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Originally Posted by MarchHare
That's not true.
I'll agree that many wars, maybe even most wars are based on economics, but it's not a 100% certainty as you state.
Take the Crusades, for example, which were entirely about religion. The (Christian) rulers of Europe wanted to retake the Holy Land from the "infidels" and stop the spread of Islam. Their goal wasn't to exploit the area for its natural resources or anything of the sort. For a more recent example, consider the current Afghanistan conflict which is about protecting the West from religious fanatics.
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The Crusades were more about recovering relics and riches that the Christian kingdoms saw as their own. It also had a lot of politics involved where leaders of different areas were trying to increase their clout in Europe.
Religion was probably a secondary cause of the Crusades, but probably the first "reason" that the leaders at the time would use to get the people to volunteer to go. It wasn't that much different then than it is now where leaders use altruistic reasons to promote wars for economic gain.