Effects of war, War is such a terrible thing that it is often asked whether any cause is important enough to justify it. There are instances in which it seems impossible to avoid it, as when barbarous tribes attack a civilized state but too frequently war is a greater evil than the wrong that it is meant to redress. When great nations go to war, the reason for their quarrel is probably not even understood by nine out of ten combatants and if they were asked individually, “ Do you or do you not want to fight this country? “ they would answer” No.
Whether or not war is ever right, the whole world is constantly preparing for it. Millions of the healthiest men are taken away from the ordinary work of life to learn to fight, and hundreds of thousands of workers are employed in making arms of them.
In the event of a war, the toilers suffer still more, for their work often becomes useless because they are shut off from their mistakes, as when the American Civil War caused a cotton famine in Lancashire. In Islamic jihad becomes an imperative duty when the force of tranny and injustice jeopardize the honor and safety of peace-loving Muslims.
effects of war
If the opinion of all the civilized people in the world could be known, we should probably find that very few of them approve of war. Why then, do wars continue? Why are we always preparing for war? The explanation is that, although all we the great nations are becoming more civilized, it is not so very long since they were barbarous.
It is a slow matter to their minds have changed, their actions ought to change too. It is so easy to go on as we are it is so difficult to alter the conduct of whole communities. A powerful man might induce his nation to agree to disband its army, but who will induce all the other nations to agree to disband theirs?
But although the chances of putting an end to warfare seem so small, we must still do all can to try to stop it. Education will help us for, as more and more men learn from history the horrors and the wastefulness of war, so will they become increasingly opposed to it and when people reach a certain stage of education they generally elect their political representatives and we may, therefore, hope that someday all civilized people will decide to have no more war.
Elbedour, Bensel, and Bastien (1993) called the helplessly victimized children and families caught in the experience of war the“collaterally damaged” population (p. 806). Further, emotional suffering related to war may occur not only due to direct exposure to life-threatening situations and violence but also through direct stressors, such as injury to or death of relatives or caregivers, economic hardships, geographic displacement, and continuous disruptions of daily living (Jensen & Shaw, 1993). How best do psychologists support the emotional recovery and resilience of non-combatants adversely affected by war, who are often vulnerable to populations of children, women, and older adults?
Essential humanitarian efforts in the form of programs, resolutions, conventions, campaigns, and interventions, by various local and international NGOs and UN agencies, are addressing actual and perceived stressors with which non-combatants may be confronted. A common assumption in developed nations is that the Western ideas of psychological trauma, therapy, and healing are universal. Yet, Summerfield (1999) questions whether there is sufficient empirical evidence that Western models of mental health, medical, and technical solutions, which are targeted at providing psychological aid to distressed populations in developing regions, trump the preexisting cultural and religious coping strategies in those countries.
When this happens we shall probably have arbitration in its place and already we find that efforts are being made by different “ Peace societies” and the U.N.O to get the disputes of nations settled by this warfare, and bids its followers to work for peace and security.
