War times

A while back junior was asking which countries were at war in the ongoing conflict. We were listing down the number of countries and the next inevitable question came in - why so many are at war. A we continued on that topic, i was wondering how many are actually not at war!! 

Couple of decades back, Africa would always be in the news solely for war related topic. Like Weather, International news, Business, Sports, if there was a section for war in news, it would most probably about some African country were conflicting ethnic tribes would be hell bent on clearing out the other, some army coup, dictator being thrown out and getting replaced with another equally if not more bad one. Locally, it would be some unrest or stone pelting or occasional infiltration/ gun fight in Kashmir, that would be hogging the headlines. It would be followed by number of soldiers martyred or army causalities. But in recent times, the news seems to have slightly changed. Yes there are warring nations, be it Ukraine-Russia, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Israel - Gaza, Pak-Ind for a brief while, Pak-Af, and the more recent Israel/US vs Iran which has dragged in most of mid east nations unwittingly. But the news is no longer about army causalities but more of civilians!! Every day we get to read about hospitals being bombed, residential places being devastated, civilian infrastructure being targeted and very less about the actual people who are supposed to be players in the war - namely the army/air force and navy. Why the hell having a standing army who are sworn to serve their nation with their life, if need be, sitting in idle, while the select few play video games on the lives of the civilians whom they've sworn to protect!!

This new era of drone war fare has literally relegated the role of "foot on ground" warfare to backstage. It is the ease of use to push a button and tracking it to its target like video games with disc jockey has made the role of soldiers secondary and has brought in civilians into play. Despite tall claims of super accurate target and smart warfare, there is no guarantee as to where which one will fall, either intended or unintended or as part of shrapnel from shield!! It seems even more than the actual missiles, the shields end up causing as much damage in the form of debris from the defense and it all ends up on the heads of unknowing civilians, who ends up paying the brunt of hubris of a select few morons who have their butter fingers strongly stuck on decision making apparatus. There should be a rule that any country planning to fight against anyone else, should arrange a stage where the leaders of both nations should fight it out one on one and who ever wins should be declared the ruler of the other nation!! Might sound childish, but if you really think it through, but for the ego haggling of select few, there would've been no war in first place!! UNO (Unnecessary Needless Organization) with its remaining pieces of teeth or enamel, should consider opening one such arena in Switzerland, the supposedly neutral country of the world.