Why do they call it the "theater" of war?

Theater can just refer to “venue”- ie, place, time, setting, geographical location.

So fighting in say, the Pacific, and also Europe, makes WWI a “two theater war” for America.

I don’t think it says anything about how we think of war. If anything, it says something about how weird English is a language that the word for “location of battle” and “location of movies” is the same.

Then again, next time I’m in a warzone, I’ll bring some popcorn.

It is the geographic area outside of which no significant hostilities are taking place.

[ Wikipedia ]:

A theatre is defined by the need for separate planning to be occurring at the highest command echelon of the participating armed forces, including where separate services are concerned.

And I like this bit, too:

Such a portion is not a mere piece of the whole, but a small whole complete in itself; and consequently it is more or less in such a condition that changes which take place at other points in the seat of war have only an indirect and no direct influence upon it.

It is a word of Greek origin that implies the geographic “boundaries” or “stage” within which a war was fought. It is a term used for brevity and common understanding.

Isn’t it also always ‘theatre’? Or am I conflating the theater/theatre distinction in drama?

It isn’t always theatre, unless you are either British or a bit snooty. Theater works just fine in the US.

@Darwin The distinction I’ve learned doesn’t really have to do with snootiness. As wiki explains:

“Many places across the United States have started using the two spellings differently.
Theater is typically used to mean a movie theater, whereas theatre refers to an actual theatre for performing arts.”

I’ve also seen distinctions between theater meaning the building where theatre is the art—but the more I dive into it, the more arbitrary the distinction becomes.

Just thought I would mention this, but Shakespeare often makes references to the likeness of theatre (drama) and war and there are quite a lot of similarities between the two when you look deeper:

- each person in war has his own role to fulfil albeit footsoldier or lieutenant.
– there are times of rising action, climax, denouement etc which itself lends war to a narrative
– emotions are a key role (as in Shakespeare’s plays). Camaraderie, fear, bravado etc
– as mentioned, people higher up (ie playwright) gives orders to the actors to carry out.
– you can view war as a cross section of humanity in the same way as a play can. you can pick out attitudes, values, behaviours etc etc.

But yeah, Shakespeare did say that “the world is a stage” so you can say this about any area in life.

meh I wish I had quotes but a) I don’t have access to my complete works of shakespeare book as its at home and b) I don’t have the time :p.

@Ame_Evil : even without your Shakespeare books, you did pretty well with that answer. Thanks.