Talk:Perpetual war/Archive 1

Ref. to ongoing example
Without editing the existing text, I've added territorial disputes as a cause in the main definition and referred to the Ind-Pak and Indo-China disputes as ongoing examples in the "In Recent History" sub-section. Would it be better with an independent sub-heading.VivekM 18:00, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Orwell Section
We need a citation for the reference to Thailand's history being a state secret. If it can't be provided, the statement should be removed until it can be, as that's a pretty extraordinary claim. --Impaciente 17:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It may be possible to substitute the US and UK's use of "sealing files" until dates in the far-flung future and/or denying FOIA/etc. requests for information about various controversial events (esp. the assassinations of JFK, MLK, et al in the US, IRA counterinsurgency in the UK), the sealing of presidential records in the US (recently under Bush Jr.), and covert actions throughout the Western World (e.g. Gladio) for Thai history being a state secret. It's relatively easy to verify that the US and UK are refusing to divulge historical records (JFK/MLK/presidential records etc.) and/or the truth behind historical events (Gladio, covert actions exposed after the fact esp. Operation Condor files uncovered in Central America, SAVAK files seized in the Iranian revolution, etc.) in these instances, in the latter case despite independent verification (e.g. Ganser, multiple European PM's, Europarliament resolutions, seized records, etc.). --wli

Merge proposed
This should be merged with eternal war. Can someone with knowlege of the mergeto or mergwith tag place such in these articles? - Leonard G. 01:11, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree, and have placed the mergewith tag in both articles accordingly. Until someone can explain the difference between an eternal war and a perpetual war (and even then, the differences might be so small that they can be explained in a single article), the articles should be merged. Mistamagic28 16:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I merged eternal war here and did some cleanup, including on the section cited for NPOV problems. Mistamagic28 17:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 13:44, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Needs citations and sources
For an article that's been around since 2004, I'm surprised (somewhat) that it's still so poorly referenced. As it stands, it reads more like original research with a slight bias; more importantly it fails to demonstrate its academic and/or policy origins. Be careful of sloganeering. Alcarillo (talk) 15:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

War on Terror
I'm not an expert but am very surprised there isn't a section at least addressing the debate on whether the War on Terror is a perpetual war. Wouldn't it be appropriate to acknowledge that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.195.117.114 (talk) 09:07, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Feel free to add that discussion if you find and cite a good source Piboy51 (talk) 20:44, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Views of influential writers
This section is overly detailed to the point that it bloats the entry. Suggest removing all content from each writer save a short excerpt.VmZH88AZQnCjhT40 (talk) 19:25, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I cut the quotes down by 1/3 in length. Bearian (talk) 19:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I cut down the quotes even more. Although they were interesting passages from relevant and influential texts, they dominated the article. Per WP:UNDUE, they were not appropriate for this article. Piboy51 (talk) 20:44, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I find this section oddly placed to begin with. None of these writers wrote on the concept of "perpetual war" or "eternal war" as we mean today, though they certainly have an influence. If we are to have this section, I think we should list the most relevant present day intellectuals as well. Mchikos (talk) 03:56, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Suggestions for Improvement
In the section "In socioeconomics and politics", the first paragraph begins with "some analysts" and the second begins with "some people". It might be best to eliminate these as to avoid repetition. The "views of influential writers" section contains many lengthy quotes. It might be best to paraphrase here, rather than copy large parts of published works. The "fiction" section needs citations, and may not be a needed section at all.

Wiki dude3542 (talk) 06:47, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I noticed some of the things you mentioned that you wanted to fix. Paraphrasing is an understandable approach when confronted with large blocks of text, though cutting text, in general, may help as well since there may be unnecessary phrases and information. A couple of questions I had was why do you think that the "fiction" may not be needed? What sources do you plan on using for larger contributions? What kind of large contributions do you plan on adding? Jrobles2795 (talk) 22:15, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

In Current Events
This would be an appropriate section to mention the war on terror or expound upon the on-going events that have kept the US at war. Also, addressing the allegations that the US is invading for oil could make sense. Even if it isn't accusing the US of invading for oil purposes, the allegations alone are such that the US invaded after 9/11 unnecessarily and that it has kept us in a state of tension since, which ties in appropriately. Immichaelotoole (talk) 22:37, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your input, I have made an effort to write on the war on terror with my "middle east and west" section.--Laylims (talk) 23:19, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Suggestions for Reformatting
The section involving socioeconomics and politics has a paragraph discussing the military industrial complex and how war can be seen as a form of market creation. This section seems to focus more on historical examples of the military industrial complex in action rather than any explanation of how perpetual war relates to socioeconomics or politics. It seems like it may be best to seperate that section and make it into a seperate section discussing examples of the military industrial complex throughout human history. Likewise the last paragraph under this section does not seem to entirely fit either and should maybe be moved to a seperate section involving the reaction of various societies to perpetual war. JarrodE (talk) 05:22, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your suggestions, I totally changed the socioeconomics section and organized things a bit differently, however I found the military industrial complex among other things, such as the "cold war", "middle east and west" and "war on drugs", to be relevant to politics.--Laylims (talk) 23:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Forever war
Both of these articles cover the same core topics (US overseas intervention, War on Drugs, War on Terror) and both describe themselves as synonyms of each other. The current "Perpetual war" article goes into a little more detail, but I'm not sure which is the best title to merge to. Lord Belbury (talk) 16:30, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

War on Poverty
"or wars with ambiguous enemies such as the War on Terror, War on Poverty and the War on Drugs."

This makes no sense to me at all. Perpetual war is clearly about something that resembles an actual war, defined by violence at the very least. How is the War on Poverty in that way similar to the War on Drugs and Terror, both of which definitely fought using violence akin to war? KarstenO (talk) 15:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

"End this war" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect End this war. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 July 8 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. -- Tamzin (she/they) &#124; o toki tawa mi. 09:38, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ghuerta4, Lilyptacek, Sma.tucson, Laylims. Peer reviewers: Jrobles2795, Immichaelotoole, JarrodE, JasperBloodsworth, Sarias19.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)