It doesn’t take much to get a war going when a large, influential group within a country really wants one. From Jeff Thomas at internationalman.com:
Just prior to a war, the majority of people in the nations that are about to become involved tend to assume that another nation is threatening theirs, whist their own leaders are doing all they can to avoid conflict. This is almost never the case.
The “etiquette” of starting wars is for leaders to claim to their people that the last thing they want is war, but the enemy is goading them into armed conflict and, at some point, retaliation becomes “unavoidable.”
The reason for this etiquette is that, almost invariably, the people of a nation have no desire to go to war.
But if that’s the case, why is world history filled with warfare taking place on a regular basis?
Well, truth be told, there are two groups of people who tend to relish war – the military and the political leaders.
