Perpetual war
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Perpetual war is a war with no clear ending conditions. It also describes a situation of ongoing tension that seems likely to escalate at any moment, similar to the cold war.
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[edit] In past history
Examples of wars that seemed perpetual during their course included the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), the Crusades (a series of nine related episodes over a long period 1095–1291), and the Northern Crusades (beginning 1193 and ongoing through the 16th century).
[edit] In recent history
The Cold War, lasting almost 50 years, is an example of such a war, although largely fought by the major powers through a large number of small proxy wars, where the major powers provided aid to various local factions engaged in so-called "wars of national liberation". When the major powers became directly involved, as the U.S. in the war in Vietnam, or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the results were generally a disaster for the major power. Another example of protracted conflict were the Indochina Wars, wherein Vietnamese forces fought from 1947 until 1979 against a variety of external foes (including Japan, France, the United States, Cambodia, and China) as well against themselves.
The dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan, and over various Himalayan regions between China and India, ongoing since 1947 in the former case and 1962 in the latter, have led to the formation of line of control and the Line of Actual Control respectively. Along these theaters the armed forces of the involved countries stand in continuous preparedness on such battlegrounds as the Siachen glacier. Major flare-ups from time to time have resulted in the Indo-Pakistani Wars and the Sino-Indian War.
[edit] In current events
- Through more than fifty years of cease-fire, the North Korean government has promoted a military-centered culture on the grounds that war with the United States is imminent.
- Robert Fisk, a British journalist and critic of Western policies in the Middle East, conjectures<ref>Locked in an Orwellian eternal war, by Robert Fisk.</ref> that recent Western conflicts against the Middle East after the end of the Cold War have been part of a new perpetual war. He suggests that U.S. President Bill Clinton launched attacks on Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan to distract the population from his domestic political problems, and points out that despite victorious claims after the first Gulf War that Saddam Hussein had been "defanged," he was again the target of Western war-making in 2003.
- Many critics suggest that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States were all that was needed as a pretense for the U.S. government to launch an "eternal" War on Terrorism. These critics consider themselves confirmed by the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report that labeled the U.S. War on Terrorism as a "long war". Support for this theory is also found in the fact that terrorism is a tactic, not a physical target to be fought and which can be defeated.
- Critics have used the term "perpetual war" in reference to non-military "wars" like Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs, Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty, Richard Nixon's War on Cancer, long before George W. Bush's War on Terrorism.
[edit] In socieconomics and politics
Some analysts, such as Noam Chomsky, posit that a state of perpetual war is an aid to (and is promoted by) the powerful members of dominant political and economic classes, helping maintain their positions of economic and political superiority.
Some have also suggested that entering a state of perpetual war becomes progressively easier in a modern democratic republic such as the United States due to the continuing development of interlocking relationships between those who benefit directly from war and the large and powerful companies that indirectly benefit and shape the presentation of the effects and consequences of war (i.e., the formation of a military-industrial complex). There has been some criticism from anti-war activists and Bush critics, for example, that the Bush administration's ties to Halliburton influenced the decision to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. These claims have been pointedly rejected by the White House.
[edit] In literature
The novel 1984 by George Orwell was written (in 1948) from the (fictional) viewpoint of a citizen of one of three world-dominating superstates. These nations are in a state of perpetual war with each other. The state of war is used by each of the states to justify the control of their populations using Stalinist or other methods. By artificially creating fear and hate of an enemy, the actual existence of which is never made completely certain, the governments provided an excuse for their failures and (in the case of Oceania) enforced obedience to Big Brother. Moreover, as the novel states, eternal war formed the bedrock of the economy, as people could be kept busy manufacturing goods that would not improve their living standards, but would instead be destroyed on the battlefields. Thus perpetual war not only kept the population busy, it also encouraged a "siege mentality" in which hatred of the enemy and love for the government's protection were social norms.
[edit] See also
[edit] References and external links
<references />
- Homeland Security: When The Phoenix Comes Home To Roost, by Douglas Valentine.
- The Eternal War Parade, from Intervention Magazine.
- Gore Vidal: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. Nation Books, 2002. ISBN 1-56025-405-X
