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The anthropological phenomena of war
- Thread starter rousseau
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In general, war is always a contest over resources. Even when the stated reason is politics or religion, if one of the combatants doesn't believe they are going to get more stuff in the end, there will never be a war.
In the play Hamlet, there is an early scene which sets up a subplot. Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, has requested permission to march troops across Danish territory in order to put down a rebellion in a distant province. A Danish captain has a conversation with a Norwegian Captain. The Norwegian says the campaign is silly, because the rents Fortinbras collects from the province aren't enough to pay for the expedition. Of course, by the end of the play, we discover the campaign is a ruse. Fortinbras is actually invading Denmark, not his distant province.
In the play Hamlet, there is an early scene which sets up a subplot. Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, has requested permission to march troops across Danish territory in order to put down a rebellion in a distant province. A Danish captain has a conversation with a Norwegian Captain. The Norwegian says the campaign is silly, because the rents Fortinbras collects from the province aren't enough to pay for the expedition. Of course, by the end of the play, we discover the campaign is a ruse. Fortinbras is actually invading Denmark, not his distant province.
Shadowy Man
Contributor
Because we are a social species and we need to share resources to some extent for a group of us to survive, there must be some optimum size of a group of humans. Large enough to get along with shared resources, but unwilling to share with the next group. Any ideas of what this size actually is? I'm guessing that modern living has allowed us to expand that size.
We have always relied on geographical boundaries to determine the limit of our resources and thus the size of our group.
There is no optimum group size, as such. It depends upon the available resources. Sometimes this boundary is not immediately apparent. When the Dutch came to South Africa, they landed on the southern latitude equal to the northern latitude of the Netherlands. This meant their northern hemisphere grains grew well in the southern sun. To the north, was the Zulu Empire. The Empire's main agricultural products were melons and gourds. The Dutch began to move north in order to capture more land for their grain. The boundary between the Dutch and the Zulu was hotly contested for many decades. It finally stabilized at the latitude where grain production drops off because it is too hot, and melon production drops off because it is too cold.
I wonder if that's how you'd define WWII. Seriously, I wonder, I don't know much about that war. It seems that the root cause of that war was more like a delusional psychopathy, and less about resources.
Not that what you say doesn't generally ring true, I think resources are the obvious answer, other causes likely get a bit more interesting.
WW2 was a continuation of WW1. The political settlement and political actions over the next two decades made another war inevitable. Hitler made his goals quite plain. He wanted to extend German territory to the west, into the farmlands of Russia. Germany's inability to feed its population with domestic production was the root cause of their defeat. His moves to the east were to insure the western European powers could not interfere with his plans.