(V):

The "war to end all wars" was fought twice. WW I was not enough to make Europeans hate war long enough to stop hating each other. So they fought WW II and when they saw the destruction they brought on themselves they became sick enough of war to at least stop fighting for 64 years.

At least some of the lesson was learned, and now we have the European Union. It is not a perfect union, but at least the superpowers are not at each other throats any more. The fact that they are willing to welcome Slavs into the Union means that some of the old prejudices are slowly dying, and people still feel shame in the killing of Jews and Gypsies.

Still, we as human beings are slow to learn our lessons. Unfortunately, we have lost some perspective on what war does to countries and people. We saw this in Iraq. More fire power was rained down on Iraq in the first 80 hours of the war than all the combined firepower used by all participants in WW II. It seems unreal, and yet it is true.

I think that war will be there for as long as there is capitalism , because war is business. I don't see how the big superpowers can survive economically without war. Can you imagine the massive unemployment and profit losses if suddenly everyone stopped buying weapons? Entire cities in industrialized countries would end up unemployed. The biggest and most powerful corporation in the world would go bankrupt. Boeing, Lockeed-Martin, Ford, GM, Daimler, Microsoft, General Dynamics, General Electric, Siemens, Basf, Dow, and many others. All the big names in capitalism would be hit hard because everyone is got its fingers stuck in the war pie.