War:
what it does to us
“He who wishes to
fight must first count the cost. Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation
may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can
never come again into being; nor can the
dead ever be brought back to life.”
Sun Tzu,
writing in The Art of War
War
may be defined as a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on
between nations, states, or parties entailing violence on an extreme and vast
scale.
We have come a long way in perfecting our weapons of war. In the
stone-age people would probably have used stones; in medieval times bows and
arrows; swords graduating to guns, machine guns, sophisticated artillery in
modern times and today we have fabricated the ultimate weapon – the nuclear
bomb!
The Fallout of war is:
Ø
Loss of human life;
Ø
Wounded and Injured soldiers and civilians;
Ø
Loss of vital infrastructure that a country has to rebuild at a huge economic cost;
Ø
Damage to heritage buildings, and other cultural artifacts;
Ø
The acute problem
of refugees who seek asylum in other
countries where they are viewed as parasites on the economy and
snatchers of employment from locals.
Here it is worth noting the price
we citizens of nation states are paying in
preparing for war – in maintaining a war machinery or a WAR SYSTEM:
Financial Resources
The financial resources invested – or rather squandered! - in
preparing for war are colossal. The
global military expenditure is: USD 2 million plus per minute. On the other hand, 18,000 children die daily
in our global village due to malnutrition and lack of basic health care.
(UNICEF) If 90 school buses filled with kindergartners were to crash every day,
with no survivors, the world would take notice. But this is precisely what
happens every single day because of poor water, sanitation and hygiene. The
continuation of this suffering and loss of life contravenes the natural human
instinct to help in times of disaster. Imagine the horror of the world if a
major earthquake were to occur and people stood by and watched without
assisting the survivors! Yet every day, the equivalent of a major earthquake
killing over 30,000 young children occurs to a disturbingly muted response.
They die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the
scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes
these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.
In addition to the above is the non-productive expenditure incurred on standing armies, navy and
air force during peace time.
Human Resources
The human resources invested in Military Research and Development
(R & D). Many of the best minds in the past and present millennium have
been devoted to researching how to make increasingly better weapons of war to
destroy humankind. Human ingenuity has indeed been able to design the perfect
weapon; that is, our Nuclear Arsenal which can destroy the world several times
over in just a matter of a few hours and precipitate a nuclear winter lasting
for several centuries. One can hardly visualize a more gruesome way to utilize
(!) human talent, genius and endeavor!
Further, in preparing for war, there is loss of manpower during
military maneuvers as well as damage to crops.
Accidental Nuclear Disasters
The chances of accidental nuclear disaster have increased ever
since developing countries have started to manufacture nuclear arsenals. The
logic here is that these countries lack the technical know how as well as the
requisite finances for proper investment
in developing their nuclear arsenals leading to high risk factor of an accident
occurring.
Ecological Imbalance
Two major causes of environmental pollution today are:
Ø
The
radiation emanating from the testing of nuclear weapons;
Ø
Chemical waste
from military industries.
This link between the present ecological imbalance and the War
System is often overlooked.
