Militarism, Pacifism and War?

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03 Jul 2011, 9:51 pm

The best way to avoid war is to always be prepared for it.
Weakness invites attack.
Even if the efforts to avoid conflict fail, a militarily well prepared nation will fare better in war.
It’s a win -win situation.

Sand
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03 Jul 2011, 10:05 pm

Raptor wrote:

US military spending accounts for slightly under half of the military spending of the entire world. Considering the deep financial troubles and the radical decline in necessary public services of the nation and the almost total lack of enemies who could confront US military power this can only be seen as national financial insanity.

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03 Jul 2011, 11:51 pm

Raptor wrote:

That's a fair point. It seems logical in many ways that having maximum firepower can ensure people won't want to mess with you- the US is untouchable as is, for example. But I am curious if you are taking into account precedent such as the First World War in which you had a multipolar world of super powers, all heavily armed, and itching to use them. Militarily prepared nations, all of whom suffered grievously and who marched to war gladly. Maybe if they had understood what all their new weapons were capable of (and the stalemate they would cause) it would have been different.

I doubt anybody willingly commits to a war of attrition, as its much better to get things done as quickly as possible and in such a manner that the enemy can never strike back (either through your total destruction and post-war division of his country (no guarantee of long term success) or through magnanimity after they have nothing left to hit you with (almost you could say, the difference between the post World War I and post World War II worlds and peace treaties)). Though I am in total agreement with the idea that one must 'prepare in peace' and that sometimes war is inevitable or even preferable to a 'bad peace'

I think the idea that peace can be achieved through massive military presence only really works when there is only one or two super powers. If you get multiple alliances of super powers they get confident and you see big conflicts arise. We'll see how things go this century

RedHanrahan wrote:

it goes against the grain to actually want death and destruction to be our first recourse in dispute resolution

I don't know. We are a violent species. Violence is everywhere in nature. Maybe I should put down The Prince for a day but I often tend to see peace as war by other means as there is little but conflict underneath almost all politics. That ties back to the idea that war is just politics by other means. Sometimes you need a heavy hand. Don't take that to mean I am suggesting that wars of aggression are just or that killing people in the name of this or that cause is a good thing though. There is a very fine and complex line there...

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03 Jul 2011, 11:52 pm

Sand wrote:

Raptor wrote:

I thought it was made clear that the topic is about militarism vs. pacifism and not any particular nation. Apparently not clear enough for some, though. :roll:

Yeah, with a large military there comes an industrial complex to support it and, yeah, it’s not going to come cheap and there will be some degree of corruption. With any government program there is corruption. At least the military industrial complex provides a lot of jobs and turns out a sometimes useful product.

Sand
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04 Jul 2011, 12:09 am

Raptor wrote:

Sand wrote:

Raptor wrote:

I thought it was made clear that the topic is about militarism vs. pacifism and not any particular nation. Apparently not clear enough for some, though. :roll:

You cannot discuss this subject without reference to reality

The mafia also gives people jobs and probably kills a lot fewer innocent people.

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04 Jul 2011, 12:57 am

RedHanrahan wrote:

Personally I think it is natural for a group to defend itself and to maintain a basic ability to do so, however I think wars of aggression are morally indefensible, to actively leave your own country and attack another? well as soon as you do this you are to my mind in all likelyhood and quite simply in the wrong. Having said this if your neighbour who is not the aggressor calls upon you to help them defend themselves you may well find yourself in the 'wrong' to turn away and leave them to the mercy of their attacker.
peace j

I think that because you fear potential future of wars fought on the offensive to hurt innocent lives, based on currant and past experience, you think that most, if not, all wars on the offensive, wherein one country leaves home to fight abroad, is immoral? Edit my reading of your statement if necessary but your view echoes Howard Zinn wherein we "Resist" evils, just not fight them head on because of all potential casualties that you may incur, and no matter how noble your cause, you are, according to Zinn-types, morally equatable to the evils you fight. Zinn also says that there were ways we could have "resisted" Hitler, whatever that means, in order to preserve more lives. I understand the spirit of your statement but can you apply how it is lived out to US involvement(or lack thereof) in kosovo, taiwan, sudan, rawanda, vietnam, and korea?

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91
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04 Jul 2011, 1:15 am

Edith Keeler must die. Still one of the best discussions in science fiction ever. I am a Christian but there is still such a thing as a just war, but there is no such thing as a just holy war.

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04 Jul 2011, 1:18 am

RedHanrahan wrote:

I am interested in why so many people believe there is only two options in this regard?
On one hand you have a group of people who apparently believe war is inevitable and ultimately somehow 'good' in the grand sceme of things, and on the other you have a group who see it as aberant and 'bad' and refuse to accept any 'valid' reason for violence.

Now, surely any sane person is not actually pro war in general, it goes against the grain to actually want death and destruction to be our first recourse in dispute resolution? Likewise to not defend yourself against an attack is equally absurd after you have tried all other methods to resolve the conflict.

Given that I at least see things this way there are situation by situation many different rational stances to take?

Personally I think it is natural for a group to defend itself and to maintain a basic ability to do so, however I think wars of aggression are morally indefensible, to actively leave your own country and attack another? well as soon as you do this you are to my mind in all likelyhood and quite simply in the wrong. Having said this if your neighbour who is not the aggressor calls upon you to help them defend themselves you may well find yourself in the 'wrong' to turn away and leave them to the mercy of their attacker.

I consider this to be a generally 'pacifist' stance but not purist in any sense, I have been around the block enough times and gotten into enough stoushes to know that some people cannot be reasoned with and to allow them free reign is to court dissaster, Hitler had to be stopped [the agressor], the rapist my flatmate stopped with several blows of a garden tool had to be stopped [the aggressor], the partner beater who besieged the same flat had to be repelled by myself [the agressor], this I concede to be just and right, but the extreme absolutism of the 'hawks' and 'doves' argument? come on? it is little more than the rhetoric of those who have made their fortunes and careers from warfare right or wrong - always managing to 'spin' it so they look like heroes not bullies :roll:

peace j

I think there really are few "pure pacificists" and that most tend to be pacifist on the "pragmatic" ground that their said nation will probably never engage a truly "defensive war". While I think there's broad agreement by a majority of people that "defensive wars" are justified, identifying "defensive" wars requires quite a bit of judgement. As such, while I guess having some general moral principles in the background to measure up the "justness" of the war is important, the concrete particularities should be centrestage.

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/ ... libya.html

^ A list of some philosophical principles (which I suppose, according to other posts, is what you''re looking for) for declaring a "Just War". I personally don't agree with the Libyan War (if for nothing else than procedural grounds, the US Congress didn't initiate it), but Massimo does other general philosphical criteria that you're looking for.

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MarketAndChurch
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04 Jul 2011, 1:41 am

91 wrote:

I am a Christian but there is still such a thing as a just war, but there is no such thing as a just holy war.

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ruveyn
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04 Jul 2011, 7:25 am

Sand wrote:

Raptor wrote:

If we want to save our a**es economically and politically we have simply got to cut our military spending way, way back. The Forever War will be our ruination.

ruveyn

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04 Jul 2011, 9:01 am

I am anti war in general. Meaning - I don't like people dying, unless it's absolutely necessary to kill them. For example, if a nation starts a war because it wants resources or lands from another country, that's pathetic in my opinion. Killing people for money or land is not a good enough reason to take people's lives. Defensive wars do exist. In some cases they are justified, in some cases they are not, and in some cases you can't possibly asses whether starting a defensive war will solve your problem.

So to sum it up, I am in the middle. Myself, I am a pacifist. I am not against starting wars if they are justified, it's just I don't want to hold a weapon and take lives myself. This is a job for others who can handle all the nightmare/psychological impact that comes after killing a man.

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04 Jul 2011, 11:16 am

ruveyn wrote:

Sand wrote:

Raptor wrote:

If we want to save our a**es economically and politically we have simply got to cut our military spending way, way back. The Forever War will be our ruination.

ruveyn

By “forever war” can I assume you mean the war on terror?
If so I agree that it is a forever war. In my opinion wars should be fought to win and won as quickly as possible. We should have been done with Iraq and Afghanistan years ago. By that I don’t just mean pulling out with unfinished business but giving the terrorists and any one that supports them such a good pasting that they’d be afraid to come out of their caves for generations.
With all the pacifists in this country and our undue concern about world opinion we can’t (more like won't)execute a campaign as it should be out of fear of been seen as unfair or brutal.
Don’t use the current war to decide military budget. One of these days we’ll surely have an enemy with a real army, navy, and air force to reckon with.
Remember, WWI was supposed to be the war to end all wars and it may have seemed that way in 1918 but look what happened in 1941.

If you want to cut government spending there are other programs that can be scrapped.

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04 Jul 2011, 1:50 pm

Raptor wrote:

By “forever war” can I assume you mean the war on terror?
I

That is just the latest phase. The U.S. has been at war with some nation or another since the Korean War. Until the collapse of the late and unlamented Soviet Union in 1990 we were at war with the communists. Lately we are at war with the Jihadis. If the Muslims disappeared tomorrow we would find another enemy.

The Forever War.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 04 Jul 2011, 4:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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04 Jul 2011, 4:08 pm

Chummy wrote:

I am anti war in general. Meaning - I don't like people dying, unless it's absolutely necessary to kill them. For example, if a nation starts a war because it wants resources or lands from another country, that's pathetic in my opinion. Killing people for money or land is not a good enough reason to take people's lives. Defensive wars do exist. In some cases they are justified, in some cases they are not, and in some cases you can't possibly asses whether starting a defensive war will solve your problem.

So to sum it up, I am in the middle. Myself, I am a pacifist. I am not against starting wars if they are justified, it's just I don't want to hold a weapon and take lives myself. This is a job for others who can handle all the nightmare/psychological impact that comes after killing a man.

Interesting? how can a war one has started possibly be defensive? That sounds like a setup for Germanys 'defensive' war against Poland in '39.

Perhaps it is my location on a group of fairly isolated islands in the south west Pacific that enables me to have a fairly dry reading of the philosophy and ethics behind communal violence?

@ YippySkippy thankyou for seeing my intentions for what they are, I am sure we can find entirely dead historical examples for use in this discussion although the posting of slogans is hardly discussion. As this forum is domminated by north americans does anyone really think the use of contemporary US wars is going to elicit more objective reasoning/ Come on we have people here who are actively racist and pro imperialist, is this really just a platform for them to repeat the same old same old? That is most certainly not my desire, rather a sharing of perspectives on the appropriateness of communal violence in order to lead to higher levels of understanding.

@ Vigilans, I appreciate your point but I disagree, while humans may be 'violent' that is not all we are and our increased propensity for violence in more modern times has multiple modern factors to consider, industrialisation of method, the rise of the nation state to mention but two. Ultimately one of our most primary features along with all the others is that we are a social species.

peace j

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04 Jul 2011, 9:46 pm

I think defensive wars are justified, although I agree it is not so easy in modern times to determine what constitutes a defensive war. For most of history, a defensive war meant another country's army had crossed your borders and started a campaign. Today's countries have bombs/missiles they can launch quickly from afar - how much evidence does a country need in order to determine that an attack is imminent? Or should a country wait until the missiles are launched to take action? It does seem that governments could call just about any war "defensive" if the only criteria is that a) the opposing country is disliked, and b) the opposing country has bombs.

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05 Jul 2011, 12:11 pm

There's also the case of a war to defend others or to defend the helpless. If the US fails to act, they will sometimes catch a lot of blame for that decision. Rwanda being the prime example. Elements of the right and left would not support Clinton's military efforts in any way, but then threw it in his face that we did not intervene in Rwanda.

If we had intervened, many of the people calling for intervention would have immediately become critics.

Same thing happened in Libya recently. Hawks became doves overnight. Some are hyper-partisans constantly looking for an edge, some are dedicated pacifists who only feign an interest in certain theoretical interventions to appear reasonable. They won't actually support them.

As Tony Blair said, not acting is a choice as well. A choice that can lead to many deaths.

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