If you have any doubt about how relevant the “warfare” chapters of Alma are for our day, think back over your lifetime and count the years when there were not wars occurring somewhere in the world? There have been “hot” and “cold” wars, and a continuous array of the problems that the Book of Mormon addresses. How far does this condition go back? All the way back to the War in Heaven! As long as we live in an age of agency and accountability, there will be people making choices, and pressures will be placed to persuade people to go one way or another. We have to stand up, be counted, and be engaged in every possible way or things will turn out a way they should not. There are important lessons for us to learn here.
In the ancient world, wars were not named as we might name them today, but we may think of them as we would our own historical campaigns. The wars in the Book of Mormon were not all the same. There were different parties involved in each of these wars with different and specific causes. We can see why these wars were fought. They were fought with different technology, with different strategies, and with very different outcomes. This is precisely what Chart 137 shows (Figure 1), as it names 15 wars, giving their dates, locations, causes, and outcomes. I hope this chart will help you understand how each was as a very unique conflict. All wars were not created equal. So, avoid approaching each of these war chapters with the attitude, “Oh, here we go again with just another war.” Strive to discover what really happened in each case and what you can learn from it. Conflicts today are likewise unique and complicated.
Figure 1 John W. Welch and Greg Welch, "Data on Wars Involving the Nephites,," in Charting the Book of Mormon, chart 137.