IS WAR NECESSARY?
No doubt war is an evil, the greatest catastrophe that befalls human beings. It brings death and destruction, disease and starvation, poverty and ran in its sake. One has only to look back to the havoc that was wrought in various countries not many years ago, in order to estimate the destructive effects of war. A particularly disturbing side of modern war is that they send to become global so that they may engulf the entire world. But here are people who consider war as something that bring out the best in man, but this does not alter the fact that war is a terrible, dreadful calamity. This is especially so now that a man will now be fought with atom bombs.
Some people say war is necessary. A glance at the past history will tell that war has been a recurrent phenomenon in the history of nations. No period in world history has been all types long and short. In view of this it seems futile talk of permanent and everlasting peace or to make plans for the establishment of internal peace. We have had advocates of non violence and the theory of the brotherhood of man. We have had the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi. But inspite of that, weapons have always been and, military force has always been employed, clashes of arms have always accrued, war has always been waged. War has in died been such a marked feature of every age and period that it has come to be regarded as part of the normal life of nations. Machiavelli, the author of the well known book “The prince” defined peace an interval between two wars. Mostse, the famous German field marshal, declared war to be part of the God’s world order. Poets and prophets have dreamt of a millennium, UN Utopia in which war will not exist and eternal peace will reign on earth. But these dreams not have been fulfilled. After the Great War of 1914-1918 it was thought that these would be no war for long time to come and an institution called the League of Nations was founded as a safeguard against the outbreak of war. The occurrence of another war (1939-45), however conclusively proved that to think of an unbroken peace is to be unrealistic and that no Institution or Assembly can ever ensure the permanence of peace. The League of Nations collapsed completely under the tensions and stresses created by Hitler. The UNO with all the good work that has been doing is not proving as effective as war desired. A large number of wars, the most recent ones being in one in Vietnam, other between India and Pakistan, Indo-China, Iran-Iraq or Arab-Israel war, have been fought despite the U.N.
The fact of real matter is that fighting is a natural instinct in man. When individuals cannot live always in peace, it is indeed, too much to expert so many nations to have in a state of eternal peace. Besides, there will always be wide difference of opinion between various Nations, different angles of looking at the matter that have an international importance, radical differences in policy and ideology and these cannot be settled my mere discussion, so resort to war becomes necessary in such circumstances. Before the outbreak of World War II for instance, the spread of communism in Russia created distrust and suspicion in Europe, democracy was an eye sore to Nazi Germany, British conservatives were apprehensive of the possibility of Britain going communist. In short, the political ideology of one country being abhorrent to another, times were certainly not conducive to the contrivance of peace. Add to all this traditional enmities between nations and international disharmony that have their roots in past history.
It also appears that if peace was to continue for a long period, people would become sick of the monotony of life would seek war for a change. Man is a highly dynamic creature and it seems “that he cannot remain contented merely with works of peace. The cultivation of arts, the development of material comforts, the extension of knowledge, the means and appliances of a happy life. He wants something thrilling and full of excitement and he fights in order to get an out let for his accumulated energy. It must be admitted; too that war has its good side. It spurs men to heroism and self sacrifice. It is an incentive to scientific research and development. War is obviously an escape from the lethargy of peace.