Talk:List of wars

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[edit] War of 1812 desc

I am inclined to query the one line description of the War of 1812 as a continuation of the War of Independence. As many histories written by both Britons and Americans acknowledge, the war was fought over issues which had been resolved before hostilities broke out. The resulting hot blood may have inclined the Americans to set the conquest of Canada as a war aim and the British to attempt to promote the secession of New England, but the distinction between the conflicts seems more comparable to that between the two World Wars than that between successive French and Indian Wars. --Alan Peakall 16:35 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

[edit] Marathon date

The date given for the Battle of Marathon here (491 BC) is out of sorts with the dates given on the Battle of Marathon page. To my knowledge, the battle itself took place in 490 BC, while the Persian campaign against Athens began in 492 BC. Does anyone have a source for a different dating? And, if so, how do we want to standardize this? Justin Bacon 04:59, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

[edit] War on Terrorism

Besides narrow-minded political agendas, is there a legitimate reason not to mention the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as campaigns/operations/theaters of the War on Terrorism?

You're kidding right?
  1. The "War on Terrorism" is mostly an (IMO cheap) political slogan and it is too vague to refer to any specific action. It's more like a government policy. Compare it to the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs. Anyway, with the possible exception of Afghanistan, it's doubtful it's supposed to refer to any "real" wars.
  2. The official reason of going to war in Iraq were weapons of mass destruction. It's my opinion that having the guts to retroactively frame the raison d'etre in terms of "fighting terror" and especially doing it so soon are on par with the worst forms of historical revisionism. If however the "War on Terrorism" connection is supposed to refer to the current post-war occupation, then see the next point.
  3. This is a list of wars, nothing more. If a case is to be made of considering if and when the wars became part of such a campaign the pros and cons should be made in the articles about the wars themselves. This article is definitely not the place to do this.
I *will* resist any attempt to put this blatant NPOV violation back in. -- Dissident 22:06, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

How about having a reference somewhere (the See Also section?) to the category War on someting. The term "war" does have alternative sense of "a struggle against something", so it the expressions like War on Terrorism and War on Poverty are valid even if possibly not sound.-- Flambergius 16:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tables, Tables, Tables

The table format seems to me completely unnecessary, and clutters up when editing. Why is it there? Can we get rid of it? Wondering simply, -- Infrogmation 17:40, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes! I've wanted to remove the table for a long time myself... :) -- Jniemenmaa 10:39, 30 Sep 2003 (UTC)


I was wondering if the number of casualties caused by each war could be included? -- Timwhit

[edit] Afghan Civil War

Does anyone have definitive years for the "Afghan Civil War"? It was previously listed as between 1979-1989, which are the years for the Soviet-Afghan War, so I replaced it. It seems that civil war has been on and off over the past two or three decades, so listing it here in one place might be problematic. --Minesweeper 08:08, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Haiti Civil War?

Has there really been one in 2004? It's unrest, certainly, and a fine line. Mark Richards 20:16, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] How to define War?

This seems to be problematic. Especially many ethnic and/or political conflicts are often difficult to categorize as wars or even civil wars. For example Israel-Palestinian conflict was removed because its definition as real war from NPOV is often disputed. (Especially if it is referred as Palestinian Intifada.) Personally I would classify it as war, althought this propably doesn't fit to "official" definition. This also leads to dispute about other ethnical and political conflicts that do not always fall to category of war in its very essential meaning.

Situation in Chechenya seems to be somehow similiar as in Palestine. Russia officially declares it as a camapign against terrorism, but Chechen rebels see it as a struggle for Independent Chechenya. Also many armed conflicts classified here as civil wars are not continous armed struggle, but series of ethnic or political conflicts between different opponents. This includes political unrest in Haiti, as mentioned above, but also "Civil wars" in Sri Lanka, Colombia, Algeria and Zapatista revolution in Mexico.

I would suggest a separate paragraph (or page) for those armed conflicts that can not clearly be defined as wars.

--Kulkuri 13:08, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] The Empire?

I noticed this line in the sixteenth century:

1590 - 1606 "Long War" between the Empire and the Turks

Perhaps somebody could specify which nation is meant by "the Empire."

Most propably this is just a typo. Must mean Habsburgs empire in Austria. Treaty of Zsitva-Torok ended conflict in Hungary between Austria and Ottoman Turks,--Kulkuri 09:32, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Yet Another Poll

This poll is closed. I will take out the taxoboxes, as per consensus, 2 for, 5 against. --Merovingian✍Talk 02:15, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

Merovingian has started the War Series Box (see Macedonian Wars for an example). Do we need this Series?

Yes

  1. It can grow as the list does. --Merovingian✍Talk 02:46, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)
  2. Stan 12:32, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC), assuming redesign to be per-country

No

  1. Wars generally do not follow each other in succession like (for example) monarchs or other political offices, which is what these boxes are usually used for. The boxes are unhelpful and possibly misleading. Adam Bishop 03:31, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  2. - SimonP 03:38, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)
  3. Jao 08:32, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC) (see comment below)
  4. I don't see how you can have a coherent chronology of wars. A taxobox-like format might be useful though, with stuff like "major participants" and "subconflicts"... just trying to throw out alternative ideas. Yath 04:02, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  5. What Yath said. Neutrality 04:41, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Discussion

  • The best example of why this is a bad idea is that you have the Persian Wars following directly after the Trojan War. I can't think of any way that could possibly be correct, except that they happen to follow each other on the List of wars page. As an aside, a few of the boxes had the wrong dates...I fixed it, but just be careful with that, I guess. Adam Bishop
  • There is no clear way to define what the previous war was. For instance what would be the conflict before the Gulf War? It could it be Vietnam or Grenada? But for Iraq it would be the Iran-Iraq War, while it would be the Falklands for the UK and the Korean War for Canada. Or should it be the completely unrelated separation of Slovenia from Yugoslavia as it was previous chronologically? - SimonP
    • Perhaps one could have separate "Wars of <country>" series? It would still not be easy, but it could be interesting to be able to browse these. The present "Wars in history" is in any case impossible. Get rid of it. -- Jao 09:01, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
A global sequential list is simply not workable in a world where dozens of different wars are going on simultaneously, but a per-country boxes are both meaningful and useful, so I'd vote for that. Stan 12:32, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Truces

I noticed that some of the wars listed (the civil war in Cote d'Ivoire and the Congo) are presently held at a truce. I wonder if we should note that in the list of current wars? I think it would be premature to say that they are over, but, we should at least give them the credit of having stopped broad military violence. Adam Faanes 02:09, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Israeli-Palestinian conflict

I do not see why this has been removed. It's entirely in line with the other list members (there are other "conflicts" listed that aren't inter-state). The individual entry doesn't call it a war, but its inclusion here allows that POV also. Really, anyone looking at the list would expect to see the two "intifadas" mentioned.

zoney ███ talk 14:51, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I see your point. Anyway definition is bit blurry here, and as the whole Arab-Israel conflict is heavily disputed it is better not to keep it on the list. I even added both Intifadas myself to list earlier, but they were removed by other users because of NPOV. You are anyway right that they should be mentioned, so I added links to Arab-Israel conflict below the list of actual wars.--Kulkuri 20:30, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wars of the Three Kingdoms

I have changed the Category 1639 -1652 English Civil War to Wars of the Three Kingdoms as this definition (which is now quite popular amongst historians) better describes the series of conflicts that occured accross the whole of the British Isles, with the categories of First and Second Civil Wars still retained under this heading.

[edit] Fictional wars

The idea that events where elves, hobbits and robots are killed equates in any way to real people losing real lives is quite sickening. I have moved all the fictional wars to the already extant List of fictional wars. MeltBanana 14:27, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ancient era

I think Ancient era would be better then Era of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, especially given that even now this section has wars in China, for example. Therefore I am changing the title. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:51, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Also, since The end of ancient history is A.D. 476 (the fall of the Western Roman Empire) I am moving 533 - 534 Vandal Wars to Middle Ages section. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:54, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On a related note, would it be possible to extend the list earlier in history, to include the wars of ancient Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia, and China? I know there are some objectivity issues here, which is why two biblical battles are on the List of fictional battles, but I feel this could be helped by judicious attribution. If this is felt to be an appropriate addition, I'd be happy to have a go at it myself. AlexTiefling 15:52, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] European concentric

This list is European concentric (as is the List of military commanders). For example periods after such things as "Middle Ages" or the "Age of Rifles" makes the assumption that these events occurred world wide which is not true. As this list expands there are going to be more and more exceptions to this. For example wars in the Far East particularly including Japan. Wars in the Middle Americas before the arrival of Europeans. Early Zulu Wars when the Zulu were ruled by Shaka, in which up to 2 million people died in the Mfecane and not a gun to be seen!

There are other problems with names like "Age of Rilfes" as they stand at the moment becuause the transition from one to another was gradual and not universal. people were killed by shot in the 100 years war, Americans used rifles in the "American war of independece." The list would be better done with major heading by cronology not names of ages. Philip Baird Shearer

Personally, I don't see a problem with the names of those periods. It gives an idea of where technology was for a majority of the wars. Besides, I don't see a deluge of non-European wars in either the Middle Ages or Age of Rifles. If those ages are removed, then I would suggest removing as a categories 1) the World War since the Chaco War, Irish Civil War, Anglo-Irish War and Russo-Japanese War had nothing to do with the two World Wars; 2) the Cold war since Mau Mau Uprising, Falklands War and Football War had nothing to do the Cold War (I could have added even more wars in either category that have little to nothing to do with either era but I think I made my point). Of course, it's asinine to suggest such a thing.
As for the list being too "European concentric", stop whining and/or being lazy and add the Asian, African, etc wars to the list. Heck, that's what I've been doing.Lokifer 04:26, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't miss the period names, year ranges alone are good enough for grouping and quick-clicking from TOC. If I don't know what "Age of Rifles" means, I won't know if I want to click to it, but if I do know what it means, then I also know its approximate year range and will just click to that. So the period names are colorful but unnecessary. Stan 05:06, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Year ranges sound fine to me. Lokifer 08:00, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Classification : Europa, North America, South America, Africa, Asia

I added this classification to the "Area of Rifles", because otherwise it's really no clear... I don't know all the wars which are in this list, so I didn't it, but I think that should be really better with a classification like that.

(Anonymous note)


What language is 'Europa'? Why have you applied this classification to this era particularly? I prefer to see this list as being strictly chronological, rather than regional, especially as the era you've chosen saw the beginning of serious conflict across several continents simultaneously. I'd definitely prefer to see this revert to its original format. AlexTiefling 12:54, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] List of Old Wars

I don't have a problem with the list being split. As stated, it's for the sake of the size of the article. I do have one question though. Since the cut-off is at 1000 AD, should we include wars which begin prior to 1000 AD, but end after 1000 AD to this list? For example, the list of old wars has the Spanish Reconquista with the dates starting 718 and ending 1492. Shouldn't this be included on both lists, since it concluded after 1000 AD? Maybe in a note? Just asking. Lokifer 22:44, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What I would like to suggest is splitting this article like List of Battles, with every sublist for certain centuries as separate article, rather than taking away one or two parts of current list. If there is no objections I will do this soon. --Kulkuri 16:19, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why divide articles?

Why is it necessary to have List of wars 1900–1944, List of wars 1945–1989, and List of wars 1990–2002 in separate pages? They're not that long, and it would be much more convenient to have them all on one page. I propose they be merged into one page where we can have all the wars of the 20th century. Coffee 19:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] World wars

The List of world wars link leads directly to world war, it is not a list.

[edit] Religious wars

There should probably be a list of religious wars in the conflicts section

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