millions of soldiers sacrificed their lives without any hesitation for their nations. No one hesitated when nationalists like ?Masulini & Hitler sent their ?respective army to cut a swathe through Muslims of Libya & Jews in Germany. ?When the conscience? of Italians & Germans woke up in the mid of the 19th century, millions of people had been killed in vain. Blinded by superiority complex European ?cleaned? the Red Indians from their own land in North & South America. Similar killings have been across carried out in other parts of the world, too.

Some philosopher & scientists previously thought that the only way of stopping further wars was the invention of fatal? weapons. Fear of? the dreadful results caused by modern weapons could prove to be a barrier in the way of these stimuli.? Unfortunately it didn?t happen. With each invention the havoc was bigger in magnitude than before.? The number of people killed by guns, tanks, jets & bombs in one century is many times greater than the people killed in the entire history of humankind.??? Even today, all the stimuli, embellished with modern inventions, are still in action. Wars are being fought for fundamental essentials i.e. economic & territorial gain. ?American army is roaming in the streets of oil rich countries like Iraq & Libya while Russia is busy swallowing Ukranian lands. Based on religious ideology, Israelis & Palestinians have locked horns for decades while ISIS & Taliban have created havoc in many countries. Burmese army is expelling out thousands of Rhongiyas in the name of nationalism. Many other countries like India & Pakistan and South & North Korea are in the brink of war with each other.

Millions have been killed ever since Homo sapiens started life on earth. Mere lamenting this fact won?t stop the war in the future.? Lessons are needed to be learnt & measures are needed to be taken to avoid any kind of skirmishes let alone a full scale war. ?Every war ends on a dialogue table. This sequence is prevalent for centuries. It is the time to reverse?the sequence. .. Engr Yasir Ali Hamza, Madaklasht Chitral 28 Oct 2017

5 thoughts on “What drives people to war?

  1. Thanks Yasir for such an informative article. One more thing for creating war is drug or we can say war for the drug. Taliban government banned the growing of opium in Afghanistan, and they encourage people to grow wheat instead. There was a time when I was working with other volunteers against drug addiction in the border villages of Chitral. Our drug rehabilitation program was successful because of no more supply of opium from Afghanistan. The day, an old tower collapsed due to a so-called terror attack in New York City the western powerful army entered in Afghanistan. The drug dealers came into the power and people stopped growing wheat and continue growing opium in Afghanistan. Taliban government has gone, millions of people including Osama Bin Laden have been killed and Millions of people have been suffered but the drug business went up. The drug smuggling is in progress in the presence of Western Forces. It is a conspiracy if that war was War on Terror or War on Drug in Afghanistan?

    1. Thank you sir for your kind words. You have rightly pointed out that in the recent past drugs have also played a prominent role behind the scene to stimulate a war. It is sad story that the number of stimuli of wars has never stopped increasing from prehistoric era till date. With each passing era there emerges a new element. So it is easy to predict that , in addition to all the existing elements, many new elements may appear in the future which will instigate nations to annihilate each other like never before.

  2. Seriously, the total and only reason war exists is due to man’s heart – greed, envy, jealousy, selfishness, pride/ego…………….this is proven from earliest writings in God’s Holy Injeel. Religion has NOTHING to do with it. Simply the heart condition of each person that is from their creation….even the smallest child cries when in discomfort and will not stop crying until their “need” is relieved (this is pure selfishness not just crying for relief). Our only hope is to cry out to God to give us new hearts more like His that show only love…………..truly this is what the Injeel teaches.
    Genesis 4
    Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, ?I have acquired a man from the Lord.? Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

    So the Lord said to Cain, ?Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.?

    Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

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