War can be defined as an armed conflict between political communities, whether between states or groups within a state. Classical war refers to international conflicts between states, while civil wars occur within states between rival groups. Terrorism involves the use or threat of violence against governments, organizations, or individuals to achieve political, religious, economic, or social goals. In modern wars, the majority of casualties are civilians, not combatants. Wars often have severe and long-lasting psychological and physical impacts on civilians and combatants alike and contribute to issues like post-traumatic stress disorder.

1. Let’s begin with a definition or two:
(Much of the information in this series of slides is from
Lauer and Lauer, 2000)

2. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and
widespread armed conflict between political
communities. …
War is a phenomenon which occurs only between
political communities, defined as those entities which
either are states or intend to become states (in order to
allow for civil war).
Continued:

3. Classical war is international war, a war
between different states, like the two World
Wars. But just as frequent is war within a
state between rival groups or communities,
like the American Civil War. Certain
political pressure groups, like terrorist
organizations, might also be considered
“political communities,” in that they are
associations of people with a political
purpose and, indeed, many of them aspire
to statehood or to influence the development
of statehood in certain lands
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
First published Fri Feb 4, 2000;
substantive revision Thu Jul 28, 2005

4. a major armed conflict between
nations or between organized
groups within a nation in which a
thousand or more people are
killed.
2006

9. Now think about terrorism.
A definition or two:

10. Look at the dates of these
citations and note how the
emphasis shifts from
government to
organizations outside of
the government.

11. From the OED:
Government by intimidation; the
system of the ‘Terror’ 1793-4; A polity
intended to strike with terror those
against whom it is adopted … 1798

12. The guillotine was used as late as
the 1940s and possibly ’50s in
Algiers

13. The use of violence or the
threat of violence as a
means to achieve some
strategic goal by striking
fear in victims.
Peterson et al, 1999

14. The use of calculated, unlawful
physical force or threats of violence
against a government, organization, or
individual to gain some political,
religious, economic, or social objective.
Kendall, 2007

15. Politically motivated violence against
citizens of political entities different
from those of the perpetrators in order
to coerce and intimidate others into
accepting the perpetrators’ goals.
(Lauer and Lauer 2008)

16.  At present 120 million land mines are
planted in more than 70 countries.
 Land mines kill or maim at least one person
every hour.
 One in every 236 people in Cambodia is an
amputee because of land mines,
 18 countries have destroyed their stocks of
mines.
 Of 137 countries that have signed a ban of
such mines. The US is not one of them.

18. More and more civilians account for the
majority of deaths in war.
 About half in the 1950s.
 Three-fourths in the 1980s
 Nearly 90 percent in the 1990s

19. In Iraq just over 3000 American servicemen
have died.
The civilian total is 150,000 to a half a million,
2003 through 2006. (Iraq Family Heath Survey
for the WHO)

21. Who do you think would like to play with these?

22. 1 They are often among those killed
2 They suffer severe and sometimes
permanent injuries.
3 Children are recruited for, or forced into,
being combatants.

24. • Residual destruction from unexploded ordnance.
• Psychological and interpersonal trauma.
• Environmental destruction
• Economic costs
• The possibility of sanctions (enduring or
enforcing) or reparations.
• A possible repercussion to said sanctions or
reparations. (Nazi Germany and Al-Qaida)

25. Civilian trauma can last a lifetime.
PTSD child's drawing
Iraq veterans with PTSD

26. •A year of shock and fatigue
•Drug use to escape reality
•Children developed a fear of of
personal attachment
•Survivor’s guilt
•Hiroshima became a city of “chaos,
pain, crime, anxiety, an deep-rooted
fear.”

29. Think of what weapons of terror exist
in the realm of warfare.
Do we have them?
Do we use them?

33.  140,000 died in Hiroshima and another 70,000
died instantly in Nagasaki.
 Another 130,000 died later as a result of the
bombing.

34. In the US from 1945 to 1970 about 800 tests
were done on military personnel, many who
were unaware of the risks.
The outcomes are contested but one would
expect increases of cancer and other maladies.

35.  PTSD
 Responses to having participated in
dehumanizing acts.
 Nazi experimental torture (freezing and
oxygen deprivation).
 Abu Ghraib and other places of torture.

38.  Was Abu Ghraib a case of a “few bad apples?”
 Or was it situational?
 Consider the findings of Philip Zimbardo.

39. Agent Orange (Dioxin) Defoliant

40.  Deforestation
 Pollution
 Unexploded ordnance
 Irrigation canals destroyed
 Black rain in the Gulf War

41. As a direct result of the use of powerful
defoliants in Vietnam, veterans of the war face
a 50 percent greater risk of cancer of the lymph
nodes.

42.  Iraq cost over a billion dollars a week.
 World War I utterly destroyed Germany and
preceded a global depression.
 Military costs come out of social benefit
budgets.
 International sanctions (discussed next)

43. We come full circle. The war results in
sanctions (such as what WWI did to
Germany)
This caused a deep depression and sense of
alienation for Germans.
This paved the way for Hitler.
Discuss Iraq next:

44.  Iraq invades Kuwait
 Allied forces thwart the assault
 Sanctions are imposed
 People die and sanctions are circumvented
 Infrastructure is bombed
 500,000 children and untold numbers of adults
die
 Al-Quaida emerges

45.  The Patriot Act
 Right of Habeas Corpus
 Racial or ethnic profiling
 Right to privacy
 Freedom to travel

46. Chalmers Johnson, who worked for the CIA
and is a scholar on Japan, notes the phenomena
called “blowback.”
It is defined as:

47. “The unintended consequences of policies that
were kept secret from the American people.”
(Johnson, 2004)
Consider 9/11 as a consequence of those Iraq
sanctions already mentioned.

48. The 20th
century was the bloodiest in human
history. More than 100 million deaths occurred
compared to 19.4 million in the 19th
century and
3.7 million in the 1st
to 15th
centuries.