The problem with ending war isn't the tendency to aggression. It's that war makes a TON of money for unscrupulous people - the war profiteers we used to sneer at as hardly human. In the last half decade these lowlifes have become enormously wealthy, and even something to admire among some people, so it's even harder to end the idea of "war" now. Even with the lower body count, we will never stop making war until IT stops making MONEY.

If you want to stop war, remove the profit motive. Otherwise hunker down, because it is definitely not something we're giving up. We're primates, remember - killing is in our blood.

If war is caused by profits, why do non-capitalist states and primitive societies go to war so often and kill so many more people?

We're primates, remember - killing is in our blood.

I agree with you there... but that contradicts your previous statement. Wars are about power, they are no different from the one chimps fight over territory in the jungle. As long as space and resources are limiting... there will always be war. As long as there is power to be gained, there will be war, we should just be happy that the current atmosphere prevents large world conflicts.

War is decidedly non-lucrative, and I recommend you peruse a copy of Paul Kennedy's the Rise and Fall of Great Powers.

Great power is built by wealth and strength of balance sheet.

It may not be lucrative to everyone, but it is to those who stand to profit from it. And it is to the nation that profits from others being weaker and subservient. The wars of colonization certainly profited the Europeans for quite some time.

Split-S:

We're primates, remember - killing is in our blood.

So does that make the Swiss, the Swedes, and the Irish non-primates? I'd be interested in hearing about this evolutionary kink...

Split-S:

we should just be happy that the current atmosphere prevents large world conflicts.

Give it a decade or two.

Swedes, Irish and even the Swiss are no strangers to war and murder. Anyway, while primates can be aggressive creatures they aren't slaughtering each other most of the time. Anyway, the capacity to do violence in support of one's own self-interest can be found in deer, sheep and bunny rabbits.

Ah yes, but concept of the capacity to do violence is a lot different to the idea that warfare is in out blood, which makes it a biological imperative. If that were the case, then neutral nations could not possibly exist.

Sweden was neutral in WWII but it has fought wars (nearly 30 of them from 1500 AD to 1800 AD. And... Sweden helped the invasion of Norway by letting the Nazis use their railways, they also supplied the Nazis with materials to fuel their war machine, so indirectly they (Sweden) was responsible for many deaths even though they never fired a shot. They also profited from the war via this trade proving that you don't have to fight in a war to profit from one.

The need for competition, power and enemies is what is in our blood. War is sometimes the consequence of this part of our nature. This is why we are never in a state of continuous war nor a state of continuous peace. It is about balance. Look at our novels, poems and films from Homer to George Lucus and Steven Spielberg, we love conflict, we love a villain, and we love war... somewhere deep inside no one truly wants a world where there are no more battles, our track-record as well as our stories and art reveal that truth.

TheyCallMeBruce:

If war is caused by profits, why do non-capitalist states and primitive societies go to war so often and kill so many more people?

Profits motivate non-capitalists states and primitive socities.

I'm sure Iran makes money selling arms to Hama's.