{"id":72520,"date":"2023-10-30T01:00:34","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T05:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=72520"},"modified":"2023-10-29T12:10:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T16:10:11","slug":"qotd-study-military-history-in-hopes-of-avoiding-future-conflicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/10\/30\/qotd-study-military-history-in-hopes-of-avoiding-future-conflicts\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Study military history in hopes of avoiding future conflicts"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>&#8230; <strong>the third reason why we study war and conflict: so that we might have less of it<\/strong>. It should be little surprise that, more than most other areas of history, the study of war is replete with veterans of conflict (if I had to guess very roughly, I&#8217;d say about <em>half<\/em> or so of academic military historians seem to have military experience? perhaps a little bit less?). In speaking, arguing and writing with them I find the common refrain that, as people who experienced war, they do not study it because they like war. <strong>Rather military historians study conflict in the same way that doctors study disease; no one assumes that doctors <em>like<\/em> diseases, quite the opposite<\/strong>. Though I have not experienced combat, I share this view. By understanding the costs of conflict, we can learn to try and avoid it (especially as modern technology drives the cost of conflicts higher and higher than the potential benefits). By understanding the causes of conflict, we can try to ameliorate them. And by understanding conflict itself, we can effort to keep the necessary wars as short and confined as possible, empowering our decision-makers (civilian and military) with the tools they need to find the peace that is always the goal of war.<\/p>\n<p>Bret Devereaux, <a href=\"https:\/\/acoup.blog\/2020\/11\/13\/collections-why-military-history\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Collections: Why Military History?&#8221;, <em>A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry<\/em><\/a>, 2020-11-13.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; the third reason why we study war and conflict: so that we might have less of it. It should be little surprise that, more than most other areas of history, the study of war is replete with veterans of conflict (if I had to guess very roughly, I&#8217;d say about half or so of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,7,5,41],"tags":[1457,764],"class_list":["post-72520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-history","category-military","category-quotations","tag-bretdevereaux","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-iRG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72520"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85470,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72520\/revisions\/85470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}