Military history

The percentages of men killed in war in eight tribal societies, and Europe and the
U.S. in the 20th century. (Lawrence H. Keeley, Archeologist)
In prehistorical post-Paleolithic societies, war likely consisted of small-scale raiding.
One half of the people found in a Nubian cemetery dating to as early as 12,000
years ago had died of violence.[16] Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years
ago,[17] military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of
gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare.
According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims that 14,500 wars have
taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives,
leaving only 300 years of peace (Beer 1981: 20)."[18]

In War Before Civilization, Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor at the University of

Illinois, says that approximately 9095% of known societies throughout history
engaged in at least occasional warfare,[19] and many fought constantly.[20]

Japanese samurai attacking a Mongol ship, 13th century

Keeley describes several styles of primitive combat such as small raids, large raids,
and massacres. All of these forms of warfare were used by primitive societies, a
finding supported by other researchers.[21] Keeley explains that early war raids
were not well organized, as the participants did not have any formal training.
Scarcity of resources meant that defensive works were not a cost effective way to
protect the society against enemy raids.[22]

William Rubinstein wrote that "Pre-literate societies, even those organised in a

relatively advanced way, were renowned for their studied cruelty ... 'archaeology
yields evidence of prehistoric massacres more severe than any recounted in
ethnography [i.e., after the coming of the Europeans]'. At Crow Creek, South
Dakota, as noted, archaeologists found a mass grave of 'more than 500 men,
women, and children who had been slaughtered, scalped, and mutilated during an
attack on their village a century and a half before Columbus's arrival (ca. AD 1325)'
".[23]

It is problematic however to suggest that people in past societies were any more
violent than people are today. Martin and colleagues in their recent book have
pulled together some of the foremost researchers studying violence in the past to
show that though there may have been events like massacres in the past, the
frequency and manifestation of warfare vary greatly both within and between
cultures.

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894), the Indian Wars of the 19th
century cost the lives of about 19,000 whites and 30,000 Indians.[24]
In Western Europe, since the late 18th century, more than 150 conflicts and about
600 battles have taken place.[25] During the 20th century, war resulted in a
dramatic intensification of the pace of social changes, and was a crucial catalyst for
the emergence of the Left as a force to be reckoned with.[26]

Recent rapid increases in the technologies of war, and therefore in its

destructiveness (see mutual assured destruction), have caused widespread public
concern, and have in all probability forestalled, and may altogether prevent the
outbreak of a nuclear World War III. At the end of each of the last two World Wars,
concerted and popular efforts were made to come to a greater understanding of the
underlying dynamics of war and to thereby hopefully reduce or even eliminate it
altogether. These efforts materialized in the forms of the League of Nations, and its
successor, the United Nations.

Shortly after World War II, as a token of support for this concept, most nations joined
the United Nations. During this same post-war period, with the aim of further
delegitimizing war as an acceptable and logical extension of foreign policy[citation
needed], most national governments also renamed their Ministries or Departments
of War as their Ministries or Departments of Defense, for example, the former US
Department of War was renamed as the US Department of Defense.

In 1947, in view of the rapidly increasingly destructive consequences of modern

warfare, and with a particular concern for the consequences and costs of the newly
developed atom bomb, Albert Einstein famously stated, "I know not with what
weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and
stones."[27]

Mao Zedong urged the socialist camp not to fear nuclear war with the United States
since, even if "half of mankind died, the other half would remain while imperialism
would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist."[28]

The Human Security Report 2005 documented a significant decline in the number
and severity of armed conflicts since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.
However, the evidence examined in the 2008 edition of the Center for International
Development and Conflict Management's "Peace and Conflict" study indicated that
the overall decline in conflicts had stalled.[29]