Poll: Has war changed?

[ForensicYOYO]

This week Fallout: New Vegas came out. It reminded me their motto is "War, war never changes" but is that true? If anyone recalls MGS4 said something in contradiction to it saying "War, war has changed". Id like to share a vast knowledge on war and how I feel what aspects of it have changed or stayed the same, but sadly I dont have any. ^_^

So fellow Escapist share with me your points and views on this topic. Do you believe war has changed or not? Then if you'd like go into more depth of what you believe. Thank you.

 

[crudus]

War has changed:

People used to stand in a line and shoot each other. Officers used to be off limits. Now officers are fair game and we have guerrilla wars. It is also getting to the point where wars are being fought by robots.

War never changes:

People try to figure out the fastest way to kill the people standing over there.

 

[Stoplesteimer]

both and neither
How we fight war has changed rocks>swords>guns>lasers
but we still fight wars for the same reasons, economics and politics.

 

[The_Amazing_G]

People do not fight each other;
governments fight each other.
(edit, I should have said people do not go to war, governments go to war. The fighting is a different matter.)
War has not changed.
Read "the memory of earth" by Orson Scott Card. It's a great book that goes straight to the heart of this exact question.

 

[lambsheep]

War. War never changes.

 

[sylekage]

War hasn't changed. It's just people killing people, and that's the way it will always be.

 

[TeeBs]

You got this from Wacky Game Jokes for Kids huh?

IDK I think someday human kind will subscribe to the idea of peace, though I don't think this will be in my life time.

 

[Azriel Nightshade]

The players may change,but the game stays the same. Just like dating.

 

[Treefingers]

Well, how we kill each other has changed.

Like WWI for example, we had trench warfare, whereas WWIII will just be people sitting in a bunker pushing buttons and nuking the shit out of our planet.

War doesn't change in the sense that it's always stupid and unnecessary.

 

[ForensicYOYO]

You got this from Wacky Game Jokes for Kids huh?

IDK I think someday human kind will subscribe to the idea of peace, though I don't think this will be in my life time.

Hu? You mean the naked lad pert? No. Im just random like that lol.

 

[MetroidNut]

Today's wars are populated by unmanned vehicles, strongly influenced by the media, frequently against small groups rather than unified nations; and disgustingly, sometimes civilians are specifically targeted by terrorists. Both in the equipment used to fight and the way war is fought, I believe it has most definitely changed.

 

[The Rockerfly]

Killing people is killing people. It's never beautiful, it's never nice, never heroic, always disgusting and always shameful

Reasons for war have changed very slightly, the weapons we use has changed greatly but it all boils down to who can kill who first

 

[Mcface]

Now you can sit hundreds of feet in the air, look through a monitor, press a button and destroy an entire army. Now small squads of well trained men can do what it would take hundreds to do even 100 years ago.

The way we fight for sure has changed, reasons are mostly the same though.

 

[Plurralbles]

The core concept behind war hasn't changed at all.
Noncombatants have always been butchered. The antagonists always want to annihilate the other. IT is always over ideals, principals, or resources. Propaganda is as old as time. There are always, "Doves" and, "Hawks" in every nation, tribe, empire.

War never changes.

From a tribal band fighting with sticks to dropping nukes, war has never changed.

 

[SimuLord]

War? War never changes. As long as there are leaders who are willing to use the common man to advance their aims, as long as people shoot at people with whom they have no quarrel simply because their leaders forced them to via a draft or convinced them to via misguided nationalism or religion, as long as man walks the earth---and indeed, perhaps even after a massive global nuclear exchange---man will fight over the most trivial of things.

The weapons have changed throughout the ages. Sticks and stones gave way to swords and arrows gave way to bullets and the technology for man to kill man has advanced along with civilization itself. But all this is merely a question of method, not of ultimate cause.

Because indeed man may someday succeed in destroying the world, but war? War never changes.

 

[TeeBs]

You got this from Wacky Game Jokes for Kids huh?

IDK I think someday human kind will subscribe to the idea of peace, though I don't think this will be in my life time.

Hu? You mean the naked lad pert? No. Im just random like that lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HunhJCpY_cc&feature=channel

Can someone tell me how to do all that youtube/font stuff, like give me a link to somewhere that tells me how to do it.

 

[Cryo84R]

You're kidding me right? We went from 80 million people being killed in one war to the media trying to squeeze every last casualty onto the front page.

War has changed quite a bit. What we call a "war" now would have been called "maneuvers with live ammunition" in WW2.

 

[Kitteh]

War has changed from the infantry-based combat that dominated all of history until the Gulf War, when mobilized warfare and airstrikes were the new key to victory. The standard grunt was no longer needed because as soon as he got into position, the air forces had moved the front lines miles away in a matter of minutes.

 

[emeraldrafael]

War is War. You wear one colour, your enemy another, and you kill him or her in the misguided thoughts and lies told you to help you sleep at night. It is what it was and what it always will be. War is simply death, no matter how you dress it.

However, I would say war has changed in this. There is no longer honour. Before you killed someone close up. With a blade, at most an Arrow, but that was still a close-ish affair. Now, war has lost that honour. You can kill from yards and even miles away. You no longer face the fear of death you did before.

I miss war as it used to be. I miss your opponents last sight was that of you, stabbing them, killing them, filling the fading light as darkness engulfed them. I miss the personalness of it. You only get that personalness, that honour, in a fist fight, and thats if your opponent doesnt bring a knife.

But war... war has not changed. Only the honourless dogs that fight it and the weapons they use have changed.

 

[Nexoram]

War doesn't change, it's still two sorts of people fighting each other BUT the ways of killing people have changed. First the sticks and rocks,then to swords on horses and now guns. Soon governments will have developed REAL Cloak and Daggers and Ambassadors. Personally I thought war was more epic when you could charge into battle with a broadsword or shoot from afar with a longbow but now it's just guns. Quite sad really, no tactics apart from where the helicopters drop off the soldiers and which way the run and gun towards. What happened to Sun Tzu?