Whatever you call it is still war

War is a conflict between states. This term comes from an Old German word “werren”, which means “melee”. Wars are fought mainly to have the supremacy in the control of natural resources and energy sources (gas, oil and coal), for territorial conflicts, for ethnic, religious and cultural conflicts. War occurs when a conflict cannot be resolved diplomatically. There are different types of naming warfare based on the magnitude of the involvement and on the type of subjects fighting it: world warfare, which involves many states on different continents, regional warfare, which takes place in a single geophysical zone, local warfare, which takes place in a very small area. We still distinguish between symmetrical warfare, in which all sides have the armed forces, from asymmetrical warfare, where only one side has armed forces, while the other does not. On the basis of the means used, a distinction is then made between “unconventional” warfare, when weapons of mass destruction are used from the outset, “unconventional warfare in a potential environment”, in which weapons of mass destruction are used only if conditions require it; finally, “conventional” warfare, in which no one uses weapons of mass destruction.

But war, in whatever form it is, brings nothing but death and destruction; and the resulting side effects are equally deleterious and negative, forever marking the lives of survivors. There are no real victors in wars as all parties involved have to suffer the consequences on people, politics, the economy and the environment. “Italy repudiates war as an instrument of offense to the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolving international disputes”: this is how art. 11 of the Italian Constitution which, today more than ever, must be concretely implemented and not remain a written precept. Once again No to war, yes to life.