These days, rich and powerful people who want to fight wars don't do the fighting. They pay others to do it for them. This means they don't get hurt or killed - unless they happen to lose the war. The people who actually do the fighting are usually poor and, very sadly, they are often just young kids who are forced into fighting. It's a horrible business, made more so because modern weapons are incredibly good at killing and hurting people. A few other animals fight and may kill each other in ones and twos, but humans are in a class of their own when it comes to killing each other. People killed tens of millions - yes, tens of millions - of other people in the 20th century alone. And few people even think about the death and destruction of other animals that happens during human wars; nor the terrible damage to the land, forests, sea and air from pollution caused by the fighting. And here's a thought: almost none of this destruction would be possible without oil. Almost all modern military forces depend totally on oil to power ships, planes and land vehicles and, indirectly, the explosives which make weapons so deadly. It's all very sad - for the millions of humans who suffer war through no fault of their own as well as for all the other animals and plants on Earth. It all started with fists... then bows and arrows and spears... then gunpowder... Now you have nuclear missiles and clever new weapons which mean military people can destroy enemies a long way off without any risk to themselves.

People are in a real fix when it comes to weapons. If one group of people makes better weapons, it gives them power over others who just want to live in peace. It means that they can invade and conquer the peaceful people and destroy them. So even when people want peace, they have to spend lots of money on keeping armies and updating weapons so that others can't take advantage of them being weak and invade them. This has meant a race to get more and better arms. Rich countries can afford to do this and have huge industries which make guns, bombs, missiles, tanks, warships and aircraft. Poor countries struggle to keep up. Selling arms (the word 'arms' is a polite way of talking about machines for killing people) is now a huge business which helps make the rich countries even richer and the poor ones even poorer. Oh dear. All in all, it's much easier being a simple animal with only a beak (like me), teeth or claws for weapons