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There is an old saying that countries don't really have friends or allies, they have 'mutual interests'. This is supposed to be a way of saying countries such as the United States and, say, Canada, would never go to war. The mutual interest here is a shared, unguarded border and a similar way of life.
There are many countries today which are at war, of course, or in some kind of (either internal or external) 'action', and there are also many countries which are in a non-war. This is not the same as peace, which is something that, like honesty in government or truth in advertising, is rare at best.
Countries which could truly be considered at non-war are that way because they have decided (or had it decided for them) to be at war is too expensive, both financially and in human cost. They are not at peace necessarily, they just believe not being at war is the smart play. For the time being.
To better understand how fragile our world truly is today, lets think of the main reasons countries go to war:
Natural Resources: Obviously, if Country A is bereft of oil (or has some but wants much more) and Country B has a plentiful amount, Country A will sooner or later invade Country B. Iraq did this to Kuwait, of course, which is the most recent example.
Ego: Country A is ruled by a Supreme Leader (either religiously or politically movitated) who decides, on his own hook, to manufacture some injustice and blames Country B. Hitler did this to Poland to start World War 2 in 1939. Alexander did this to the Persians and Darius II. Both Hitler and Alexander met their ends solely because ego prevented them from seeing beyond their immediate conquest.
Pre-Emption: This one is linked directly to the Natural Resources example listed above, yet could also be used as a 'deterrent'. I put deterrent in quotation marks since the pre-emption negates any 'what-if' argument. Kind of like if I burn my neighbor's house down because I think he might launch a missle at the Texas state capitol: I'll never really know, will I?
Japan used this against us to throw us into World War 2, basically to keep us out of the Pacific. They wanted us out of the Pacific so they could exploit the resources of the South Pacific unimpeded. The United States, in a way, did this with Iraq (the second time). The Government believed Mr. Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was convinced he would use them eventually on someone. The evidence was circumstantial at best, yet because of Mr. Hussein's track record in the region and the ego of the United States Government (I still believe Mr. Bush was an unwitting participant, but that's just me), we went to war. And, of course, we are still there.
There are some other reasons, of course: Revenge (the original reason for going to Afghanistan, of course) tops the list, but for the most part most wars can be broken down with the above three reasons.
Next, we'll look at Non-War, and how there really is very little peace in this wonderful and terribly fragile world.
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