Different types of conflict and war throughout history

¶ … War

The concept of war encompasses various different types of conflict. Wars between sovereign nations involve nation states. Regional and world wars involve multiple sovereign nations. Revolutionary wars of independence involve the populations of nations rebelling against or rejecting the continued control national authorities. Civil wars occur when rival regions or political factions within one nation seek formal separation or complete control. Proxy wars are a means by which nations prosecute their competing interests against one another through smaller conflicts involving other nations as a means of avoiding direct military conflict.

Wars between Nation States

Wars between sovereign nations have occurred throughout recorded history, dating back to Biblical times. Generally, sovereign nations go to war when they each have claims to the same land, or natural resources, or rights of passage that each seeks to own or control exclusively. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern age, the European nations engaged in wars over their competing claims over new territories and trade routes. Sometimes, sovereign nations go to war without any competing claims just because the leadership of one nation decides to take what it wants from another nation by force simply because they believe that they have the power and ability to do so. In the middle of the 20th century, Nazi Germany annexed Austria, demanded parts of Czechoslovakia by threatening war, and eventually invaded Poland just because the Nazis sought additional living space and access to natural resources.

Regional and World Wars

Regional wars involve more than two warring nations and typically involve the initial combatants as well as their respective allies and treaty members. The First World War was initially a conflict just between Austro-Hungary and Serbia but it quickly escalated to a regional war and then to a world war when uninvolved regional and international allies of both sides began to mobilize their respective armed forces. Germany supported Austro-Hungary, and Britain, France, and Russia supported Serbia. The conflict truly became a world war when the United States entered the war in 1917.

Civil Wars

Civil wars occur when different political factions within one nation cannot reach an agreement or reconcile major differences. In some cases, the purpose of a civil war is similar to revolutionary wars because they are the result of one faction's desire or intention to break free from a larger unified nation and to create a new sovereign nation. The American War between the States or Civil War is an example of such a war because the southern states sought to secede from the American nation and to create their own nation where slavery could continue legally as a way of life. The northern states opposed the institution of slavery and had gradually placed more and more pressure on the southern states to give up the practice. In other instances, civil wars occur when one faction seeks to take exclusive power over the nation instead of sharing power or regional control with competing political factions. The Spanish Civil War immediately preceding the Second World War is one such example.

Proxy Wars

Sometimes, nation states prosecute wars against one another through wars between smaller nations. Generally, this occurs when much larger nations want to avoid the devastating consequences of a direct war between them. They may have long-standing conflicts with one another or competing aims and interests about foreign territories and regions. They may seek to achieve their objectives through the use of force but instead of direct military conflict, they act against one another by supporting wars and revolutions in smaller nations in those regions. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, the world's two principal superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union conducted many overt and covert proxy wars in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and in both the Middle East and the Far East. Some of the more notable examples of those proxy efforts in modern times included the Soviet Union's attempt to militarize Cuba and install nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S. supposedly to guarantee Cuba's independence in 1961; the decade-long Vietnam War in which the Soviet Union supported and finances the North Vietnamese while the U.S. supported and financed the South Vietnamese; and the Arab-Israeli wars in which the Soviet Union supported Syria and Egypt while the U.S. supported Israel.