Causes and impacts of war on the society
Introduction
Over the years war has been evidenced in most parts of the world, turning to be common among the individuals in the society. Thus it is mainly described as the conflicts between persons, ethnic groups, communities as well as nations whereby one party disagrees with the other party aiming to achieve their target by force. However, in most cases political situations have been pointed as the major key that leads to this wars evidenced, as a result, it calls for a need to create awareness on the circumstances and the impacts of war as most of the young generations do not understand the consequences associated with war across the world. The study focuses on the causes and the effect of war on the individuals in the society and the preventive measures that can be taken to mitigate or avoid wars in the future. Having much of the negative effects to human-like insecurity, injuries, loss of property, deaths and affects the country’s economic progress there is a need to create awareness among the individuals by pointing out the effects, causes and, measures. Thus, the study will be important to society at large in enhancing understanding by tracing the origin and the causes of wars over the years.
Body
When people talk of war, it is commonly traced to its origin to fourteen thousand years ago at the Mesolithic cemetery that gives the prehistoric warfare evidence as they were discovered. Quite a percentage of human skeletons that displayed that there was a violence that led to the death of the bearers of those skulls were displayed (James et al., 2006). A lot of wars have happened over the years since then. Many deaths have been witnessed due to famine and diseases caused by war and war itself. It is believed that before civilization in the societies, most of the individuals practised fighting and even considered it as a culture to starts wars with other societies expressing their power over the other party. The fights occurred regularly resulting in more damages as a result of the war in the society
Some of the deadliest wars that had ever been are World War II that is believed to have registered the highest death toll and most damages and it took place between 1939 and 1945. Whenever there is a call for war, there is always a reason behind it, some of these reasons that are believed to be the causes of war involved, the difference in religions, colonization, land disputes, countries aim to prove their superiority over other countries, when a county is seeking for revenge, boundaries disputes and many other reasons.
War may erupt between different religions, for instance, Muslims may fight against Christians, often their fights are always aimed to expel Islam and make the Muslim embrace Christianity (Lewis &Brian, 2017). In the same way, there may be conflict within the same religion, for example, the Catholics may fight against protestants, usually, their conflict may be about the leadership.
War may also arise where one country wants to take over another country’s wealth for their economic gain. In as much as the party initiating war may not put this in public, there is always an economic gain that is tied to most wars, maybe their opponents have some highly valued minerals or raw materials such as gold, they may initiate the war so that they may overtake their land and acquire forcefully the authority over that wealth, for instance, the Finish -Soviet war also referred to as, “The Winter War” which took place between 1939-1940 where, Stalin and Soviet army wanted to mine Nickel and Finland and when the Finnish refused, the Soviet Union called for war on the country.
There may be wars that are aimed to gain territory on another party’s land. A country may just decide that it needs more space for the construction of an economic infrastructure or more land for agriculture or any other purpose. When the two parties fail to reach an agreement concerning the boundaries extension or space for economic infrastructure, it calls for a war with the other party to take the space forcefully where a winning party in the war is declared as an owner of the land in conflict. An example is the American -Mexican war that was fought following the merging of Texas between 1846- 1848, with Mexico claiming Texas as their land. The Americans defeated the Mexicans in the war thus keeping Texas as one of their states.
A country may also decide to start a war with another country just to prove their superiority to their opponents. Trough nationalism individuals develop an attitude to care for their own identity as a member of a nation or a society affecting the actions that one has to take to protect their own country. Thus, based on the idea that when a country conquers another country it is glorious and gives them honour, “most wars are not fought for reasons of security or material interests but instead reflects a nation’s spirit,” writes Bainer, Garry and Vale in their book, Beyond Border War.
Desires to avenge or punish others for the wrongdoing also encourage war among the countries or the ethical groups aiming to protect their county or the party that an individual falls. In some cases, an individual is forced to even in pursuit to redress a grievance that had been done a while ago but had not been addressed well or when the offenders have failed to do as they promised in an agreement that had been reached in efforts to solve the same grievance. An instance of war that was aimed at vengeance is the occurrence of World War II were individually targeted to avenge the damages of World War I, taking an example of the rise of the socialist party of Nazi and Germany who eventual domination on the European continent were direct results of, “The treaty Versailles” creating the peace treatment ending world war I resulting to strict punishment on Germany in return.
There may also be serious disagreement in a country that may lead to Civil wars in that particular country. The disagreement may be as a result of disagreement among rulers or while deciding on who rules, the citizens right on the same or how the country should be run in a way that favours all or most citizen representatives. The wars may lead to a restructuring of the way ruling is done in a way that favours most people. An instance of civil war is the war that took place in Korea between 1950- 1953 and was fought between North Korea being supported by China and was supported primarily by the United States.
A country may declare war in pursuit to defend themselves against their aggressor thus defensive war. An instance is the USA conflict against Iraq that began in 2003 to present. The Americans invaded Iraq with claims that Iraq’s with the lead of their president Saddam Hussein was making weapons that were aimed at mass destruction, and this thus instilled fear to the neighbouring countries and suspected targets and the United States stepped up to prevent that.
In as much as the enforcement of war brings solutions to problems as most people may argue, there are a lot of negative effects that come with it. A lot of damages are done to the parties involved (Šmihula et al., 2011). To begin with, the economy of the parties involved, for instance, nations, drops. During wars, a lot of economic activities are stopped or disrupted due to the fears that are instilled in the people. They, therefore, opt not to open their business areas or even participate in business as usual.
In most cases, war may result in various challenges and effects among the individuals and the county at large affecting different sectors. Some of these effects include suspension of businesses both local and international for people involved due to fear of losing their goods during war registering losses. It affects the money generation method thus making people use their savings affecting the economic status. Diversion of money meant other functions are diverted thus affecting the budget as some of the countries may tend to fund the war channelling money from other sectors. War results in inflation affecting the economic status of countries facing the war, among other effects.
Moreover, a lot of destruction of infrastructure is done during wars. There may be the destruction of schools as infrastructure that may see the decline of education in a country. There may also be the destruction of roads or certain transportation routes as a result of baring the other party from accessing certain facilities thus making their lives harder. Further damages like the destruction of bridges may also be done to avoid the other party from crossing over and planning attacks on the latter.
There may also be a displacement of persons as a result of forced migration. People may be forced to leave their country to become slaves in the other party’s country, moreover, they may be given an ultimatum to vacate their lands and look for another place to reside and for fear of their lives and those of their loved ones, they may end up leaving just as they have been directed resulting to them being externally or internally displaced. The externally displaced are forced outside their borders and become refugees in another country or region and this is what has led to the existence of most of the refugee camps. The internally displaced become the physical effects of war that are usually encouraged by dislike for a specific ethnic group or a community or even religious group, as a result, these people end up not receiving the rights that refugees are supposed to receive while in camps and neither do they receive the protection under an international system.
In most cases, when political wars erupt, the government ends up being disrupted along with the structure of the government. A new regime or form of the ruling may be formed and put in place of the former. It is usually agreed upon by the two conflicting parties, this can be seen in the second Liberian civil war where rebels had to remove the current leader; Charles Taylor and with the help of the United nations they implemented a new democratic form of government that saw a fair ruling for all.
Cases of rape are also registered during wars; one party may decide to sexually abuse the other party’s women as a way to get back at them, the women, therefore, have to walk through with the guilt and shame of rape and as some society’s don’t take lightly the issue of rape, they may therefore not be in a position to report such cases. This is mostly seen when there is conflict over boundaries, whereby one party wants to overtake the other party’s boundary and rule over it, i.e. the wars that led to the colonization of most states. Moreover, women are affected emotionally, social and physical effects because of war, for instance, when their men are forcefully recruited to war, their family unit is disrupted and they have to step up and fill the gap left by the man thus they take up the roles that they are not used to this the social and physical torture. Also, it results in sexual violence and rape affecting women during the war as they are most affected.
Wars can, however, be prevented before they occur, some of how this can be done is communicating; when a serious issue occurs between two parties, whether it is between ethnic groups or countries or any other party, effective communication may prevent further measures that may, however, cause more damages than good from being imposed. People may also need to educate themselves on what causes wars and how negative or positive it may be and preventive measures that can be taken to avoid wars from taking place, by so doing, they may always fight or go against their leaders whenever they have intentions to start a war with any party.
Respect for one’s religious choice or sexuality or ideological differences and fight against prejudices may also help prevent wars. The citizens and the government of every country should respect ideological differences that they may receive from a part of a country’s citizens and not discriminate towards those people. Efforts have been made by the United Nations to encourage people to get educated as they believe that the prejudices go hand in hand with illiteracy. The greater understanding that is acquired from education may help limit wars that may be caused as a result of ideological difference or even prejudice of one’s ethnic group.
People should also learn to campaign against racism or other issues that may lead to civil wars in the countries that they live in. The children should be trained at an early age to consider everyone equal as they grow up to prevent more racial wars that may erupt in the future. “Stopping war” would need everyone to get to see each other as equals as the beginning to spot other people’s differences is the roots of many wars.
People can also organize nonviolent protests against war whenever there is a threat or a probability that a war might occur. Moreover, it is ideological for the government to reduce the military budget. A lot of money is spent on purchasing weapons systems that are hardly needed in military personnel or even in the homes for personal security.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is seen that wars that have been evidenced in most parts of the word and countries at large affect the individuals in various ways. Thus it has also been observed that they are different reasons that facilitate the individual. Thus, a lot of impacts have the long term effects that to recover and amend. Thus, through the study individual develops awareness on the causes, impact and the measures that can be taken reducing the risks that occur as well as the preventive measures that can be taken.
Works cited.
Baines, Gary F, et al. Beyond the Border War. Unisa Press, 2008.
James, Paul et al. Globalization and Violence, Vol. 3: Globalizing War and Intervention. London: Sage Publications, 2006
Lewis, Brian C. “Information Warfare”. Federation of American Scientists . Archived from the original on 17 June 1997. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
Šmihula, Daniel. The Use of Force in International Relations, p. 67, 2011