are you being serious???????
If you are - then, on the "economic benefits of rebuilding, armaments manufacture and population culls?"
no - I do not believe so -
re. population - no, there is no lasting benefits numbers wise from war that I know of. - However, I will get back to that in a minute.
on the other perceived benefits - economically -
what you spoke of economically is in regard to the stimulation of economies -
and, that - I have always thought could be done in some other way - a far less painful way - eg.
don't have wars as we know them where we hurl bits of lead and steel at each other and hurt each other - but, have quests ------ quests that give us the same economic stimuli - such as - space exploration, the quest for the holy grail of desirable energy production with all the desired bells and whistles -
I also believe that we could achieve the same technological development thrust we get from war - as long as we treated the quests with the same urgency.
we could do that all if we all agreed to.
So - I see the 'advantages of war - all bar one' as being replaceable by something else - so, no need there for nationalism.
The one area that I do certainly see an advantage to war is - human evolution or at least the maintenance of the health of the species.
I will give an example -- I just spent 3 months in Vietnam - Vietnam had been at war for decades.
To me - you can see it - they are tough - both the men and the women - very very tough. They are the survivors - they beat the French, they beat the USA and it's allies. They had a civil war - they are now one people. They have survived and they are thriving. You cannot possibly spend time among them without realising that they have something - an intestinal fortitude.
Completely different to Thais - who's Generals wear so many kilos of medals BHP would take a year to make the metal - but, they haven't fought a war - and, it shows - boy does it show.
Both societies (perhaps most Asian societies) are pragmatic - but, the Vietnamese are different.
I didn't go to Cambodia - but, I heard from many travellers - and, that's different again - I was told many times that what shows clearly there is that what you see every day in the street are suspected to be the results of them having disposed of the educated one's in their society - it's left a dreadful result.
Now - that too is a result of war - but, not all wars do that - not every war is where the upper echelon is cleaved out and massacred.
To me - that's probably the dumbest move one can do if it's one's own society or, it's a society you wish to use later - but, it's been done before plenty of times.
I cannot see that one being an advantage ever - but, 'normal' wars - where only the smartest and wilyist and most situationally aware survive - well, yep, if it goes on long enough - your breeding population has to have had the weaker survivalist characteristics removed and you are left with the stronger
all IMO
