ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly considers the nature of war, the causes of war and the possible alternatives to war, the methods of curing the mania of militarism afflicting the world at the present time. War is a purely human phenomenon. The lower animals fight duels in the heat of sexual excitement and kill for food and occasionally for sport. The various civilizations of the world have adopted fundamentally different attitudes towards war. War exists because people wish it to exist. Many people like war because they find their peace-time occupations either positively humiliating and frustrating, or just negatively boring. A principal cause of war is nationalism, and nationalism is immensely popular because it is psychologically satisfying to individual nationalists. The first of the political causes of war is War itself. Wars may be made for the purpose of furthering a religious or political creed. Sanctions are objectionable for exactly the same reasons as war is objectionable.
