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Question: Are all out wars out of style or something!?
Are all out wars out of style or something!?
Seems like for the past dozen years or so the world has so many small tit for tat small skirmishes!. Don't get me wrong, hundreds of thousands of people in Africa have seen death as a result of these types of skirmishes!. But mostly, the battles around the world are relatively small compared to World War I and World War II or even the U!.S!. Civil War!. How come nations don't have big wars anymore!? They're quicker and the results are more definitive!. Why doesn't everyone say, "Screw this small crap, let's just have one big war and get it over with!." Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
The truth of the matter is that military technology has advanced to the point where there are only a few countires really capable of making the sort of war you seem to advocate!. Moreover, since these countries (The US and China, for sure!. Given enough lead time, the EU maybe or Russia) are all nuclear powers!. Nuclear armed opponents do not, histocially, fight major wars against one another!. They fight proxy wars, or against a client state or ally of the other big powers, but not direct conflict!. The reasons for this should be perfectly obvious!.

Moreover, even with some lead time to establish a wartime production level, modern warfare consumes ammo, fuel, equipment and men at an astonishing rate!. In the later 1980's, I read a fascinating review of war stocks!. The conclusions were that, if the Soviets and NATO had gone to war in Europe, the issue would either be decided in 5 weeks of fighting, or both sides would have to pause in place and await production to resupply them!. In other words, netiehr side had anything like the necessary ammunition, equipment or fuel stocks to allow for a prolonged conflict at the maximum tempo of operations!.

There may be one other cause of smaller conflicts!. he big boys really have only limited amounts to gain in conflicts, and their national survival is seldom if ever threatened!. The last truly great (in the sense of size) war was the Second World War, and the countries involved felt that the very survival of their nation was at stake, and so no effort was spared!. In the conflicts since, that really has not been true!. Korea, Vietnam, the First Gulf, the skirmishes in Africa and Central America, and the current fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and Georgia are not matters of national survival for the big boys involved!. They are matters of policy!.

So, there you have it!.
1!. Nuclear deterence
2!. The massive cost of making large scale war in modern terms
3!. The lack of critical necessity of making large scale war!.

Those things might change, after all!. India, Pakistan and China are all nuclear armed and are at odds with each other over Kashmir!. It's possible that something catasrophic could happen to trigger a full-out conflict!. Those countries are big enough to make the war major, but it would not likely draw in involvement fo the other big boys!.
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Nuclear weapons serve as a major deterrent to all-out campaigns!. also, technology has advanced warfare to the point to surgical accuracy (mostly) in order to shorten campaigning!.

All-out wars are costly and unpopular and most nations do not wish to engage in long conflicts!. When you can watch wars on cell phones, people lose their battle lust quick!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Its to costly and timely you know with the big neculear weapons cost alot of money to make and or buy that is why they are going the cheap rout

http://answers!.yahoo!.com/question/index;!.!.!. - anwser my question please please i beg of you !Www@QuestionHome@Com

You're absolutely right, war has 'gone out of style!.' This is a long-term result of the realization that war is not a 'glorious' thing!.

This started with the Napoleonic wars, and the Civil War; when more people died from disease than from anything else!. The trend accelerated in WWI, when the prime causes of death were things like trench mouth, some disease you caught while fighting and died from years later, or even dyssentry!. (Really bad diaharrea) Even worse came from the Vietnam war, when soldiers came back with STDs or drug habits!.

As a result of the above, war was no longer 'glorious!.' Before that, if you were a soldier, going off to battle was almost like trying out for the football team - Something fun you'd do with the guys, you'd probably survive it, and if you'd won, you'd get loud hurrahs when you came back!.

But, the above wars showed how UGLY war really was, so people avoided it, and even set goals of permanent peace!.

(Nuclear war, too, meant instead of direct wars between countries, countries would fight 'wars by proxy' - eg, Russia and the US could not fight each other directly, because a nuclear war would be too awful, so fought each other thru the Vietnam war!.)Www@QuestionHome@Com