Countess authors have written on war, whether war and peace or the art of war. It's sometimes astonishing how pervading the idea of a war is over human civilisation. But the nature and structure of war have mainly changed, while the similarities are uncanny. But without just being philosophical, let's understand how the terms that are floated today are a realisation of power and limitation of its projection. In that sense, this piece is a treatise on peace or, if I can, a seeming decline in war's enticement.
Wars were fought for the expansion of one's territory. But it remains a question of how and who the war served. In that sense, the armies were a protector of the ruler. Thus, the war was intended to gain rule except when it was led by vengeance or the decree of a religion. But what was expected was that most of the greatest conquests were in the form of an expedition, thus having to have a geographical continuity, which became necessary for people to establish loyal subordinates as the trip grew. Often, these subordinates could understand this challenge and grow independent. But as communication became more accessible, it was harder for these expeditions to hold on to their exploits. More so was that the technology of a geographically continuous kingdom could have varied little to give one army a sustainable advantage. Thus, sustaining the domain was brutally (sometimes fatally) difficult. For example, the kingdoms in Europe engaged in several battles, but it took a lot of work for anyone to hold power much longer.
This promoted the rulers to look for new means of control, which overcame the limitations of geographical continuity and thus the issues of communication and technology in maintaining the power difference. At the same time, it is worthy enough to be captured and conquered. Here, one begets the idea of colonies. More prosperous lands that were seemingly behind in technology and, therefore, could be easily conquered. But not all of these conquests gave colonies; in fact, in places like Australia and the Americas, the humans were first decimated to allow the conqueror to exploit only the land. In Indo-Asia regions, the control was quickly extended to all economic activities. Here, another interesting facet is that in these empty lands, humans were captured and enslaved to serve the ambitions of their colonisers.
While this remained the state of global wars for a few hundred years, the final showdown in the form of the World wards brought the idea of an overseas colony to an end. While some, like the French, still retain control over the economy of their erstwhile colonies, many have allowed the new countries to play around. But the concept thus born was that of a sphere of influence, where without even setting its presence in a colony, the imperialist could take decisive control of the colony's resources by exercising their dominance over the rulers of the colony. This idea of a sphere of influence has had many names over the last decades. While it's correct that war is more economical and technological today, blood is spilt on the maps drawn as an arbitrary armistice. In fact, global powers would even make two of their proxies fight a war based on a line they drew years ago. Who doesn't love to gamble?
