Home › History › THE WAR TO END ALL WARS ENDED 99 YEARS AGO

THE WAR TO END ALL WARS ENDED 99 YEARS AGO

By on • ( 36 )

I am 70 years old. For my entire life — all seventy years — there has been a war going on somewhere. Usually, the US has been involved in it — or is about to become involved. I keep hoping, if I live long enough, there will come a day when there is no war in the news. When the U.S. has no fighting men dying somewhere for reasons no one will remember a decade later.

The irony is, it would be much easier to count the years during which we have not been at war. There have been far fewer of them.

War doesn’t seem to be working out well. Maybe we should try something else?

Right now is the 99th anniversary of the end of World War I, supposedly “the war to end all wars.” Instead, it was closer to “the war to begin all wars.” Many of the wounds the world suffered then are still festering today. It ended at eleven in the morning, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year in 1918.

11-11-11

I intentionally posted this at precisely eleven in the morning. I didn’t know if anyone would notice, but I noticed.

I would like to see a world without war … but I’m not holding my breath.

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Categories: History, Holidays, War and battles

Tags: , , , , , ,

36 replies

  1. swo8
    11/12/2017 • 13:35

    Clearly war is not the answer.
    Leslie

    Like

  2. lwbut
    11/12/2017 • 02:28

    Easy Spike! I FULLY agree with you on Trumpet’s lack of intelligence and ability to string more than 3 words together coherently without the aid of a teleprompt or speech writer.

    I seriously doubt he can understand the US’s current capabilities regarding cyber conflict or have any ideas about how to initiate them as either attack or in ‘defense’ but fortunately (or unfortunately depending upon your position/sympathies) you have vast numbers of highly trained and politically savvy people who do and can instigate them and can convince Trump not to nuke everything and everyone in sight but use better means to defend ‘Mericans and their international interests.

    As you have said a few times now – there is a system and it works – even when you have a lunatic in the White House.

    As proof consider that Trump made it VERY clear there was no use talking with N Korea and yet now he’s practically falling over himself to get them to the table for discussions and while Trump himself might not want to believe it, the rest of the world knows nuclear disarmament of N K is not for negotiation – they have ’em and will keep ’em the talking will be on how we move on as safely as can be possible from that rather than trying to get them to give up their nukes.

    Of course, my point here is that hacking of communications systems ( like the one’s that control other countries nuclear weapons firing!) is a far greater threat to any nation than attacking them with a couple of million armed troops and everyone (China N Korea Russia, Iran UK Japan, etc, etc.) realises this and is working desperately to ensure they have a safe defence and a method of attack in cyberspace. You may not see it like you can a nuclear powered aircraft carrier or a squadron of JSF35’s but it will be the war of the not-so-distant future, trust me.

    The exceptions might be for places like Africa and the various Islamic minor nations and civil wars.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      11/12/2017 • 10:57

      Leaving me with that unasked and unanswerable question about — WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THAT STUFF? If it is still in the president’s hands … it would be 19th century war. I wouldn’t be surprised if he armed them with sabers and put them on horses. I agree that SOMEONE beat reality into Trump’s thick head. The fear of god — or nuclear obliteration — hit him somewhere on the route. But whether that leaves him with a clearer concept of his choices? That is another question and a very GOOD question. Legally, he really IS in charge. There may be a secret deal in place. I sure hope so.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. lwbut
    11/11/2017 • 23:47

    I’m SLIGHTLY optimistic about man no longer ‘going’ to war in your and my lifetime. ( More specifically armed soldiers going to war with another country’s/religion’s soldiers to kill them and occupy their land or control a valuable resource they own.)

    The reason?

    We will make machines do it for us (and hopefully not against us!) The wars and profits resulting from them will be more of the cyberwar nature, fought through computers or by automated death machines. Our sons (and now daughters who earned the right to die for their country- how cool is that?) will no longer be required to be trained to kill without sufficient after-kill training to return back to a ‘normal’ life after they have killed – at least not personally ‘face-to-face’. If they have to kill humans at all they may use drones and video display panels to kill the enemy (more likely to be robots/drones) with.

    I’m hopeful that what used to be obtained through the death of a hundred thousand soldiers or so in one battle can soon be obtained by a few swift cyber attacks on a country’s communications or banking systems with next to no loss of life, but perhaps just a few million economic casualties to satisfy our blood lust/need for revenge on all those who dare think/behave differently to the way ‘we’ want them to.

    Of course there will still be a strong push by arms manufacturers to make reasons for people to think they still need guns, rifles, tanks, planes, ships and nuclear armed subs to ‘protect’ themselves with, but hopefully our government’s will soon see the economic benefit of fighting wars by computer/robot than by easily dispensible/replaceable human cannon-fodder.

    I can but hope.

    Mostly though i think the progress in Autonomics and AI is going to create more and new forms of misery than it may potentially fix. But who’s going to listen to me?

    Liked by 1 person

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      11/12/2017 • 00:01

      I think you are being wildly optimistic. There is no concept of this kind of war in this country … and THIS country is probably the one MOST likely to wage war. Maybe it could be done by cyber warriors, but it won’t happen that way. Whoever is in charge of these things — and these days, I’m not at all sure who that is — is living in the 19th century, except he/they has nuclear bombs. We are FAR more likely to be blown the hell up. If we manage to get through this presidency without being vaporized … maybe, just maybe, we might come up with another way to go, but right now? We’ll be lucky to escape the next three years alive.

      Like

      • lwbut
        11/12/2017 • 00:27

        I wish you luck for the next three years (hopefully it won’t even take that long to lose Trump!).

        I think you are being sadly underinformed about the current state of cyberwarfare however. The cyber race is every bit as real as the nuclear race was in the 40’s. Your country already kills foreign soldiers with video controlled unmanned machines and clears mines and booby traps with robots and has designed kill robots and is producing them – as are ‘enemy’ states. if one gets them ‘first’ others need them to feel ‘safe'(r).

        I’m not suggesting a war with robots as in Terminator but wars fought with several different kinds of machines to the things most of us think about when we think of ‘war’.

        Machines are so much better at killing human soldiers than human soldiers are so trying to fight a war with just people will prove to be very short lived. (literally).

        Like i mentioned though – i think attacking another nations computer based infrastructure will be a far more effective weapon of mass destruction/means of achieving national superiority than will sending in the ‘troops’ in our very near future.

        It’s cheaper to train a dozen or so computer hackers than a million armed soldiers – it all comes down to economics in the end. 😉

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        • Marilyn Armstrong
          11/12/2017 • 00:35

          I may be under-informed, but have you LISTENED to Trump? The man is a MORON. He believes Putin and dismisses his own intelligence agencies. He’s an IDIOT. Under-informed? Trump is in charge. He is too stupid to complete a sentence — and HE is in charge of war. You think HE knows what’s going on … or would listen should someone try to tell him? Surely you jest.

          Liked by 2 people

    • Garry Armstrong
      11/12/2017 • 10:52

      Bob, Here’s hoping MANY listen to your rational and well reasoned thoughts.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Marilyn Armstrong
        11/12/2017 • 10:55

        Sadly, the ones who need to listen are not good listeners.

        Liked by 1 person

      • lwbut
        11/13/2017 • 02:08

        Thank you my friend. 🙂

        Truth be told Sir… i’m losing my faith in mankind’s ability to remain ‘mostly’ rational these days. Rationality as i knew it seems to be rationed lately, particularly with politicians of all persuasions.

        Latest bit of lunacy Aus style? After one party’s Senator got kicked out of office for holding dual citizenship at the time he enrolled to stand for a federal election, contrary to our Constitution, his replacement (who gathered a whole 19 votes in the election – that is 19 people placed him first on their enrolment cards from a state population of some 2 million voters!) was sworn in as a new Senator for the ‘One Nation’ party only to defect and become an ‘Independent’ Senator an hour later. He says he was kicked out by the Party’s figurehead, a female extreme right wing nationalist/patriot Trump supporter, but with a party that held 4 senate seats out of 12, kicking one of your own out of your party seems a little less than rational to me?

        Little in Politics makes any sense now or has any rationality behind it as far as i can tell.

        Like

        • Marilyn Armstrong
          11/13/2017 • 02:15

          I think we are all suffering serious doubts. This is a bad time for faith in much of anything.

          Liked by 1 person

          • lwbut
            11/13/2017 • 23:32

            That does seem to be the case. it’s curious though because i always thought faith grew in troubled times and they seem to be very troubled right about now?

            maybe something completely new is happening?

            Perhaps the rate at which old ‘standards’ – things we could always rely upon or fall back on – are changing is making everything un-believable?

            Like

            • Marilyn Armstrong
              11/13/2017 • 23:36

              I think — and this is my opinion, but it’s hardly ONLY my opinion — that the U.S. NEVER SETTLED THE ISSUE OF RACE AND SLAVERY. Yeah, we fought a war and a lot of people died, but that didn’t settle it. It just meant that one side won and the other lost. But they didn’t ever AGREE that slavery was bad … and there are a LOT of them.

              At the bottom of this is, was, and will be — race hatred. It’s not about exclusion. It’s not about economics. It’s all about race and always has been.

              Garry wanted to add that if by any chance you would like any of our horrible unbalanced politicians — ESPECIALLY TRUMP — we might be able to work out a deal. We’ll take any number of YOUR crazies for OUR crazies.

              Liked by 1 person

              • lwbut
                11/14/2017 • 01:35

                I’d certainly agree – with the race/slavery/supremacist thing – it is passed largely from generation to generation and while some can see past it many cannot.

                The only hope i can see of it’s passing is when the ‘losers’ start having to blame machines for their lost jobs/income/lifestyles instead of ‘foreigners’.

                As for swapping our nut-jobs that really would not help either of us i’m certain. We need to gather them all up together and put them somewhere where they can only govern themselves and not interfere with any decent people’s lives – maybe a moon base? they don’t seem to be on this planet a lot of the time anyway! 😉

                Trump should be the first ship’s captain! 😉

                Like

  4. evelyneholingue
    11/11/2017 • 19:34

    Me too, I’d like to see a world at peace. WWI was supposed to be la der des der, or that last one. But…
    To peace.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Covert Novelist
    11/11/2017 • 16:17

    My mothers’ family related to wars, one born ‘began the war’ one’s birth ‘ended the war’ etc. and no I doubt it’s going away there’s too much money to be had along with greed power oil whatever the motivator of the day is.

    Like

  6. ravenhawks magazine
    11/11/2017 • 15:13

    My family has had 3 generations serve in the armed forces. I salute you Gary! Unfortunately, I agree with Fandango. Happy Veteran’s Day.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Garry Armstrong
    11/11/2017 • 12:50

    I’m proud to be able to say…S/F…..Semper Fi!

    Liked by 2 people

  9. Rebel Girl
    11/11/2017 • 12:11

    War is big business. I too, would love to see peace on earth.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. Martha Kennedy
    11/11/2017 • 11:56

    Now that war is America’s main industry… 😦

    Like

  11. Fandango
    11/11/2017 • 11:55

    Unfortunately, the only war to end all wars will be the war that ends all of humanity. Happy Veterans Day.

    Liked by 2 people