Name: Katherine Yepez.C.I. 25.006.710 Final Composition A book about War.A few days ago I was at the universitys library. I found a quite peculiar book about war. But, this is not an arbitrary book of the millions of books that have been written about war. It is a compilation of essays written by a Professor of Kings University in London and the school of Wars History in Oxfords University, Michael Howard. Howard had written seven books related to the subject.So, I started Reading the book and the first chapter is called: The Causes of War. Two sentences from this chapter remained in my head since I finished the book. The first one is: there are no accidental wars, every war have been planned. My first analysis is: Which person is responsible of this lets call it this way- assignment? , was the World War II (One of the most tragic event on human history) planned?. The author says that actually any war have been planned by the statesmen that work for the governments and who consider all strategies and possible issues in the game of gaining power. Because, as we all know, power is one of the causes of war; it is one of the oldest and strongest reasons why the word war exists.Power is what motivated the Spartans to attack Athena in ancient times and it is what forced USA government to drop a bomb at Hiroshima. Power and war, both go hand on hand. War is the path to power or maybe the instrument to get it. Howard claims that mankind is not pathologically violent, so thats why he rejected the use of violence for a nations own benefit. War is always been around us but according to the author this is not part of our nature. My question is: did these nations have better options to resolve their problems instead of causing a conflict between them or instead of killing innocent people and destroy entire towns like Hiroshima or Athena?. In my opinion there are no excuses for war. But a grown nation has a lot to lose without war; qualities such as credibility, dignity, force and last but not least authority. The brightest example is what happened on 1789 after the French Revolution, Napoleon was a Hero and France was claimed as the victor all around Europe. In my opinion theres no merit on winning a war. What is the merit for killing millions of innocent people just to satisfy the insane thirst of power of a selected group?. Of course, a person who is behind the planning of a war is not pursuing just merit. The second phrase that got me thinking says: The societies that accept and use war as an instrument are the ones that dominate the societies that dont, without even battle. With a club of countries producing nuclear weapons, if this prophecy is right then we should be all concern. The author refers to this as a benefit for the international community, because after the tragic consequences of the nuclear bomb dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, governments are not going to take the risk of declaring a war.Now that even arab countries from the middle east are suspect of producing nuclear weapons, it is very risky for powerful countries to declare a war due to the massive destruction that this means. According to the author analysis there wont be another war but instead there will be small conflicts outside of the territories of the nations that are financing the conflict, because this is the new way gaining power after the Vietnam War happened. I realize that Professor Michael Howard is right considering the recent conflict in Palestine and the worst part of this is that he wrote the essay twenty years ago. In conclusion the author emphasize the importance of studying the causes of war in the pursuit of avoiding it and using negotiation to resolve the conflicts, for example in the Palestine and Israel conflict the UN has enough influence to recognize Palestine as a State and give the Palestinians the dignity of being a nation by making an agreement between both sides of the conflict. It is better to improve the political system rather than changing it and negotiation is always a better option than making war, harder but better.