Large-scale warfare does not arise from capitalism. It was started by communist regimes as well and, moreover, existed long before capitalism and communism came up.
Large-scale warfare also does not arise from modern nation-state formations. Premodern rulers waged large-scale wars as well.
Warfare originates from the genetic makeup of humans, even of our predecessors the chimps, and got amplified by societal developments that came with agriculture over the last 12,000 years.
But over the last half century large-scale wars, and numbers of war casualties, have been on the decrease. They got replaced by small-scale, ‘hybrid’ violence. Current explanations are the intertwining of economic interests, reinforcement of international norms and the presence of peacekeepers.
This change is part of worldwide rising late-modernity or post-modernity, having fragmentation as one of its trends. It relates to the rise of civil initiatives and declining control by state governments.
While this trend of fragmentation brings violence closer to home for many it takes, in fact, much less casualties than were taken by the incidental, large army, battlefield wars that were developed by agrarian societies and further upgraded as a particular type of violent conflict over the last 12 millennia. # Warfare #largescale #frontwar #smallscale #hybrid #origins #postmodern
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