I think few people like to go to war. (Correct me, if I'm wrong.) But wars happen non-the-less. What do you think why is that so? Who wants war and is able to force or convince others to go to war against their intentions for peace?
Or is there a "natural law" that describes a mechanism that war has to happen against all intentions?
If we know the mechanisms and/or plots of the warmongers, can we stop them?
I agree that few people actually like to go to war, although there might be some aspects of life which might be worse than war. Or it might be just be a case of simple human stubbornness.
As one example, the American Revolutionary War could have been avoided if either side simply gave in, but that obviously was not going to happen. Same for the War of 1812.
The Mexican War of 1845-1848 was similar in that both sides claimed a disputed territory in Texas, and the U.S. also wanted other territories in what was then northern Mexico (CA, NV, UT, CO, AZ, NM).
There were other situations where the U.S. was eying certain parcels of land and was able to get it through treaty, such as the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France, the acquisition of Florida from Spain in 1819, and various agreements with Britain over the border with Canada, including Oregon Country in which there was a popular slogan of "54°40' or Fight!" We didn't get 54°40', nor did we fight, but that slogan encapsulates just how easy it is for people to advocate for war over land. Of course, around the same time, we were at war with Mexico over the territories I mentioned above. Perhaps Mexico was considered an easier target than Britain would have been at the time.
Sadly, that's oftentimes one of the reasons for war, if a government sees low-hanging fruit or "easy pickings," they might go for it, hoping they can get away with it. No one would start a war if they knew they were going to lose. They start wars thinking they're going to win.
It might have been like that with Austria in 1914, thinking that Serbia was an easy target. Or in 1939, Germany might have thought the same about Poland, while ostensibly wanting to make peace with Britain and France. Both wars started with the larger powers thinking they were going to have an easy time of it, yet they somehow didn't expect that other countries would intervene and come to their aid.
Or, in the case of the U.S. Civil War, at the beginning, they weren't expecting it to be a very large fight or that it would last for very long. People were apparently going into the war without realizing what it was going to be.
The Korean War was caused by the major powers when they agreed to divide up that country, which was a terrible misfortune to befall Korea through no fault of their own. That was just plain stupidity, related to an overall stupidity known as the Cold War.
The Cold War was a decades-long struggle on multiple fronts, involving hot wars (such as in Korea and Vietnam), as well as covert subterfuge, wars-by-proxy, puppet governments, etc.
In terms of the various wars and "police actions" we've been dealing with on that level, I think it's the result of the general collapse of European global hegemony which occurred during and after WW2. The Western Allies were losing control over their overseas empires because they were too exhausted and spent, leaving a power vacuum which the US and Soviets were struggling to fill. It was an ideological war as much as anything else, since the US and USSR weren't technically fighting over colonies. Both claimed to be supporting the "independence" of these various countries which became pawns in the larger Cold War. In the process, we've managed to arm and equip whichever local leader we considered friendly to our interests, whether it was the Shah in Iran, Pinochet in Chile, or various other puppet tinpot dictators all across the world.
Of course, there are those who don't like these hegemonic powers and what they're doing to their countries, so they fight back and justify it as national liberation or self-defense. Typically, the U.S. response would be to brand them as "communists" (even if they weren't) and oppose them on the basis of preserving "freedom" and "democracy" and fighting "Soviet expansionism."
It's still kind of the same thing nowadays, even though the Cold War is technically over (more or less). The ideological aspects are not as important as they once were, or at least it's not same epic struggle between communism and capitalism. Nor is it some large scale global conflict between the Allies and the Axis, even as much as they would play up the idea of the "Axis of Evil."
But as bad as it may seem, it's not as bad as it used to be. I think a lot of national governments have matured to some degree - or at least they've taken a more realistic view on world affairs. No one seems hellbent on any "empire building" or crazy enough to launch an all-out war - especially if it involves one of the nuclear powers. The prospect of all-out nuclear war has had more of a sobering and restrained approach, rather than the "54°40' or fight" attitude that people once had. Even the weapons used in WW2 gave many pause over the utter devastation wrought by modern weapons of war.
But there are still smaller wars and internal upheavals cropping up around the world. As long as they can be contained and kept from spreading or escalating into much larger wars, then we should be okay. But that requires international cooperation and a certain level of geopolitical responsibility and statesmanship, but therein lies the problem.
