Benefits of war

To date, we have discussed war as an essentially bad thing, with no redeeming qualities. This may be true,t but I cannot help wondering first, If there is a point at which the necessity of war outweighs the desire for peace; where war actually becomes helpful to humanity as a whole. I wonder ,also, if we are ever even absent from a state of war. I contend that first, humans are always in some form of combat and it only occasionaly manifests itself in war, i think that in some special cases war can be beneficial to humanity.

If it can be assumed that we are all constantly competing, and war is simply a manifestation of that, than it would seem that, when two parties go to war, it is not necessarily because the members of a party adore each other, it is simply because they dislike the member of a rival party. according to the theories of group think and group polarization people make riskier descisions when in a group. And

Now let us take world war two as an example. Hitler made it quite clear that he wanted to do two things; exterminate the Jews, and create a worldwide master race. It is the part where he wants to make a master race that Hitler made a psychologicle mistake. there have been genocides before that did not draw worldwide outrage. But in declareing war on the world hitler gave the entire world a common trait and common objective. to protect themselves from him.

Have you ever played a game of risk with three people? the two weeker people will always form an alliance for a few turns just long enought to get the stronger one out of power, then some one else becomes strong and a new alliance is formed. Niether of the weeker players want the other weeker player to win. but they do themselves want to not lose, and they see a temporary alliance as the best chance of that.

In world war two the entire world saw hitler as a threat and allied to defeat him not because every one in the world liked eachother. they just saw it as the only way to live. In this sense war against a common enemy can initiate a sense of freindship between allies that previously had not existed. The US and Britain specificly have ended putting aside their inital differences in the interest of their common goals in euope and africa.