In the United States, November 11 is Veterans Day, first celebrated in 1919. Back in 1919 it was called Armistice Day, commemorating the 1918 armistice that ended what Americans originally called the European War. When the European War started, Americans wanted no part of it. If European nations wanted to fight each other, then let them: we crossed the Atlantic to get away from that kind of thing.
But the deep state of the time ran a couple of propaganda ops to inflame public sentiment, and the Wilson Administration eventually dragged Americans into what came to be known as the Great War. Ironically, Wilson had been elected president on the slogan that he “kept us out of war,” but despite it all, Americans ended up “over there.”
It’s no longer called the Great War: first, it wasn’t all that great, and it was arguably the beginning of the end for Western civilization. Second, it’s now called World War I because — as many people warned at the time — the June 1919 Treaty of Versailles guaranteed and delivered a World War II. More tens of millions were needlessly killed.
And the wars continue. Our newly-elected president seems less inclined to start wars, but how much he can stop them is in doubt. Apart from the huge amounts of money to be made, the animalistic side of human nature revels in the death and destruction that war brings. Whether we like it or not, we have only a thin veneer of intelligence covering our instinctive savagery. As William James wrote in “The Moral Equivalent of War” (1910):
“Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder, but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors. Showing war’s irrationality and horror is of no effect on him. The horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life; it is life in extremis; war taxes are the only ones men never hesitate to pay, as the budgets of all nations show us.”
Human nature remains as it always was; only the technologies and excuses have changed. We can hold back the savage tide a little, now and then, but each generation has to start anew on trying to maintain a decent — and peaceful — civilization.
The Thousand-Year View 
I think war belongs in the same category as death and taxes as the only sure things in life.
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Very likely. One problem of larger societies is that people who start and profit from war seldom bear personal risk for their actions. In the past, kings and the like were at least occasionally expected to lead their followers into battle, such as England’s King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt. Now, politicians and bureaucrats stir up bloodshed for their own purposes but let others (soldiers and civilians) do the dying, as the instigators cash in by selling weapons and then supplies to rebuild devastated countries. As convenient and helpful as it would be if the problem were just a few bad people who could be removed from power (as they should be), the problem is a systemic result of humans in large groups. I have no prescription except to do what we can, when we can, to oppose needless conflict and carnage.
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