War Begets War
Both human and financial costs are enormous.
“War may sometimes be a necessary evil, but no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never a good”. Jimmy Carter frequently emphasized that peace cannot be achieved by “killing each other’s children,” a sentiment he highlighted during his 2002 Nobel Peace Prize address.
God Bless Jimmy Carter.
This post presents statistics showing how humans continue to cause misery for one another. It’s not about hope, or even about the world becoming a better place. This post is about the problem of violence worldwide. The estimated yet raw numbers of how we ruin each other’s lives and families. The point of this post is to force us to see the harsh reality of how dehumanizing we are as a society. Maybe if I do my job as a writer, there could be an ardent, forceful rip at your heartstrings.
Our love of war
History has shown that no matter what we think about peace, humans must love the struggles and cruel darkness of war. History tells us that we have the right and desire to kill others in the name of God, for our righteous freedoms, for protection from others we fear, for power and control, and worst of all, obscene greed. Well, in my opinion, we must love violence because we keep doing it, regardless of the human toll or financial cost.
The numbers mask the agony: a sea of nameless, faceless deaths that should haunt us all.
In the modern era, since the 1900s or so, according to the Imperial War Museums’ estimates, around 187 million people have died. What is even worse, studies have pointed out that “the biggest death tolls do not come from the actual fighting, but from war-exacerbated disease and malnutrition” — and these “indirect” deaths can account for as much as 90% of the total war-related death toll. Most studies also state that the true toll of deaths is higher with indirect deaths due to famine, disease, and displacement as factors.
Since 1990, an estimated 3.9 million people have died in battle. Geneva Declaration reports about 200,000 indirect war-related deaths annually, with total yearly war deaths around 250,000. Even post-conflict, civilian deaths continue.
But the most harrowing casualties are always the smallest among us—our children.
The children who die during a war are innocent lives lost to cruelty. Since 1990, over 2 million children have been killed by armed conflict. Around 6 million have suffered grievous wounds or permanent disability, and over a million have been forced apart from their families. The hopes, bodies, and spirits of the young are shattered by those meant to protect them.
Don’t worry, the numbers for children, the true innocents, get worse. Thousands of children die each year as a direct result of armed violence, but millions more die from the indirect consequences of warfare — disruption of food supplies, destruction of health services, water systems, and sanitation. In poor countries where children are already vulnerable to malnutrition and disease, the onset of armed conflict can increase death rates by up to 24 times, with children under five at particular risk. As of 2024, researchers suggest as many as 520 million children — more than 1 in 5 of the world’s children — were living in a conflict zone.
Count them all—the children who perish not just from bullets, but from hunger, sickness, and brokenness when war makes survival impossible. The number of young lives lost is staggering, a silent tally of tens of millions whose laughter and futures are erased by violence.
The financial cost is immense.
War-by-War Breakdown (in 2024 dollars)
The major conflicts and their inflation-adjusted costs are:
World War II — $4.69 trillion
Iraq War — $1.01 trillion
War in Afghanistan — $910 billion
Vietnam War — $843 billion
Korean War — $399 billion
World War I — $382 billion
Persian Gulf War — $117 billion
This does not include the cost of the enduring echoes of war, such as the U.S. spending an estimated $2.5 trillion on veteran care through 2050.
When considering direct military costs, veterans’ care, interest on war debt, and foreign aid, the total expenditure on wars across U.S. history exceeds $11.3 trillion.
The emotional toll of war is unrelenting.
Just because a vet comes home in one piece does not mean they are ready for civilian life. The psychological toll of war is enormous, both in human suffering and financial cost.
Across the world, more than a billion people have lived through the horrors of war. For 354 million, every day is haunted by the shadows of trauma and depression—silent battles they wage alone, mounting an almost unbearable toll that few see or understand. To put the number in perspective, that number is the entire estimated population of the US.
This is if they even survive the aftereffects of the conflict. Death by suicide has long been a driver of veteran mortality, accounting for four times as many deaths as those killed in war operations since 9/11 — and the veteran suicide rate is now outpacing the suicide rate among non-veterans for the first time since the Vietnam War. For some, the acts of war never leave them.
Peace needs to be the only focus
I write about peace on purpose in my posts. At 61, I am tired of being told that mankind will never change. That we will continue to take for granted this amazing human opportunity we have to live on this blue marble. The only planet we know of in our solar system that sustains life itself. I am tired of being told that global peace is not possible.
Why do we refuse to understand we are all in this together?
Why do we not see the other as myself?
As a grandfather, I owe it to my grandson, my son, my daughter, my family, and my friends to speak the truth. Separation is a lie. War, at its core, is an epic failure to see the other as ourselves. We need to remember this regardless of country, religion, wealth, or dogma. And we cannot warp, twist, and distort our hearts around our religious beliefs to justify that we are on the righteous side of killing.
For all our children and their children, and their children, we must put an end to all wars. We must choose peace every day. We must make peace a priority over wars.