I find it extremely ironic Americans like to refer to their military spending as the "defense" budget.

Totally inaccurate but makes the US sound more like the good guy than calling it the "aggression" budget which is far more accurate.

Does any major power call their military department the "War Department" or "War Ministry" anymore? To my knowledge, everyone couches their military in terms of "defense." The era of nakedly aggressive war is over (and while, yes, wars like Iraq were aggressive fundamentally, there was at least a veneer of respectability there that would not have been present even in the early 20th century).

War is the lifeblood of Big Government. It's not "human nature", the only way the world's democracies have got away with war is after extensive propaganda aimed at dehumanising the enemy.

All of the examples you've given there, you talk about "countries"... but it's not the countries, just the Governments... under no circumstances would the general Iranian populace ever want war.

I'm not going to respond to everything you say, point-by-point, as that would take an age. I will, however, address the overall tone of your post.

I did not mean to criticize any particular armed force. I am opposed to war, full stop. Many of the problems of today are caused by poor foreign policy decisions in the past. Sure, the mess needs to be fixed... but the current approach will only make things worse.

You seem to be of the opinion that these wars happen because the politicians are trying to aide some parts of the world, which is rather naive. The only things politicians are concerned with is power. War is a great way to grab power - both international (through treaties, military bases, strings-attached aid, etc), and against the domestic populace (through acts that reduce civil liberty, inflating the currency which causes more dependancy on the Government, etc).

The Founders of the United States, by the way, recognised these issues, they knew that war led to Big Government, which is why the President was supposed to get approval from Congress. They also realised that there would be a need to despose of despots - and they came up with a system for doing that: bounties. The Founder's solution to Saddam Hussein, or any other despot, would to have put a price on their head.

And, do not question my right to say anything. I can say whatever the hell I want. If you disagree with me, whatever,  but I can still say it.

I find it interesting that you include Burma in that list, they're reforming at an incredible and entirely unexpected rate. Thein Sein seems to be actually aiming to peacefully convert Burma into a democratic country - inclusive of Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party. Certainly things aren't in stasis there.

My read on the situation was that the Junta was tossing the opposition a few bones to keep them quiet, though i'll admit i didn't follow the story too closely.

@ Samuel

As there is primarily a state of anarchy between states, the people of states will often look to dealing with other states to solve their problems (e.g., famine? Go take Kurdistan's harvest!), making war invetiable so long as there are states and no binding framework between states. Now the nature of this gets vastly warped and distorted by the endless machinations of modern politics.

Really you're arguing a utopian-anarchist perspective. The People do not function without state leadership, and as states have their interests in their necessary existence, so they play games with one another. The idea that peace would be universal if government got out of the way is hard to grasp, because if we dismantle "government" as we know it, then you end up with something like Somalia or Mexico in the 1910s, or China in the 10s and 20s: warlordism.

Government is a state of nature, therefore war is a state of nature. It is only through the refinement of government and the installation of international systems that we can avert war. Globalization is good for stopping war (though left unchecked as it has been, bad for a hell of a lot else).

Does that actually happen in democratic nations? It seems to me that resource-grab wars seem to only occur when the Government has more control than the people.

Also, I don't argue for state-anarchism. Although I don't agree with everything about the BWI, UN, etc., I do like some of the roles of the institutions.

Personally, I don't think the policy of the US should be one of non-intervention, just not one of war. For example, with Iran, the policy I'd take would be pretty simple:

Build a defence system to prevent Iran from being able to launch a missile at Israel, remove all the sanctions on Iran, encourage as much charity as possible into Iran, try to negotiate a peace deal with Iran (which may mean, *gasp*, closing some military bases on Iran's borders). Failing all that, outwardly and effectively support the pro-democracy movement in Iran, leaflet the cities, set up radio broadcasts, promise to help build the democratic institutions in Iran afterwards (the US have proven to be quite effective at this - South Korea, Japan, Germany), and, finally, stick a bounty on the heads of those most responsible for the tyranny in Iran (I don't know much about the system in Iran, but I'm guessing  Ahmajwhatever is just a puppet, and easily replaceable for whoever's really in charge).

Those steps would probably do much more for the US's image in the Middle-East, cost far less, result in far less blood shed, and would probably be more effective (rather than another war that lasts over a decade, it could be sorted within 5 or so years).

No disagreements on the latter point (that engagement works better than war for getting rid of enemies), and that the progress of humanity will eliminate the need for war, however i do feel that past wars have not been anything as simple as "a mechanism of big government."

It's already back, actually. I mean, sort-of. The 2009 three-episode 9th series was done partially to garner new interest so they could start on bringing it back regularly, and while it's been a few years since that aired, that's only a minor hiatus really.

Only up!... possibly.

EDIT: I think I should say something worthwhile...

Based on what they have been doing recenlty (almost forever) it doesn't look like much will happen. It seems it will be a stagnant country for quite the long time.