War: what it does to us

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.