Quote Originally Posted by Papewaio
Neural reflexes are not the same as stategies.
Exactly, and if we are to assume that humans are somehow genetically predisposed to complex behaviour like waging war, it must be demonstrated that there is a neural substrate for it. Otherwise, as far as we know now, war is not in our genes.
I would say that it is a very little used strategy / low percentage chance it gets 'activated' in people.
It would seem so. You did a good job by singling out important possible motives for wars such as perceived benefits and threats. Very little to do with an inbred need for violence being a motive. But we have Freud's hydraulic vision of man to fall back on in case of emergency: organised violence as a way to give free rein to our pent-up civilisational frustrations.