Perpetual war

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since March 2006.

Perpetual war is a war with no clear ending conditions. It also describes a situation of ongoing tension that seems likely to escalate at any moment, similar to the Cold War.

1 In past history
2 In recent history
3 In current events
4 In socieconomics and politics
5 In literature
6 In fictional universes
7 See also
8 References and external links

[edit] In past history

Examples of wars that seemed perpetual during their course included the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the Crusades (a series of nine related episodes over a long period 1095–1291), and the Northern Crusades (beginning 1193 and ongoing through the 16th century).

[edit] In recent history

The Cold War, lasting almost 50 years, is an example of such a war, although largely fought by the major powers through a large number of small proxy wars, where the major powers provided aid to various local factions engaged in so-called "wars of national liberation". When the major powers became directly involved, as the U.S. in the war in Vietnam, or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the results were generally a disaster for the major power. Another example of protracted conflict were the Indochina Wars, wherein Vietnamese forces fought from 1947 until 1979 against a variety of external foes (including Japan, France, the United States, Cambodia, and China) as well against themselves.

The dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan, and over various Himalayan regions between China and India, ongoing since 1947 in the former case and 1962 in the latter, have led to the formation of line of control and the Line of Actual Control respectively. Along these theaters the armed forces of the involved countries stand in continuous preparedness on such battlegrounds as the Siachen glacier. Major flare-ups from time to time have resulted in the Indo-Pakistani Wars and the Sino-Indian War.

The Arab-Israeli Conflict has been a continuous issue since 1948. Disputes between Jewish settlers and their Arab neighbors in the area go back at least to the early twentieth century.

[edit] In current events

Through more than fifty years of cease-fire, the North Korean government has promoted a military-centered culture on the grounds that war with the United States is imminent.^{[citation needed]}
Robert Fisk, a British journalist and critic of Western policies in the Middle East, conjectures^[1] that recent Western conflicts against the Middle East after the end of the Cold War have been part of a new perpetual war. He suggests that U.S. President George Bush launched attacks on Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan to distract the population from his domestic political problems, and points out that despite victorious claims after the first Gulf War that Saddam Hussein had been "defanged," he was again the target of Western war-making in 2003.
Many critics suggest that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States were all that was needed as a pretense for the U.S. government to launch an "eternal" War on Terrorism. These critics consider themselves confirmed by the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report that labeled the U.S. War on Terrorism as a "long war". Support for this theory is also found in the fact that terrorism is a tactic, not a physical target to be fought and which can be defeated, and the Project for the New American Century, which suggested the need for "A New Pearl Harbor."
Critics have used the term "perpetual war" in reference to non-military "wars" like Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs, Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty, Richard Nixon's War on Cancer, long before George W. Bush's War on Terrorism.

[edit] In socieconomics and politics

Some analysts, such as Noam Chomsky, posit that a state of perpetual war is an aid to (and is promoted by) the powerful members of dominant political and economic classes, helping maintain their positions of economic and political superiority.

Some have also suggested that entering a state of perpetual war becomes progressively easier in a modern democratic republic such as the United States due to the continuing development of interlocking relationships between those who benefit directly from war and the large and powerful companies that indirectly benefit and shape the presentation of the effects and consequences of war (i.e., the formation of a military-industrial complex).

There has been some criticism from anti-war activists and Bush critics, for example, that the Bush administration's ties to Halliburton influenced the decision to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. These claims have been pointedly rejected by the George W. Bush White House.

However, the concept of a military-industrial complex was first suggested by President Eisenhower and the idea that military action can be seen as a form of market-creation goes at least as far back as the publication of War is a Racket. The economic make-up of the Athens-led Delian League also bears resemblance to the economic ramifications of preparing for perpetual war (such as that seen in North Korea, with satellite states to contribute resources). It seems to be a unfortunate theme in human history that someone profits from war and such profiteering is in no way a specific trait of any societal group, (Black Market), though those in the upper class of any society are better placed to make bigger profits.

[edit] In literature

The 1948 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell was written from the viewpoint of a citizen of one of three fictional world-dominating superstates. These nations are in a state of perpetual war with each other. The state of war is used by each of the states to justify the control of their populations using Stalinist or other methods. By artificially creating fear and hate of an enemy, the actual existence of which is never made completely certain, the governments provided an excuse for their failures and, in the case of Oceania, enforced obedience to Big Brother. Moreover, eternal war formed the bedrock of the economy, as people could be kept busy manufacturing goods that would not improve their living standards, but would instead be destroyed on the battlefields. Thus perpetual war not only kept the population busy, it also encouraged a "siege mentality" in which hatred of the enemy and love for the government's protection were social norms.

[edit] In fictional universes

In the science-fiction/fantasy universe of Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium of Man has been at war for over 10,000 years against numerous alien races and human traitor factions.
In "Passport to Sirius" Robert Silverberg wrote of a future Earth with endless, but totally fictitious distant space wars. Their purpose was to regulate consumer spending. The idea was that people would buy more (thus increasing production) when the news was bad, and less (thus controlling inflation) when the news was good.
In the science-fiction/ sentai manga Cyborg 009, the main antagonist is the Black Ghost Organization, a secretive collection of world leaders and arms dealers whose goal is to create a perpetual World War in order to continuously sell their prototype weapons of mass destruction, without fear of there ever being the "threat" of world peace.
In BBC TV's Doctor Who - Genesis of the Daleks - The Kaleds and the Thals are in a state of perpetual war for 1000 years. All types of weapons were in use - Chemical, Biological and Nuclear, causing some inhabitants to become mutants (Mutos). The Daleks came about as a result of the Kaled Scientist Davros discovering what the eventual fate of the Kaled race was to be and creating a survival suit for their eventual form, eventually corrupting this project by creating a race of creatures that were answerable to no one, eventually not even Davros.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman won the Nebula Award in 1975 and the Hugo Award in 1976 for its depiction of interstellar war.