Over 130 armed conflicts are raging today, twice as many as 15 years ago. The highest profile ones are Israel v Gaza & the West Bank - over 72,000–75,000+ Palestinians have been reported killed, with thousands more missing under rubble - Russia v Ukraine - estimated fatalities have surpassed 1.5 million to 2 million - Israel & USA v Iran - it's too early to calculate fatalities. Sudan & Mayanmar have also resulted in tens of thousands of fatalities.
https://warwatch.ch/explore/
https://www.statista.com/topics/13125/conflicts-worldwide-2025/?srsltid=AfmBOoqGENJY6txRcS5H7dfrEmQb-h81JfRE0O_TMpPwNx5gxmjh0E2z#topFacts
"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding shows how close to the surface agression is in the male psyche. The current BBC drama is timely if it makes us think & try to stop this. Given the right circumstances we all have the potential to become feral. But fortunately some can resist.
War is catastrophic in every sense. It is a waste of human life & potential. A waste of resources. A waste of money. A waste of time. War causes displacement & huge population migrations. Non combatants flee, who can blame them? There is nothing good about war apart from the profits it generates for the arms industry & for the companies who go in after to reconstruct the devastated systems & cities. There is money in war. A lot of money. It is highly lucrative for a select group, specifically defense contractors, arms manufacturers, and certain private entities within the military-industrial complex. Profits are driven by government demand, not market forces, with companies often benefiting regardless of the conflict's outcome.causing immense debt, destruction, and long-term economic damage.
Why do we go to war when all the evidence is that it doesn't work & simply causes death, injury & devastation? Countries go to war to defend themselves, to increase their territory, power & security, resources & wealth, sometimes because of religion or to change the demographics of their country. Basically people fight when disagreements cannot be resolved peacefully.
War is abject failure - Failure to negotiate & solve problems. If only the people who make the decisions could see that. War is not heroic, although some people do heroic things. I fail to see how the sort of death, injury & destruction we are seeing today can be anything other than failure. How have we reached a point where we can justify this modern warfare of drones & missiles, largely fought by people with computers at a distance? If you don't actually see the person you are killing & feel the impact of taking a human life face to face do you really take responsibility or feel the pain of what you have done?
We have distanced ourselves from reality. We watch on a screen, on our TV's, computers & mobiles, like a computer game. We can switch it of at will. We do not have to face up to it. The people in charge certainly don't.
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