It can be very difficult to define things that seem obvious. One of such things is war. What is war? Each historical period has added a new meaning to that word, but the essence of it still remained the same. War is always associated with terror, cruelty and unhappiness. Wars can be private or public, civil or national, offensive or defensive. Most dictionaries would give a pretty good definition of war. According to the Webster's New College Dictionary, for example, war is "a state of open, armed conflict between nations, states, or parties. Sue Mansfield in "The Gestalts of War" says that it is "organized, premeditated, socially
             approved action involving groups of men in relatively complex operations of
             aggression and defense, and pursued in a rational fashion in order to
             accomplish certain goals."(p. 1) So what is actually the difficulty of defining war? It is because of the different experiences people had during the war. It is actually about motives of it. If you try to have the definition include what the
             attacker hopes to accomplish, you run into trouble.
             War becomes much more difficult to define if one tries to explain the motive of it in the definition. "Armed conflict between states or factions within a state"
             pretty well defines war. If you try to have the definition include what the
             attacker hopes to accomplish, you run into trouble. Many things can motivate warring.
             If each person can look up the word "war" in the dictionary, why are there so many opinions on what war actually is? Does one necessarily need to experience it in order to find out the meaning of it?
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