Has the nature of war changed substantially over the centuries, is it essentially the same it
ever was?
The history of human being is well familiar with the devastating wars and killings.
Civilizations collapsed as the result of the bloody wars. Millions of human beings had lost their
lives due to such atrocities. The pages of history are full of those destructive wars. The most
well-known ones such as the World War I and World War II witness the costly sacrifices of lives
and economies. The ongoing and never-ending wars sometimes leaves no room for optimism
that there would be one day that human beings would live in peace. Different theorists and
philosophers in history had proposed different mechanisms and doctrines in order to reduce
the conflicts that usually erupt among the societies.
However, they had not reduced the amount of the wars, in some cases, they had
accelerated the numbers of these wars. The wars are continuing. But in different forms and
shapes. Therefore, the question of whether or not the war nature has changed would be
difficult to answer since the changed took place in the character not the nature. This essay
explores how the nature of war has been the same.
Before jumping into the discussions of how the nature of war has not been changed
substantially, a brief of definition of the “nature of war” and “war” could be useful. Clausewitz
defines “war” as “act of force to compel our enemy to do our will”. In other words, it means
