Wars aren't a means to achieve resources, but to destroy them and waste them. In the long term, that is.
> War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.
-- George Orwell
And with many conflicts, I'd say it's about one class of war mongers and war profiteers distributed onto both sides, and one class of average people -- and the average person doesn't want war period, they have to be coaxed into it with great effort -- distributed onto both sides. Then the lunatics on each side use the lunatics on the other side as a reason to tighten their grip over their own population, and for sending their "own" people off to become murderers and/or die. Then they build statues for themselves.
Yeah, that's a simplification, and snarky. But it sure is closer to the truth than the narrative of countries struggling as against each other, where the politicians, generals, grunts and civilians of one nation are on one side, and the politicians, generals, grunts and civilians of the other nation on the other.
> If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it's that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.
-- Marjane Satrapi
Yeah, the Iranian and the US government aren't "the same". But I trust the point is obvious anyway.
> [Q: Isn't there a certain calculus that someone who is sitting in the shoes of a Condoleezza Rice can make, that they're responsible for the best outcome for American citizens, and there's an upside of going into Iraq which is we get one of the greatest material possessions in world's history, and there're downsides which are: we upset the international community, and maybe there's more terrorism. Couldn't you envision a calculus where they say, sure, that's the reason, and it's a good reason, let's do it. What's the flaw in the calculus?]
> Oh, I think that's exactly their calculus. But then we ought to just be honest and say, "Look, we're a bunch of Nazis." So fine, let's just drop all the discussion, we save a lot of trees, we can throw out the newspapers and most of the scholarly literature, and just come out, state it straight, and tell the truth: we'll do whatever we want because we think we're gonna gain by it. And incidently, it's not American citizens who'll gain. They don't gain by this. It's narrow sectors of domestic power that the administration is serving with quite unusual dedication...
-- Noam Chomsky, "Why Iraq?" at Harvard University, November 4, 2002
Those "narrow sectors of domestic power" use those under their thumb to against narrow sectors of other power centers, and vice versa. And there was never a "need" for it. Not 100 years ago, not 10000 years ago. War is good for "absolutely nothing". That's why you have all the ceremonies and uniforms and somber faces. It's like royalty that way. Or religion.
If we think adding infinite energy, "infinitely" fast and free computation, "infinite" memory, "free" sensors attached to every pebble in the solar system to the mix will lead to more freedom just like that seems.. unlikely. As in, the parties who right now aren't showing any signs of stopping their consolidation of power, their efforts to atomize and disenfranchise people, when they are still only struggling for limited power, will just... step aside once there is "infinite" power to be had, instead of using it to tighten their grip, and also stab each other in the back and consolidate as much as they can? Why would they? Who would make them? With what?
Instead of removing a "need" for war, which I'd say never existed in the first place, infinite resources could just as well allow for an infinite amount of it. A boot on a human face, forever. Ran out of enemies? Clone some. Ran out of traitors? Entrap some. Think Starship Troopers.
Awkardly translated from the German version back to English via DeepL:
> Suddenly it turns out that what the human imagination has banished for millennia to a realm beyond human competence can actually be created. Hell and purgatory, and even a reflection of their eternal duration, can be constructed by allowing people to die indefinitely using the most modern means of destruction and the art of healing. What these types, of whom there are many more in every big city than we would like to admit, realize when watching these films or reading these reports is that the power of man is greater than they dare to admit, and that hellish fantasies can be realized without the sky falling and the earth opening up.
-- Hannah Arendt, "Origins of Totalitarianism"