Big wars skip generations for a reason. The soldiers who fight in a big war and live through it know that peace and reaching a truce is always a better answer than war, and by and large, the veteran's children who grow up during the war or just after the war also realize this. It takes another generation or two to forget how horrible war really is.

And I'm not talking about "little wars" like the Mexican War, or Vietnam, or Iraq. I'm talking about big wars where the entire population and the entire GDP output of a major nation is directed at war fighting. For the United States, these would be the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II.

There is no doubt in my mind that there will be a big war in the 21st century. It will only come after the old soldiers of WWII have passed away and most if not all of their children have died too. With the memory of a big war long gone, some new cause will arise that just begs to be fixed by a big war.

With no one to espouse first hand just how bad war is, the politicians will be all for it, the press will promote it, the middle aged taxpayers will gladly pay for it, and young people will gladly, and willingly fight it and die in it. In the end, the cycle will repeat over and over again. It's what we do.