Citizens all over the planet are differently affected when large-scale wars erupt.

Enterprises producing war materiel are both beneficiaries and targets for destruction by opposing armies.

After the destructive First and Second World Wars, the world has had a shaky peace as armed hostilities continue to take place in various countries.

Since the start of civilization, mankind has been engaged in a war for territory, greed, political and economic dominance, shifting alliances, religious fervor, rac ial superiority, ethnic cleansing, and many other trivial causes.

In the early age, such wars were confined to some regions due to a lack of modern transport, and they were fought with medieval weapons such as swords, spears, bows, and arrows.

The human casualties then were far lower compared to the combined fatalities of the two ensuing world wars.

When the First World War erupted, it was fought in trenches with mechanized tanks, fighter and bomber planes, gunboats, deadly chemicals, and machine guns. The casualties dwarfed all past medieval wars due to the technological advances in weaponry.

The devastation of the First World War gave birth to the League of Nations, a worldwide intergovernmental organization whose principal mission was maintaining world peace.

The outbreak of the Second World War proved without a doubt that the League was a total failure.

From a business perspective, the upside of a wartime economy is full employment of all non-disabled citizens of a country by conscription and forced labor in munition factories, hospitals and funeral businesses.

Postwar economies are even better as all sectors are on an upswing, with defeated and victorious nations engaged in rehabilitation and recovery.

War and peace remain a cyclical event despite the establishment of the United Nations at the end of the Second World War.

The saber-rattling of war hawks among world leaders, pretenders, and usurpers will always keep humankind in a permanent fragile state of temporary peace and social tension with the threat of a final war and total annihilation of humanity.

With despotic tyrants ruling some countries who are supported by the superpowers, the outbreak of war is always a menace to world peace and economy.

And the proliferation of nuclear arms in the hands of irresponsible leaders with trigger-happy fingers on the nuclear buttons can obliterate all forms of life on Earth.

Perhaps the end of the world in 2024, as predicted by the astrologer Nostradamus, need not happen if God touches the heads and hearts of the leaders with itchy fingers resting on those nuclear switches.