ABSTRACT
Cruelty, hatred, courage and risk – if not absent, all four are being reduced, or an attempt is being made to ensure they are no longer part of the character of war. Clausewitz tells us that every era fights its own wars, that their character changes. But he also tells us that the nature of war remains the same: it spans the centuries, and of the features he singled out, one was, for him, central. War is a human activity because it involves human emotions, and, as we have seen, two of the most important are hatred and courage. Eliminate them and you have transformed the nature of war; or in the words of David Ogg, its ‘essence’.
