This discussion has moved fast. I would just like to apologise to Blackdog for suggesting the Kosovo war was "clarcut". It was not, but it was a lot less muddy that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, possibly because parts of the Serbian opposition was the regular army rather than semi-civilian insurgents.
I would also like to comment on the "Why go to war" post by Splitter:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Splitter
Why go to war? That's the question it seems. Let us take the current situation in the middle east as an example.
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Oil
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No entity can be allowed to threaten or control the world's oil supply. By doing so they would control the world economy.
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Israel
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Nuclear Proliferation
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Radicalism
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Fight them on their terms, that's survival. Fight them on your own terms, that's a willingness to sacrifice today to avoid fighting for survival tomorrow.
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What you are describing is pre-emptive war. The main problem with fighting pre-emptive wars are that the invariably turn into “bad wars”. Just look at the points you cited above: How do you achieve secure oil supply, stop other nations from influencing oil prices, secure Israel’s existence and stop countries from wanting to have nuclear arms by attacking them? How do you prevent radicalisation of a country by attacking it?
The objectives you cite are civilian parameters, and do not naturally translate into military objectives. Any war fought in a far away country on these terms is bound to end up in an unfocused campaign with obscure military objectives. At home, the backing for this kind of warfare is going to drop fast. If you can’t achieve what you set out to do in 2-3 years, people are going to ask themselves whet the heck their nation is doing in this war in the first place. And as I am sure you can see, non of the above objectives can be reached in that timeframe.
The second factor is that pre-emptive wars are deemed morally wrong and are actually forbidden by international law. Your allies won’t like it. Yes,
you do have to wait until your country is under direct threat! It may not be what a world superpower wants to hear, but is nevertheless the law. And there are good reasons for it being so. If the notion of pre-emptive wars being legal was true, the German attack on Sovjet in 1941 would be a perfectly just war: war between Nazi-Germany and the Sovjet Union was inevitable, Hitler just happened to attack first. The same goes for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Had Japan expanded their empire into the Pacific, a war with the US would have ensued, Japan just happened to strike first in a hope of taking out the US fleet and stop them from entering sooner rather than later. You could even translate it to the modern day and say that Al-Qaida happened to strike first in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. Laws go bout ways, if the US can legally meddle in other states affairs, then so can Al-Qaida. However, such actions are wrong, morally and juridically.
The only way one can justify talking about “moral fibre” and accuse the opposition for relativism in connection to pre-emptive wars is by carefully changing the definition of the words. Only by calling resolve “moral fibre”, and calling ethics and moral “moral relativism” and use it as a degrading term can one make pre-emptive wars seem just. This is called “newspeak”, and I am sure Andy is going to enlighten you on the concept if you are not familiar with it.