“Fighting Is Becoming Stupid”

In the News (Lenta.ru): “In the history of humanity for those directly involved in the conflict, war has always been very unfavorable, a negative sum game. Once it starts, it means that somewhere something is seriously broken. …

“One of the parties had deep confidence that it had overwhelming superiority. Today such wars in general are unlikely, but not because there are no empires and small States, but because they have another way to assess their losses. Now an advanced empire believes that the life of a hundred of its soldiers is much more valuable than the lives of couples million soldiers of an underdeveloped country.

“There are also situations in which there is an outside factor that threatens a loss that is so great that you go to war, in order to neutralize it and take a smaller loss. …

“There are also positive third-party factor when, firstly, someone asks you to start military action and promises to compensate losses with interest.. .

“Of course, a major cause of many wars is an agency conflict when some strata or elites within a society gets benefits, while society at large loses. …

“A classic example of the impact of the agency – the so-called war of despair, when the elite or the ruling group in the country unleashes conflict to stay in power. …

“As in any game, you can get into the so-called trap, when the sides are drawn into the situation, the output of which is more expensive than entrance into it. A classic example – the injection of hatred within society to an external source of problems. At some point, society slips to the brink of no return, and the authorities are no longer able to hold back the situation because people are demanding war. …

“In my opinion, in the modern world is led to the wars, first of all, from the influence of external beneficiaries — third parties outside their space. What might their motives may be? For example, the weakening of the parties waging war, if it comes to a third party trying to buy elite to push them into conflict, misinformation and so on. There may be a role to play and the protection of their interests. Here it can serve its purpose and play a role in protecting their interests. …

“Sometimes it is extremely important in business to increase risks. High margins will appear only where there are high risks (for example, drug trafficking). …

“The presence of weapons of war is necessary for manufacturers both in terms of the increase in demand for their goods directly and indirectly: the more wars, the more risk, the more armed country. …

“In addition, war can be conducted in the interests of a particular market or to increase the price of goods on the market. While it is possible blockade of the trade routes to deteriorate the conditions of doing business for competitors. …

“The populace always loses in war as do both of the active participants in the conflict. Internal agents, too, often lose out, but those outside direct contact rarely do. External agents in indirect contact, which is not even visible in the war.

“The main opponents of the war – the growth of foreign trade. War never starts above a certain level of trade between the two countries, because such amounts can not be sacrificed. …

“The increase in individual welfare is another barrier. There is a formula for which the probability of war between countries is inversely proportional to the product of the squares of the welfare of the citizens in these countries. Hence, a good way to avoid armed conflict — stimulating growth of the material welfare of citizens. …

“Another barrier – frequent turnover of agents. There is a very clear relationship between the average number of years in power of one group and the number of wars in which the country participates. The shorter the term, the less conflict. …

“In addition, a very serious obstacle to war is a bloc of countries. Member states of military blocs very rarely go to war except when they have an overwhelming advantage. But conflicts with an overwhelming advantage are gradually becoming obsolete, as the strongest side in this situation pays a higher price. …

“Gradually the price of war is decreasing. For the civilized world the UAV or a cruise missile is far less valuable than the ordinary ones. Therefore, on the one hand, there is a tendency to increase the probability of wars of the first type, because the rates begin to fall – you can just send a lot of rockets somewhere and see what happens. On the other hand, it also makes war a totally different type of conflict – the so-called non-lethal confrontation or subversive war, hybrid wars that we are now seeing. In their course there are no contours of fronts, and is not clear, who with whom is at war.”
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