Sam Smith - The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which seems so out of sync with rationality even for the Russians, may be a sign that war is not what it used to be. And it's not the only one. The latest efforts by America, which spends over $700 billion a year for its military, left not only the Afghan failure but even an Army report admitting that only Iran won the Iraq war.
In fact, out of the ten most deadly wars in history, five of them were in last century and two in the 14th. There have been none of these big wars in 76 years.
This raises the question besides the obvious moral one: does war work anymore? And some other questions: has nuclear bomb capability made war far less attractive? What about the increased available arms for citizens such as in Ukraine? What about the effect of warfare, win or lose, on the financial operations of the involved countries? What has been the effect of potential cyber attacks on countries contemplating battle?
Clearly war is not what it used to be but one hears little discussion of the matter based on such current factors. It would be a useful job for the media and academia to pay a lot more attention to.
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