War! Huh! What is it good for?--Turns out quite a lot...

So I'm not entirely sure where this revelation came from. Just that it crystallized during Easter Mass.

There are people who will try to tell you that violence should never be an option in dealing with others. Then people like me will quote Clausewitz and tell you "war is the continuation of political action through means of force"; war is just another "tool in the toolbox" of international diplomacy.

But the thing that hit me is, that by ruling out military action, you aren't just taking away that tool, you are also taking away the threat of military action as a diplomatic tool.

See, if you want someone to give you their lunch money and they won't when you demand it, if you aren't willing to resort to violence, then that is it. They keep your lunch money, and you wind up looking foolish.

Conversely, if you demand someone's lunch money and they refuse, if you are willing to resort to violence, you can pop them in the nose. Then, if they don't give you the money, you can punch them in the gut. Eventually, it they keep resisting, you can just take it. But more likely, after that first sock, they'll give you what you want.

This hints at the greater truth. If you want someone to give you their lunch money, and they know that you will beat them up if they don't comply, you don't actually have to punch them in the nose. You can just pull back like you're going to punch them. Now, since they know you've beat people up in the past, and they don't want to get beat up, you may be able to get what you want without any violence.

This is why I will maintain that military action is a valid political tool. It you are ready, willing, and able to sock someone in the metaphorical jaw; if you've demonstrated that capability in the past, then that is an important tool that your diplomats can use.

Hell, by taking out Saddam; by pulling him from his spider hole, we showed that we're willing to do the dirty work. More importantly, maybe, we've shown that we are capable of it. Say what you want about Dubya, post 9/11, he laid down an "Axis of Evil": Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.

The Taliban wouldn't hand us Osama, so we took away their country. Saddam continued to block terms of the 1991 ceasefire, so we took him out. We've shown that we're willing to hit somebody. This is an important diplomatic lever in dealing with both N. Korea and Iran. N. Korea is the greater threat, but we have the technicality that we are still at war with them (remember, we used that to capture and kill Saddam because he wouldn't play nice), combined with a significant military presence, to force Lil' Kim to the bargaining table. And the geographic proximity to Iran is an important lever to apply to Mahmoud Ahmaneedajob and Iran, as we work to get them to step away from the Bomb. We've got troops in the West, in Iraq, and troops in the North(?) in Afghanistan.

We'd rather not have to punch Iran. But we're in a good position to do so. And we've demonstrated a willingness to do so in the past. So when we pull back, we can be sure that both Mahmoud and Lil Kim are going to flinch.

Yep, if you want to take someone's lunch money, violence is a useful tool. By analogy, war is a useful tool in politics. By the same analogy, so are genocide and terrorism.

If you want to support war, but not genocide and terrorism as a valid political tool, then your analogy is lacking something.

Whatever happened to "initiation of force" and all that jazz?

My problem is that I was alwyas the kid getting punched and robbed.

That's tough to claim, considering that not only are we not now currently at war with N.K., but we have never been. Ever.

I bring this up only because you used the word "technicality". Well, the technicality is that we have never, technically, been at war with them.

So, no.

You're going to have to find some pacifists if you want to argue that point. There are none here as far as I'm aware.

War sucks big time, and should be a last resort.

Willing and able to use force effectively should be on anyone's resume for President. Hopefully, the list will also include good judgment as to when it's really time to use it.

hh - just as you say there are no true pacifists here, I don't think there are any that are all that gung-ho for war, either. There are some who pretend to be ultra-hawks but they're not taken seriously by most of the rest of us anyway.

Heinlein wrote some of the best passages ever on war and the use of force as a means of achieving political ends. Everyone should read Starship Troopers just for that aspect of it, even if for nothing else.

For those who believe 'violence never settled anything', they should ask the ghosts of the city fathers of Carthage.

War should be as personal as a punch in the nose. Sure, you can H-bomb the enemy's cities to rubble, but what does that achieve? You should be able to threaten the enemy with something as surgical as destroying a single water treatment plant in a single city, and be able to carry it out.

This came to you during Easter Mass? Where do you go to church?

You ought not to be stealing someone's lunch money in the first place.

"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that "violence never solves anything" I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms."

I'd rather say anyone trying to bully my lunch money from me looks even more foolish.

EDIT: x-chaosed

I agree to some extent, but I've always viewed war as a failure of diplomacy and politics.

If you could explain to the other kid that when he bumped into you in the hall he broke your science project that cost you $10 to put together and that in order to compensate you, he should give you his lunch money for the next two weeks before the project is due, then he might be willing to cooperate...

Unless he is an asshole and deserves a punch in the nose. In this scenario, it would be his diplomacy that failed. If you just pre-emptively bopped him in the nose upon him breaking your project, then you are the one that exhibited failed diplomacy.

I came to the same conclusion some time ago. Granted, without the moral indignation you would expect.

My soul is uneasy, yet it all makes perfect sense.

Marso agrees: Ahh, yes. Verbatim, even!!

- I hate to get quotes wrong. Even when I know them, I always look them up.

That's a lie. There's always clever humiliation, and that can work much better than violence.

War is pretty much always a second best solution at best. War is inherently horrific, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad in practice as it is if wars weren't almost inevitably started and run, at least on the aggressor's side, by people who were simply too lazy or egotistical to bother with a first best solution. People choose to start wars because they think that war is the easy or glorious solution, but war is never easy and glory never justifies violence.

You're missing the fact that none of the above are righteous, except war in self-defense. Usefulness and efficacy have no bearing on righteousness.

Once again - who are those people? Are they on Wordforge?

War should only be a last resort, and only if the outcome will be greater than the consequences of NOT going to war.

One of the common ideas about the use of American military force is that we shouldn't fight unless we can win. What do y'all think? Are there things we fight for on principle even if the situation looks grim?

Or is that another thread?

War, huh?

I think back to this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
that here obedient to their laws we lie.

No, war has never solved anything, except the preservation of democracy, time and time again.

How to disvalue a true conclusion with a conmpletely false argument.

Sparta was no democracy, nor did it survive the battle of the Thermopylae for any length of time, nor was the battle of the Thermopylae part of a war Sparta chose.

Who claimed anything about righteousness?

700 Master Thespians? They weren't fighting, they were ACTING!

The original question was "what is it good for?" Perhaps I'm the only person who took good to mean righteous.

Before someone else posts it, it might as well be me...

[YT="Sam & Max"]yknZf6xER60[/YT]

Volpone was clearly arguing the benefits to the aggressor, which remains to be seen. War itself is an inherently evil, destructive act. There's no righteousness to it.

I agree war should be the last resort, but I also agree that the threat of war should be on the table as a diplomatic tool.

And I think that some wars are righteous. For example, WWII. There was enough bloodshed on the Axis part that NOT going to war would've been the greater of evils.