General Question

edimarco93's avatar

What are the general causes of war?

Asked by edimarco93 (78points) February 12th, 2011

what are the general causes of war?
i know religion is one, but what else?
think in historic wars and future wars

thank you for your responses!

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10 Answers

ragingloli's avatar

Religion
Economics
Politics

Jay484's avatar

well what i can think of is M.A.I.N casues of WWI. i still think these are some of the causes of war today
Militarism
Alliances
Imperialism
Nationalism

thorninmud's avatar

War is the extreme manifestation of tribalism, “us” vs. “them”.

As social animals, we as individuals have a tendency to identify with some group. That group can be defined by many factors: genetics, ideology, geography, economic interests, etc. But however it’s defined, we come to see our “tribe” as an extension of ourselves. the limits of our tribe demarcate where “self” ends and “other” begins.

Whenever that tribal self comes under threat from some other tribe, we want to see our tribe come out on top (this is the drive that we ritualize in spectator sports). When we come to think that the threat actually puts the survival of our tribe in danger, we resort to war.

marinelife's avatar

Natural Resources (water, oil, diamonds, gold).

filmfann's avatar

Let’s not leave out Greed (Iraq’s attack on Kuwait is one example).

TexasDude's avatar

Entangling alliances.

Mamradpivo's avatar

Greed. Envy. Crazy old men in the sky.

incendiary_dan's avatar

Empire. War did not exist on any real scale until complex hierarchal empires were formed as a means to exploit the ever-widening “protectorate” in order to maintain cities, like Rome constantly expanding to have ever-wider inputs of grain and weapons.

Add a hefty dose of ideologies that tell people they’re the chosen people (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Capitalism, Communism, etc.) and ruthless leaders willing to exploit that, and you have quite the recipe for war.

Buttonstc's avatar

It may take the form of power grabs, land grabs or conquest under the cover some professed ideology (ie: the Crusades) but the bottom line to all of them is simple greed (for either power, wealth or both).

mattbrowne's avatar

Violent language.

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