The Godofwar.com name is gone (sold to Sony for a briefcase full of cash), but like war itself, the War Page lives on.
War is one of humanity's most important activities; the outcome of a war, or lack of outcome, determines the fate of nations, changes peoples' way of life, as well as changing the course of millions of individual lives, often in traumatic and unpleasant ways. I have to wonder if anyone has ever been made a better person by experiencing a war, but many people have lived better lives because their forefathers did. People who say that fighting, that war, never solves anything have studied history only selectively, if at all.
War is waste. Vast sums are spent on hardware that is sent out to be destroyed. Lives are spent freely to achieve short term goals that wouldn't be worth a single life on any scale but that of war's twisted economy. Sometimes lives are spent for no good reason at all, through accidents and mistakes. Innocents are slaughtered and productive lands laid waste and often even the winners are years recovering from their victory, if indeed they ever recover.
If it is so horrible, why then are there wars? Often enough, because someone miscalculated. Few nations go into a war expecting to lose, but at least one side nearly always loses. Wars are most likely in these modern times when the people making the policy decisions are not those who will be dying. Despots have known for centuries that a foreign enemy is a good way to rally the people and take their mind off unfortunate domestic considerations. And sometimes war can be made to pay for itself, with plunder and slaves, though it is rarely the populace as a whole that benefits. (Anyone who thinks such are a thing of the past need only look at what the USSR did in Germany, and to their German POWs, after WWII. Or at Iraq's behavior in Kuwait in more recent times.)
The problem with preventing wars is that it only takes one side to start one. If one nation makes demands on another, and threatens war if they are not met, the victim can either surrender or fight; there is no other option. Sometimes the weaker side will submit, but that rarely satisfies the aggressor. Sooner or later, he comes up against someone who would rather fight than give in. Given that aggressors will not typically pick on a nation they know can beat them, the best way to avoid a war is to be stronger than those who might threaten you, and adopt a peaceful policy so that you don't become the aggressor. "If you would have peace, be prepared for war."
Barbarians at the Gate is a piece I wrote immediately after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. I've fixed a couple of typos, but othewise this is exactly as I wrote it on September 14, 2001.
Afghanistan: The Ongoing Rebellion is an paper I wrote back in May, 1990 for a Revolution and Political Violence class I was auditing. It fills in some background on Afghanistan that may be useful to people, so I'm putting it up here. Aside from fixing a few typos it is as it was written many years ago. This was an interesting paper to write, in part because -- unlike most class required writing assignments -- this one had an upper limit on the page count. Fitting the modern history of Afghanistan into five double spaced pages was something of a challenge. I note that I was correct about the rebellion continuing, ignored, and that everyone would have been better off if our attention had not wandered from this remote place after the Russians left. But we can't be everywhere. Can we?
The 21st Century War is some of my thoughts on where we should go in pursuit of this war, and what it may mean. It was written in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and events have passed it by in some areas, but it has not aged too badly.
Third Generation Blitzkrieg is a few thoughts on the evolution of land combat doctine and technology over the past century.
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