Happy War of 1812 Day.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Oberon

The entire era was a mess, when you look at Europe and the fracturing and rebuilding of nations that took place, and then onwards to the American Civil War and eventually the tensions that broke into World War One.

One war leads to another then by what you say because the way WWI ended it only lead into WWII.As long as nations or even groups feel a threat to their hegemony they will wind up in a war sooner or later seems to me.How many wars occur in just one life time too many to count on all your fingers and toes.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

One war leads to another then by what you say because the way WWI ended it only lead into WWII.As long as nations or even groups feel a threat to their hegemony they will wind up in a war sooner or later seems to me.How many wars occur in just one life time too many to count on all your fingers and toes.

Spot on, if you want to nail the actual start of it all...well...you'd probably have to go back to Roman times, if not earlier. Start of human history perhaps, war is something we excel at, and is a double edged sword (pardon the pun).

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Spot on, if you want to nail the actual start of it all...well...you'd probably have to go back to Roman times, if not earlier. Start of human history perhaps, war is something we excel at, and is a double edged sword (pardon the pun).

I would say on a large scale at least to the Greeks and Persians.

[August]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I would say on a large scale at least to the Greeks and Persians.

It goes back much further than that. War has been a part of the human experience since forever.

[Stealhead]

I am aware of that which is why I said large scale the "stone age" type fighting more than likely mostly consisted of small skirmishes between groups you need an organized nation state to really have a large army.The Egyptians and Babylonians where the first to have large some what organized armies but they only fought mostly regional battles.The Greeks and the Persians where the first to have large armies that consisted at least partly of full time professionals and also to fight major conflicts that lasted years even decades.

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by August

It goes back much further than that. War has been a part of the human experience since forever.

Since humans started cultivating land. Somehow when we were hunter-gatherers there was enough land and food, but when we started growing our own food wars arose.

[Stealhead]

I think before that what happens when two opposing hunter-gatherers wind up competing for the same resources? They shook hands? I doubt it.Now if one guy has fish and you have venison you will trade if you both want venison someone is getting an atl atl arrow to the face.

The groups that took longer to become cultivators(or that never did) are the ones that lost out in the long run because the societies that could produce their on food rather than forage where able to have full time warriors and full time farmers the hunter-gatherers they lacked this luxury so the hunter-gatherers got dominated by the farmers.

Ever read "Guns,Germs and Steal"?It is a very interesting book I used to discus this book with others in the military that had read it the author goes into great detail about this topic.For the hunter-gatherers combat was to be avoided if at all possible for the cultivators they where able to develop more advanced societies faster and therefore armies.Cultivation of food means that you produce an abundance of it which means that you can feed an army but you keep wanting more and more dominate those that are inferior get more land to cultivate build a bigger army.Of course it is a theory but it makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I think before that what happens when two opposing hunter-gatherers wind up competing for the same resources? They shook hands? I doubt it.

Probibly killed eachother. Problem is defining when two groups of men fighting formed from a forrest brawl into a war. Most likely when they started fighting so they held a teritory and not just one dead animal

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Betonov

Since humans started cultivating land. Somehow when we were hunter-gatherers there was enough land and food, but when we started growing our own food wars arose.

It has a lot to do with the fact that people (let's call them "Group A") settled and started storing food instead of just consuming it and wandering in search for it. Then the other people ("Group B") figured out that there is lots of food in one place and that it might be easier to steal it from there.

So then Group A found out they need to be more organized to defend their food (and other stuff, the settlements were pretty obvious targets.) And Group B imagined they need to be more organized to have a chance against organized defense. And it went on and on.