Many definitions have been given to the word war throughout the human history nowadays war is commonly regarded as a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation (World Reference, 2017) a more detailed definition further describes war as an open and declared hostile conflict (Merriam-Webster, 2017). In sociology, the sociology of war, assumes a more specific significance, portraying the duty of the criminologist as a study of macro-patterns within our society where a certain degree of armed conflict is present, thus a study of how civilizations engage into warfare, how citizens perceive this and the policy-making of each country (Segal and Clever, 2013). It can be noted that the study performed by criminologist overlaps with other disciplines possibly, the anthropological border seems to be the one invading the purpose of war study the most.
Philosophy, the mother of all the discipline, does not play a smaller role in confusing the limits that exist in between with sociology. Due to this easily blurred border of this sociology of war, the term war can present different realities, where academics have always tried to explain what essentially war is. Alongside, the study of the sociology of war, assuming that criminology of war is necessary, an interesting debate originates. What is the ultimate purpose of this criminology of warfare? Should criminologist take an interest, as mentioned above, in war because it is human beings duty to report and maintain track of what happens, in order to assure efficient resource allocation, international humanitarian policies to protect minorities and avoid genocides, or should this sociological study of war take a step ahead and interpret the reasons behind humans conflict? Junger (1985) claims that the reasons behind a conflict are irrelevant, the only and unique purpose is knowing what is happening, whereas Hillman (2004) argues that we have a moral obligation to try to comprehend war.
This paper will first differentiate between war…