GEORGE ORWELL ON THE LONG WAR

GEORGE ORWELL, 1984 - In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was
something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable
victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main
instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical
reality. . . Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or
religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when
one was designing a gun or an airplane they had to make four.

Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the
struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be
efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which
meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past.
Newspapers and history books were, of course, always colored and biased,
but falsification of the kind that is practiced today would have been
impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling
classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all
safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be
completely irresponsible.

But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be
dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military
necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can
be denied or disregarded. As we have seen, researches that could be
called scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but
they are essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show
results is not important. Efficiency, even military efficiency, is no
longer needed. Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought
Police. . .

War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the
ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their
common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did
fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the
vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at
all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and
the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory,
but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war',
therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say
that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist.

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/17/