Tahsen Hossain - Assignment 9 - War.

Edit: A word of warning I get very ranty and longwinded in this one so I apologise.

War is bad. Duh.

     Anyone can tell you that wars and violence are gruesome; that there is a lot of ambiguity in war and how it interacts with concepts like honour, justice, liberty, or fairness; and that there seems to be an abundance of unnecessary killing. The loss of human life is tragic, always. But when you look at the big picture, wars are fought to bring about change when there are no more apparent options left, thus it seems pointless to expect wars to end lest there be an end to the hunger for change and all those things that hinder it.

How are you going to stop me?

     To ask the appropriateness of war or the conditions for which nations have to justify themselves for going to war seems impractical because in order for those pieces of information to be relevant, you have to have the means of getting them and the means of acting on them and we really don't have either in any case. Who has the power to hold an entire country accountable for violence without perpetuating or threatening violence? This is the problem faced by the UN and several other global organisations. How does one disincentivise the use of force while also respecting sovereignty? It's practically impossible.

Just give me something to fight for.

     Even if you could somehow hold the country trial, how would you identify a legitimate cause for violence? The causes and effects of war are complex and varied. For instance, while we all know that the Civil War was fought over the right to own slaves, it did not exempt the North from having racist beliefs or harsh and dehumanising conditions in factories (nowhere near as dehumanising as slavery but still). Also, the southern soldiers didn't see themselves as fighting for the ownership of slaves but rather the ability to choose their destiny as an "independent confederation". We may be able to assess the motivations easily in retrospect but it certainly isn't so simple when war is an imminent threat. Another example would be more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afganistan in which an ill-informed public supported a war they were told was against terrorism but had the added bonuses of greatly expanding presidential power with the AUMF (which gives sitting presidents unprecedented control over military affairs) and helping the US defend economic interests in oil in the Middle East.

Mutually Assured Destruction

     Despite my concessions that war is morally complex and ultimately inevitable, I do believe that war needn't be as destructive as it is, especially on the nuclear front. Nuclear weapons are a threat to the entire world, with the country holding them at the most risk of annihilation. All it takes is one small mistake and your own cities could be the ones suffering from radioactive dust in the air and water supply. Why would any country risk that? The level of destruction capable of nuclear weaponry is honestly absurd and has longlasting global effects. Aside from nukes, risking civilian lives with area impacting weaponry like air-strikes, bombings, mortar fire, or at worst chemical/bioweapons is probably the most worrying thing about the current state of warfare.

Hope

     Despite the rather dark climate of international conflicts at the moment, there are occasional flickers of light that crack through those clouds. For instance, conflicts between India and Pakistan are becoming less hostile as the countries began competing with each other through sports, specifically cricket, instead of unofficial armed conflicts. Instead of a war of attrition, they are content to win a war on the socioeconomic battlefield in the hearts and pocketbooks of their citizens. However, there is yet a grey lining to that silver cloud in that entities whether they be countries or companies, can historically cause just as easily ruin someone's life as a war can.

Finally Its Over

     So overall, I don't think there is a point in asking questions about the morality or justification of war, but to some degree, I do think that violence is a part of humanity. Violence as a means of exerting one's power on another has always been a powerful tool for change and is sometimes the only means we have for changing our situation for better or for worse. Countries do need to rethink many of their decisions concerning militancy and I'm sure there are other options but they are so ill explored that the risks they entail are yet undiscovered.