Military And War (Mainstream Media) 

Military has two broad meanings. In its first sense, it refers to soldiers and soldiering. In its second sense, it refers to armed forces as a whole. Over the years, military units have come in all shapes and sizes. They have been as small as a handful of medieval peasants banded together for battle under their feudal lord or as large as the invasion force created in 1944 for D-Day. They can be as rigidly organized as the impis of Shaka Zulu or virtually autonomous like the Knights Templar during the Crusades. Some states - for instance, Sparta or more recently Prussia - have even placed military prowess at the heart of government.

The business of soldiering is as old as recorded history itself. Some of the most enduring images of the classical world portray the power and feats of antiquity's military leaders. The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one of the defining points of pharoah Ramesses II's reign and is celebrated in bas relief on his monuments.[1] A thousand years later, the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined to impress the gods with his military might that he was buried with an army of terracotta soldiers. The Romans were keen on military matters, leaving to posterity many treatises and writings as well as a large number of lavishly carved triumphal arches and columns celebrating their victories.

In our own era, world wars and countless other major conflicts have changed the political landscape beyond recognition. Empires have come and gone; states have grown and expired. Enormous social changes have been wrought and military power continues to dominate international politics. The role of the military today is as central to society as it ever was.

War is a state of conflict involving two or more groups of creatures who fight, often with the stated intention of triumph over a hated foe, increasing their land, wealth, or power, protecting their religion, way of life, ethnic identity, or homeland from actual or anticipated attack, or, in the case of civil war, using force to resolve internal differences. The word is most often used to describe human conflict, but can be applied to certain kinds of animal conflict (such as ant and chimpanzee wars) as well as to hypothetical or imaginary conflicts. Wars may be prosecuted simultaneously in one or more different theatres. Within each theater, there may be one or more consecutive military campaigns. Individual actions of war within a specific campaign are traditionally called battles, although this terminology is not always applied to contentions involving aircraft, missiles or bombs alone in the absence of ground troops or naval forces.

The factors leading to war are often complicated and are not completely understood. In War Before Civilization, Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois, calculates that approximately 90-95% of known societies engaged in at least occasional warfare, and many fought constantly. A war may begin following an official declaration of war but undeclared wars are common. A major American high school history textbook offers the following, as its only explanation for the American Civil War, "War broke out."

Source: Wikipedia