Guess what?

No really, go ahead and guess.

No, you're way off. This has nothing to do with molasses, gerbils, or electrodes. Sicko.

Actually, I came to the conclusion that war is obsolete.

"He's on our side!" shouts the chick from the balcony in the the tie-dye with the peace symbol on it.

Let me assure you that, as always, any belief I have in common with ANY group is purely coincidental. My assertion is not based on any of that "love and peace" pot-smoking hippy crap. I am not so naive as to believe that people will ever be able to give up killing each other, but they won't be doing so for any good reason. Nah, like everything else, this comes down to cold, hard logic instead of warm, fluffy wishful thinking. Yes indeed, logic is a brick and idealism is a pillow. It doesn't hurt as bad to get hit with a pillow, but I wouldn't want to build my house out of them...

In the old days, an army travelled through a region, fought the local leader, and either got its ass kicked or took over. The most destructive weapon was a really big sword, and chemical warfare was a particularly noxious fart. All in all, regular people's lives were no more or less miserable than before. Times are a HELL of a lot different now.

Let's look at an example. Let's say that the U.S., for whatever reason, decides that it just HAS to invade Canada. Perhaps there's a shortage of ice or mooses or something, and the normally amiable Canadians are being stingy. So we do it. With the exception of Quebec which would immediately surrender like their French brethren before the Nazis, I imagine that the Canadians would put up a stalwart defense. They'd be totally overwhelmed, of course, but I bet they'd defend their cities and abundant ice fields with at least moderate resolution. There might even be some guerilla action afterwards.

SO, what has the U.S. conquered? All of the cities would have been levelled. The population would have been displaced. Thousands of soldiers on both sides would be dead, when they could have been sitting at home watching football and supporting the beer industry. The moose would have been scared away and the fertile ice would have been covered with soot. It'll cost us BILLIONS to get the country back up to its previous level of relative prosperity, and that doesn't even include the cost of the campaign! Even if Canada actually had anything worth conquering, it would have been destroyed by the time the fighting stopped.

On the other hand, the status quo of free trade allows us access to all of the riches of Canada (such as they are) we could possibly want, and vice versa. Conquering them won't give us any better access to those things, and it'll cost us a lot more.

There's just something about military hardware that SOOOOOO cool, though. The ugly elegance of a tank, the speed of a fighter, pure humongousness of an aircraft carrier, the soft pleasant glow of nukes... Maybe I feel a kinship with the big guns due the big gun I keep packed in my pants.

Of course, people would actually need to get a clue before war can become a thing of the past. In a world in which Communism still survives, thousands of competing religions still fight for followers, people continually elect the most corrupt to the highest positions of power, and I can't score, I don't see that happening. Good thing, too. Without war, there would be a lot fewer cool movies.

And I told the bouncers to keep the damn hippies out.