War! What is it good for?

Is war ever necessary? Well that's a very hard question to answer. Having never been involved in a such a situation where I would really be thinking about this in a literal sense(the current war has had little to do with my everyday life) and never have been making the decision myself (thank goodness!), I can only answer from an outsiders point of view. I think it's too complicated of an issue to just answer yes or no. There is no doubt that war is awful and that it kills and hurts many people, but a lot of wars have been to bring about a change for the better or, in cases like WWII, to defend our country. In my personal opinion wars like the one we're fighting now, against terror, might be necessary, but at the moment it's hard to tell whether they're really better off. Iraq needed reform, but was this war the best way to go about it? War is dreadful, but what is the alternative? Letting brutal dictators stay in power? Letting our enemies attack and take over? The idealist side of me wants to say that there is no reason for war, that if everybody could just come together and find a point of agreement, then there would be peace. In all reality though, it seems like war is something that human nature will revert to for ages to come.