A definition of War

As seen at Thomas Paine's Corner in an article entitled "WAR, PEACE AND ARMS CONTROL IN THE BRONZE AGE"

It is fruitless to discuss War and Peace seriously without definitions of those two terms, which are standardly absent from all works about them. The best operative definition was given by Thomas Hobbes in his 17th Century classic Leviathan:

For WARRE consisteth not in Battel only, or in the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battel is sufficiently known; and there the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre, as it is in the Nature of Weather. For as the nature of Foule weather, lyeth not in a Showre or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together:

So the nature of Warre consisteth not in actual fighting; but in a known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.

All other time is PEACE

The “inclination” and “disposition” to war are crystallized and distributed in a war’s ideological foundations, which rationalize, legitimate, motivate and unify “the Will to contend by Battel.”

Ideological armaments are as essential as physical armaments in preparation for and conduct of war.

Without such understanding, international peace and security agreements have been doomed to repeated failure. Especially arms control, which, seeking to control preparations for war without essential understanding of the nature of War and Peace, is fundamentally flawed and has been an historically failed enterprise.