"Constant war ... has caused" vs. "The constant ... war has caused"

[shiqangpan]

According to Cambridge Dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dic ... nglish/war the noun "war" can be either uncountable or countable.

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_T ... ies_(1984)

Constant war between the Autobots and the Decepticons on Cybertron has caused great hardship.

Should I consider "war" there an uncountable or countable noun?

Is it more natural to put an extra the at its beginning?

The constant war ... has caused great hardship.

[patron]

When you are referring to a specific war then you use the definite article the

e.g The war between A and B caused much suffering.= one war that took place between A and B.

Here war is countable (= one war).

if you talk about war in general (throughout history) then you don't use the or a/an(zero article).

e.g War is very frightening.

Here war is uncountable because it describes the condition or state of war= war in general.

The two sentences you gave were not good examples and the meaning the author wanted could perhaps only be conveyed by using the

[shiqangpan]

Thank you. World War II should be counted as one war, right?

[patron]

yes,, THAT IS CORRECT

[ghellman]

The author may have chosen to suppress the clause "the state of . . ." before the modified noun "constant war' [which is sad to contemplate], and hoped that readers would restore it.

The context may have been an extended relationship between the belligerents, who also engaged in intermittent conflict, possibly more acceptable[also sad to contemplate].

[Hijaja]

Thank you. World War II should be counted as one war, right?

Yes, of course it is one war and there can be no other interpretations in general. Yes, and this war should be considered in more detail.