Can Warfare be Anything Other than Barbaric Essay

Can Warfare be Anything Other than Barbaric - Essay Example Above all, it is important to define ‘barbarism’. This essay uses the following definition given by R.G. Collingwood (1942): By barbarism I mean hostility towards civilisation; the effort, conscious or unconscious, to become less civilised than you are, either in general or in some special way, and, so far as in you lies, to promote a similar change in others.2 Hence the major question is, is warfare really barbaric? Most people will answer ‘yes’. Human lives are slaughtered, and usually in huge numbers. War is a nightmare. However, it is important to deeply analyse this belief, because people’s thoughts about warfare on the whole and about the actions of combatants rely greatly on how human beings are slaughtered and on who these victims are. In that case, maybe, the most appropriate way to depict the barbarism of warfare is basically to argue that there are no restraints at these thoughts: human beings are butchered with every imaginable cruelty, an d people from all walks of life, regardless of sex, age, or moral state, are slaughtered.3 This image of war is vividly portrayed by Karl von Clausewitz in his book On War. It is his pioneering descriptions that have influenced the thoughts of subsequent scholars. There are some unrealistic individuals who think that morality and war are unable to coexist. War is barbaric, they argue, war is inhuman; in its existence it is bizarre, virtually nonsensical, to evoke morality. The truth is, as most people usually overlook, and at times are not aware of, morality is basically a norm of a culture. It is a set of rules which is in uninterrupted movement. However, in an integral and meaningful way morality represents the actions or behaviour of a society’s majority.4 Hence implicit, it is evident that in the contemporary period warfare still has dealings with morality. That there actually such a thing as morality of warfare, and that almost all enlightened and civilised cultures esse ntially share a particular traditional rule regarding the deeds which may or may not be committed in warfare, has been quite evidently witnessed throughout contemporary wars. This moral rule is generally claimed to be rooted in international policies and agreements. However, is it the common moral rule which is deep-seated, and international rule is simply an effort to put that morality into effect. In view of these arguments, a look at the continuous barbarisation of warfare from the 19th to the 20th century, which modern scholars examined, is important. Evolutions in the conduct of warfare have been erratic, and this relates as well, perhaps mostly, to their impacts and to how these are viewed.5 Perspectives on barbarism in warfare is subjected to cultural standards, and the beliefs based on these, like the total number of deaths caused by war, in relation to deaths caused by other actions. Furthermore, the practice of warfare since the Roman period did not evolve in a single dire ction from crude warfare towards more sophisticated techniques or the larger study of limitations on warfare, or a grander warfare. Rather, the transformation of warfare ebbed and flowed intensely. What the world witnessed after the mayhem that swelled in Europe with the fall of the West Roman Empire and the measured rebuilding and modernisation of an expanded civilisation with recognised rules is primarily lethargic but, since the 19th century, continuous development with ‘