War has ever exercised a great appeal on men's minds. Oscar Wilde's
witticism notwithstanding this fascination cannot be attri- buted simply
to the wicked character of war. The demonic forces released by war have
caught the artistic imagination, while sages have reflected on the
enigmatic readiness of each new generation to wage war, despite the
destruction, disillusion and exhaustion that war is known to bring in
its train. If there never was a good war and a bad peace why did armed
conflicts recur with such distressing regularity ? Was large-scale
violence an intrinsic condition of Man? The answers given to such
questions have differed widely: it has even been suggested that the
states of war and peace are not as far removed from one another as is
usually supposed. The causes of war and the interaction between war and
society have long been the subject of philosophical enquiry and
historical analysis. Accord- ing to Thucydides no one was ever compelled
to go to war; Cicero remarked how dumb were the laws in time of war,
while Clausewitz's profound observation concerning the affinity between
war and politics has become almost a commonplace. War being the severest
test a society or state can experience historians have naturally been
concerned to investigate their rela- tionship.