Written by Andrew Coleman.

War. Almost everyone hates it, many think it should be removed /eliminated. But so few people appear to understand it. First of all War is NOT evil, just as death is not evil. If War was evil, then when people defend themselves it would be evil - as in England, Russia, etc. should all have bowed down and let the Nazi's take them over without a fight. Second of all, War is NOT unnatural. Creatures besides man do "war". The most commonly known example are Ants.

Ants are one of the most successful species on the planet. Some might say they are more successful than humans. Which points directly at what war is and why creatures go to war. Creatures usually go to war when resources are relatively low for the population level. I will not attempt to prove that the ratio of low resources to high population is the cause of war, but it is the typical reason why people go to war. We can at least claim it is the reason why war was invented and that to end war that problem must first be addressed. Some group has something that they want, or someone else might be threatening to take something that they want. Even so called "religious wars" typically have a resource greed component of it. One of the most important resource is food, and the same theories that apply to that resource can generally apply to others.

Thomas Robert Malthus's theory was that food was growing at a lesser rate than population. He therefore concluded that eventually the population would exceed what the food supply would support, and the world would be trapped on the edge of starvation. It is the general believed that this situation has not occurred because of improvements in technology and that starvation is generally caused by political problems or sudden unpredicted agricultural problems (draught for example.)

But let us look a little bit further into Malthus' idea. The main problem with his theory is that he believed the system was too static, examined life when the resources were fairly plentiful and did not realize that some of his assumptions have radical changes as resources get less plentiful. The system is instead far more dynamic with multiple checks and balances.

First of all, as demonstrated by draught, food production capacities are NOT steady. They fluctuate. Some years using the same technology we can produce more, others we can produce less (famine). One thing that is likely to kill off population before we hit the "average starvation point" is a draught that reduces our population before it gets that bad. A short one year period of starvation can kill off many people, allowing the survivors to have a much better lifestyle until population has recovered. This is much better than having everyone struggle along barely surviving.

Secondly, as population rises, not only do we run out of resources to consume, but the environment starts having problems reclaiming our wastes. This is called pollution. This pollution can start to kill us before we starve.

Thirdly, as population rises, disease flourishes. The greater contact and closeness between members of the same species allows a newly evolved disease to find a new host after it either kills it's original host or the original host's immune system has gotten the upper hand but not totally eradicated it. In less dense population areas, their is the much greater chance that the disease will eventually die off before it can spread from it's original host to the greater population. Strong spore forms and airborne diseases are still affected as a low density population have less contact with the outside world and it might take years for a new disease to spread even if it does not die out.

Fourthly people can think and can react as we get closer to that starvation point. One reaction we can do is to engage in birth control, reducing the population growth before it happens. This method has in fact been successfully used in most developed countries - as we get bigger, we reduce our own population growth.

Fifth and last, instead of using birth control, we can institute "death control" aka "kill humans". This can be done in several ways, and war is one of the most efficient methods.

Whenever a species becomes so successful that it begins to approach the "starvation point", Nature uses all four of these methods to stop the horrible "starvation point" conditions from ever arriving. But they have various disadvantages and advantages.

Famine has a lot of disadvantages. It causes hardship and misery to all, and takes an extended period to accomplish the goal of reducing population. It can in fact be considered a worst case/last chance solution.

Disease is slightly better than a famine because it tends to kill quicker (with less long term hardship) and leave the survivors immune/less susceptible to it. However, unlike famine, it is very chaotic and will not automatically stop when the excess population is gone. Their is a real risk of under-population which makes disease far from the best possibility.

Pollution is little better. It causes hardship and misery to all, but can at least occasionally result in rapid die offs, so the victims will not suffer as much. And, once started, it takes a long time to remove, even if the problem of excessive population has already been solved.

Birth Control is probably the best. It causes no little hardship and no misery. Unfortunately it takes 9 months to have any effect at all, is more of a long term solution. Worst of all, unless the culture is easily changed to strongly encourage it, it requires a strong governmental interference in one of the most private, personal aspects of it's citizens lives.

War is one of the top 2. While it causes hardship and misery, the winning side of the war can usually exercise great restraint and limit the hardship misery from being unbearable to any one group if it chooses to do that. Most importantly, whether you win or lose the war, you can achieve a sharp reduction in population in a very short time. By focusing on one gender, you also engage in forced birth control simultaneously with the war. The main disadvantage of war is that it does not naturally stop when it has achieved a sufficient # of deaths, and sometimes expands to affect civilians as well as soldiers.

War is a horrible experience - no one wants it to happen. But remember your choice is not having a war or having a party. It is war or famine or disease or pollution or restrictive birth control laws. War happens when one group of people is close to the end of their resources and need more or they will hit Malthus' starvation point. Given a "civilized" war where the armies fight over territory but no civilian massacres occur, your choice is to have 5,000 dead soldiers shot by the enemy, with some potential loot/new territory or 5,000 random dead children, women, and men from draught/famine, or 5,000 random deaths from cancer due to pollution. If the societies had been a little more intelligent, they would have engaged in birth control practices earlier, but now it is too late.