War Photography, Middle East

In an organized military sense, a group of combatants and their support is called an army on land, a navy at sea, and an air force in the air. Wars may be conducted simultaneously in one or more different theaters. Within each theater, there may be one or more consecutive military campaigns. A military campaign includes not only fighting but also intelligence, troop movements, supplies, propaganda, and other components. A period of continuous intense conflict is traditionally called a battle, although this terminology is not always applied to conflicts involving aircraft, missiles or bombs alone, in the absence of ground troops or naval forces. Also many other actions may be undertaken by military forces during a war, this could include weapons research, internment, assassination, occupation, and in some cases genocide may occur.
A civil war is a war between factions of citizens of one country (such as in the English Civil War), or else a dispute between two nations that were created out of one formerly united country. A proxy war is a war that results when two powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly.
Before the dawn of history war likely consisted of small-scale raiding. One half of the people found in a Nubian cemetery dating to as early as 12,000 years ago had died of violence. Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. In the European medieval period, war was considered part of the set of seven mechanical arts.