War Quote Essay

"The possibility of war increases in direct porportion to the effectiveness of the insturments of war."

I think that this quotes basically means that the more prepared you are to have war, or to defend yourself in war, the more likely it's actually going to happen. It's like saying the more toys a child has, the more likely the child will play with it and use it. Also, the word "insturments" in this quote doesn't just mean guns or bombs. It means anything and anybody that can help start or stop a war, such as revolutionists, a treaty, newspapers, a president, a project, etc. Another point of this quote is not only the fact of having insturments will increase the chances of having war, but the degree of how high the insturments are will effect how high the degree of the war will be. What this means is that if you give a child a teddy bear, then give her/him a Playstation, she/he is more likely to play with the Playstation (like Mr. Nutter).

A big insturment in war is the media in general. Newspapers, magazines, tabloids, word-of-mouth, television news, history class, talking to friends, etc. Anytime a communication is made between people, information is passed on. At a time of tension between two countries, or two opposing sides, and information about the causes of tension can be incorrect, over-exaggerated, or simply misunderstood. This misunderstanding can cause feelings that will be violent and demand war. The more newspapers, the more gossip, the more magazines, the more people will hear about it and demand action. Media is a terrible insturment.

An example of this is what happened to me today. Usually, I'm never keeping track of the news about what's happening betweent the USofA and other countries, bombings, or threat of war. It never really mattered to me. However, today in USofA history class, Mr. Nutter brought up the subject of a country having declared war on us, and our preperations to bomb them. Before this, I hadn't cared, or even really known what was going on. But today after the subject was brought up in history, I leanrned more about the situation adn now think that it is completely right of us to fight back. This feeling will cause me to spread the news to other people. Although it is just me, there are thousands out there like me, and everyday there's more and more. It's like a new form of March madness, and it spreads. It spreads to tabloids, magazines. After all, government does what the people wants it to do (supposedly), and since more people, through media, are feeling angry and the need of war, this need will (supposedly) be fulfilled, causing war.

Going back to the second part of the quote, media also effects the degree of the war. At first, if only a few percentage of people actually cared about the war, then the fight would be "whatever-ish". But now, because of media, more people are aware of it, so more people will create more tension, meaning more violent and persistent fighting.