War is an essential part of the human condition and with it comes positive and negative aspects. On the one hand there is the barbaric side of war, of brute force and slaughter, while on the other there is the just side, which controls war to maintain peace and morality. Both are essential, but the latter, in addition to providing modern society with a basis for its morality, is known for creating some of the best written legal, literary, and narrative articles. In essence, what some might call gruesome and “no longer necessary” has led to remarkable social progress at the cost of billions of lives and over thousands of years. Thus, the documentation of war regulations offers a broader look at how society has progressed through one of the most basic effects of the human condition. The first law of war ever written, in the Quran, set the stage for the coming eras of “just war” (i.e. Jus in Bello) and how the morality of war was viewed. This in turn ushered in a new era of Greek war-based theory, which influenced the motivations of warlords and emperors for the next 9,500 years. Once we reach the Middle Ages, what was once defined as “immoral” in war is now acceptable and vice versa. The true causes of the war changed as the years passed, but in comparison the reasoning was radical compared to previous centuries. All written rules and regulations of war culminate with the start of the Napoleonic Wars, considered the start of first generation warfare. This war differs greatly from the previous war, mostly due to technological advances and less due to strategic advancement or meta-warfare. As Second Generation Warfare is ushered in by the American Civil War, it shares... middle of paper......html?id=pmyb03w6d70C>Robinson, Cameron W. "American Civil War." History Ireland 5.1 (1997): 15. JSTOR. Network. 31 May 2014. .Sunzi. The art of war. Trans. Samuel B. Griffith. New York: Oxford UP, 1963. Print.Thompson, Martyn P. “Ideas of Europe during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.” Journal of the History of Ideas 55.1 (1994): 37-58. JSTOR. Network. 31 May 2014. "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights". United Nations News Center. UN and Web. 29 May 2014.."UNODA - Chemical weapons." United Nations News Center. UN and Web. 01 June 2014..