Why do we have wars?

Because basically most people who start one, were not taught as children that saying "I want!" and grabbing another child's toys is wrong.

Did the warmongers need a reason?
It is interesting that in times such as we are witnessing now the warmongers are in the ascendency. Oh yes, send weapons for the Ukrainians to defend themselves but mock the UN when they try to offer diplomacy and ways to end the conflict.

Duels to the death were outlawed in Scotland in 1654, though they continued for a long time illegally. Not until 1819 were they outlawed in England.
It was always men, defending their honour as they had done from medieval times.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snm5bxfJphI

Ah yes, men defending their honour. How much was ever to do with anything remotely honourable, rather men afraid of losing face/status.

M0nica my sincere sympathy for your distress at the hands of school bullies. I too was bullied at primary school by a rather nasty bunch of girls. Very unpleasant at a very young age.

grandetanteJE65 if only it was that simple. It isn't. Many dictators and their like, almost cettainly Putin, are psychopaths. People who are incapable of any feelings for other people, other than their use to the psychopath. Others have upbringings that lead them to have no understanding and sympathy for other people.

All of us have an instinct to protect everything that is dear to us. Even animals turn on those who attack them, if their young are under threat.

Adam and Eve, living in Paradise with no knowledge of evil, is a lovely myth. Life ain't like that.

Surely in WW1 it was a battle for markets. Germany had been left behind in grabbing foreign markets and decided to take their share. The fact that those markets actually should have belonged to the indigenous population and not to the big European States was never taken into any condieration by either side.

Anyway, nothing like a good war to bring the population behind its leaders. Even back in the 17century, Shakespeare noted this in the start of Henry V when the young king had been told by his father that a foreign war is excellent for preventing opposition at home. Thatcher followed this advice as he popularity was falling and the Falklands war reversed that.

If we were in Russia we would be writing about the horrific psycopaths in NATO, and their determination to extend their power base right up to (even into) Russian territories and thank goodness we have a strong leader who stands up to them,.

We are all subject to our own media manipulation.

The difference is that we are free to read Russian propaganda, alongside Western media and whatever we find on the internet..

The Russian population has no choice whatsoever

Yes varian there is a big difference between a dictatorship and even the worst form of democracy ( and whilst I accept that this country could always do with improvement), I believe we shouldnt forget how far our forefathers efforts have brought us.

Why can't the leaders just play a game of chess? I remember asking my dad that when I was about seven.

rockgran

Why can't the leaders just play a game of chess? I remember asking my dad that when I was about seven.

No profit for arms manufacturers or 'prestige' for coutries leaders in game of chess, sadly.

If Hitler and Putin are anything to go by, I’d say it’s often down to a very rare personality type I once read about - the malignant narcissist.

IIRC besides Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were quoted as representing the type - both waging war on their own people, or at least certain sets of them.

Witzend

If Hitler and Putin are anything to go by, I’d say it’s often down to a very rare personality type I once read about - the malignant narcissist.

IIRC besides Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were quoted as representing the type - both waging war on their own people, or at least certain sets of them.

The really pertinent question is 'Why do people fight on the behest of these psychologically damaged individuals?'

Why don't people just say 'You can forget it mate, I'm not going to kill and maim my fellow humans just to satisfy your sick fantasies'?

The answer might well be that this personality type isn't rare at all...

MaizieD, I dare say the answer is, that once this super-ruthless type gets into power, they will usually keep similar types in their immediate circle, and by the time they have assumed power, other people are too afraid of questioning or disobeying them since they know it will mean execution, and/or torture, labour camps, etc.

Re Hitler at least, The Rise And Fall of The Third Reich, by William L Shirer*, is a riveting read, even for someone like me, who wouldn’t usually read this sort of thing at all.

*an American journalist who was there during Hitler’s rise to power, and during the early days of WW2, and also wrote A Berlin Diary at the time.

Would we defend our country as the Ukrainians are doing?
I would defend my family if I had to but king and country? I don't have that kind of patriotism.

Grammaretto

Would we defend our country as the Ukrainians are doing?
I would defend my family if I had to but king and country? I don't have that kind of patriotism.

You might if you didn't have any choice. Ukraine didn't ask to be invaded...

Did you know that there has almost never been a war between two democracies?

If Russia had a free press, so that the people knew what is really happening, and real elections, Putin would have to fear losing power.

Because some men just have to be the cock of the walk.

M0nica

I can assure you the bullying at school was physical, and done by a group of girls in my girls school, who knowing I had a bowel condition that required several extended periods in hospital, thought it was funny to get me into a corner and punch me hard and repeatedly in the stomach.

I learned to avoid occasions that put me at risk. The girls concerned were all from nice homes where such behaviour would not have been encouraged.

Girls can be just as violent as boys. It is just that girls are accultured not to be violent and violence in women is disapproved of and condemned and boys are brought up, if not to be violent but in a culture that disapproves but understands that violence is natural in men..

M0nica, I’m appalled and sad to hear that happened to you.

Try to watch this
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0brzl3w