War is an organized, armed, and often a prolonged conflict that is carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified

by extremeaggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political [1][3] violence. The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war, (and other violence) is usually called peace. In 2003, Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley identified war as the sixth (of ten) biggest problems facing the society of mankind for the next fifty years. In the 1832 treatise On War, [5] Prussian military general and theoretician Carl Von Clausewitz defined war as follows: "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." While some scholars see warfare as an inescapable and integral aspect of human culture, others argue that it is only inevitable under certain socio-cultural or ecological circumstances. Some scholars argue that the practice of war is not linked to any single type of political organization or society. Rather, as discussed by John Keegan in his History Of Warfare, war is a [6] universal phenomenon whose form and scope is defined by the society that wages it. Another argument suggests that since there are human societies in which warfare does not [7] exist, humans may not be naturally disposed for warfare, which emerges under particular circumstance. The ever changing technologies and potentials of war extend along a [citation needed] historical continuum. At the one end lies the endemic warfare of the Paleolithic with its stones and clubs, and the naturally limited loss of life associated with the use of such weapons. Found at the other end of this continuum is nuclear warfare, along with the recently developed possible outcome of its use, namely the rather sobering potential risk of the complete extinction of the human species. Effects of war Many wars have been accompanied by significant depopulations, along with destruction of infrastructure and resources (which may lead to famine, disease, and death in the civilian population). Civilians in war zones may also be subject to war atrocities such as genocide, while survivors may suffer the psychological aftereffects of witnessing the destruction of war. [47][48] During the Thirty Years' War in Europe, for example, the population of the German states was reduced by about 30%. The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 [49] castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns. Estimates for the total casualties of World War II vary, but most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, comprising around 20 million soldiers and 40 million [50] [51] civilians. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties. Since a high proportion of those killed were young men, the [52] postwar Soviet population was 45 to 50 million fewer than post1939 projections would have led one to expect. The largest number of civilian deaths in a single city was 1.2 million citizens dead during the 872-day Siege of Leningrad.
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Anti-war movements have existed for every major war in the 20th century, including, most prominently, World War I, World War II, and theVietnam War. In the 21st century, worldwide anti-war movements occurred ever since the United States declared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2001, the US government decided to invade Afghanistan to fight against international terrorism that caused the September 11 attacks.Opposition to the War in Afghanistan spread all over the world. Protests occurred in cities in Europe, Asia, and all over the United States, criticizing its ineffectiveness and illegitimacy. However, they did not stop the US engagement in the war. As of now, the public view worldwide does not seem to favor the war. Organizations like Stop the War Coalition, based in the United Kingdom, keep working on campaigning against the War. They raise awareness of the war, organize [75] demonstrations, and lobby the governments. There also exist significant worldwide opposition to the Iraq War. The US engaged in the war to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction that the Iraqi government allegedly had developed. Critics oppose the war based on the argument of violation of sovereignty, civilian deaths, absence of the UN approval, and lack of justification. However, they did not stop the involvement again. Since then, the US government has been harshly criticized by the public, domestically and internationally, for its conduct during the war, especially in the killings [76] of civilians. Even though the government has been counting the US soldiers up until now, they have refused to release numbers on the civilian deaths. Individual projects like Iraq Body Count project tries to reveal the actual number of deaths from the war based on journalistic data, showing the civilian effort to face the truth of war. Governments also use the method of disarmament to stop and prevent the cost of war.