Essay on the Phenomenon of the Totalization of War

Abstract

A world free from wars and bloody conflicts was the ideal preached at all times by the best minds of mankind. But man fought in the extreme antiquity, he continues to fight in our days and, apparently, will fight while there are human communities. Representations of the types and nature of wars and armies, defense systems, means and methods of force corresponding to changing realities developed, but at all times human communities in various forms and hypostases did not consider the peace to be a supreme good. In many respects the history of mankind itself appears as an uninterrupted series of wars of tribes, peoples, nations, empires, clans, parties, etc. Some tried to subjugate foreign countries and peoples; others thirsted for military glory, while thirds considered it better to die standing, than to live on their knees. In any case, the justifications for wars always found the most convincing, since man, judging by his deeds, acted as if subconsciously guided by the Mephistophelian maxim - there is nothing in the world that is worth pity. It is also not accidental that from the earliest times skeptics never ceased to assert that homo homini lupus est , that is, man is a wolf to man. And from this formula followed another, no less well-known postulate - bellum omnium contra omnes , i.e. war of all against all. However, this is only one side of the history of mankind. The other side is that the state of an absolute, endless war of all against all would be fraught with the prospect of mutual extermination of countries and peoples. The antithesis of war is peace, every war ends in peace, and different tribes, peoples, human societies, and states from the very beginning sought some kind of modus vivendi, as well as the generally accepted and respected norms and rules that ensure it. In the present article, the author analyzes the causes and forms of the totalization of the war for the last century, especially in the context of global trends - globalization, the information and telecommunication revolution.