What are the effects of war?

a. On military personnel: Military personnel subject to combat in war often suffer mental and physical injuries, including depression, post traumatic stress disorder, disease, injury, and death. Studies suggest that most military personnel resist firing their weapons in combat, that
– as some theorists argue – human beings have an inherent resistance to killing their fellow human beings. Swank and Marchand’s WWII study found that after sixty days of continuous combat, 98% of all surviving military personnel will become psychiatric casualties. Psychiatric casualties manifest themselves in fatigue cases, confusion states, conversion hysteria, anxiety, obsession and compulsive states, and character disorders. It calls for psychological services to soldiers in combatant during and after war.
b. On civilians: Many wars have been accompanied by significant depopulations, along with destruction of infrastructure and resources (which may lead to famine, disease, and death in the civilian population). Civilians in war zones may also be subject to war atrocities such as genocide, while survivors may suffer the psychological aftereffects of witnessing the destruction of war and ending in dehumanizing refugees status. During and after the war psychosocial-economic services need to be given to civilians to normalize their lives.
c. On the economy: Once a war has ended, losing nations are sometimes required to pay war operations to the victorious nations. In certain cases, land is ceded to the victorious nations. For example, the territory of Alsace-Lorraine has been traded between France and Germany on three different occasions. Typically speaking, war becomes very intertwined with the economy and many wars are partially or entirely based on economic reasons. In some cases war has stimulated a country's economy (high government spending for World War II is often credited with bringing America out of the Great Depression) but in many cases, warfare serves only to damage the economy of the countries involved. For example, Russia's involvement in World War I took such a toll on the Russian economy that it almost collapsed and greatly contributed to the start of the Russian Revolution of 1917.
d. On the arts: War leads to forced migration causing potentially large displacements of population. Among forced migrants there are usually relatively large shares of artists and other types of creative people, causing so the war effects to be particularly harmful for the country’s creative potential in the long-run. War is further argued to have a direct impact on artistic output, as it disrupts the production processes and distribution of artworks. Since creativity in the arts is often an expression of intense feeling, and as war affects the frame of mind of an artist, it has a negative effect on an artists’ individual life-cycle output.

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Titany answered the question on December 7, 2021 at 10:31