Why is there War?

We are all the grand – grand – grand…. children of people who survived long enough to have children. This is the basis of the theory of evolution.

Humans are social animals, and don't tend to survive too well on their own. Most people are members of societies which have to survived without being destroyed..

A mind game

Imagine two groups of people. One group is always fighting and killing each other. The other group is more co-operative. They work together and work together to build things, harvest crops and so on. You can see that the group that is always fighting won't be able to build anything much more complex than one person can do on their own. In any kind of natural disaster like a famine or earthquake they will be less likely to survive than the group who cooperates.

This is why most societies have laws and customs forbidding murder and killing by their members.

Now imagine two co-operative groups. One is peaceful, and the other goes to war. If they meet, the warlike group will kill the peaceful group. So the warlike group will have children and the peaceful group will not.

Bigger is better

Societies which combine both these techniques do even better. A group which has a small, highly trained army, but most of whose members are farmers, builders and artisans, will do better than groups where all the members fight, but are not properly trained. The Romans were able to conquer most of the people of Europe, and had time to build roads, bridges and buildings that still stand today, as well as create great works of art and literature.