War, what is it good for?
Historically, wars were fought to increase the empire, conquor enemies, gain wealth and impose one society’s beliefs and customs on the rest of their (known) world. Two domestic benefits of warfare were employment for many of the young men and work for those who stayed home, manufacturing arms and munitions. 
In the 21st century we no longer occupy those lands we conquor, indeed we no longer even conquor our enemies to the same extent our ancestors did. We don’t kill every adult male or manchild, we don’t rape the women or take possession of all the livestock of our foe. We don’t even attempt to become benign overlords any more.
We do still send our young males, and now females, into harm’s way. We are on our way to making warfare more antiseptic and sterile, but we’re not there yet. We no longer reap the benefit of increased employment or manufacturing capabilities, since we can now use robotics to construct our instruments of war, requiring fewer humans and manufacturing plants. The battlefield will soon be overrun with robots. The new “frontlines” will be occupied by a person in the rear with a joystick and monitor. Our enemy’s tactics are changing, too. Our greatest enemies are foreign belief systems and computer viruses. Our nation’s freedoms have turned out to be a Trojan Horse.
War seems to be morphing into an activity that offers none of the rewards it traditionally has, none of the benefits. Soon it will become a completely senseless behavior. Yet humans are confrontational animals. Because we posses a sense of personal property we have also evolved attitudes and behaviors to provide for the defense of that property. When we perceive our nation as personal property (us vs. them) we extend that desire to defend our property to the national level. So it seems inevitable that mankind will continue to argue, assault and take up arms against neighbor and foreigner.
If conventional warfare no longer exists, how horrific is the future of human antagonism?
