If war is not the answer, what is?
I noticed on yesterday’s Merkel thread that commenter “huxley” mentioned the old pacifist saying “War never solved anything,” adding that, “What leftie-pacifists really mean is ‘War doesn’t solve everything.’”
Indeed.
Which reminded me that I’d written a post on the subject back in 2007, and I thought it might be time to revisit it. So here it is again, very slightly edited.
You’ve all seen those posters and bumper stickers: “War is not the answer.”
You’ve also seen discussions of why those sporting them are incorrect; war has solved some things and provided answers to certain questions—such as whether, for example, there would be a 1000-year Reich.
I’ve spent some time puzzling over the use of the “war is not the answer” mantra. For some people—the less thoughtful—I think it’s merely a kneejerk catch phrase, a method to decorate a car in a way that says, “I’m a good person, not a bloodthirsty sonofabitch like those who advocate war.” This group (and I have no idea what percentage of the whole it might represent) has no particular understanding of history, especially the history of warfare, and no real thought about the limitations of the perfectibility of human nature.
And then there are those who really don’t have much interest in pacifism, but have an ultra-Leftist political agenda that an alliance with pacifists serves. These people see pacifists as a subset of the category “useful idiots” that they’ve found so very helpful over time.
That leaves us with the third category, the one that interests me most, the committed and relatively thoughtful and well-meaning people who sustain a hope that, although war will sometimes happen, they can promote a set of programs that will lead to a world in which war will be resorted to less and less. I will summarize their position by saying that, although they understand that war sometimes has provided short-term answers to certain questions (such as the one posited above about the Third Reich), it has never provided a long-term answer to the problem of human intra-species aggression on a large scale, and each war has introduced new problems in its wake that lead to further war.
In other words, when members of this third group say “War is not the answer” their accent is on the word “the.” War isn’t the final answer to the problems of human conflict, and although it may appear to solve some things, other problems are bound to arise that will lead to future wars.
Well, excuse me but: duh. Or to put it more politely: there are no solutions to the problem of human conflict that will eliminate the need for force at times, just as there are virtually no large-scale societies that can do away with police or prisons.
The advent of the atomic age gave pacifists—and their hopes for a way to end war—a boost, and understandably so. As dreadful as war has been in the first half of the twentieth century, with the invention of nuclear weapons it became far worse to contemplate. Early on in the atomic age the hope was that nations would be sane enough that the prospect of mutually assured destruction would be a powerful deterrent to any war, and that therefore—paradoxically—the very power of the weapons would be the reason they were unlikely to be used in the future.
Amazingly enough, so far that hope has been borne out; Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still both the first and the last times nuclear weapons have actually been detonated on a populace.
But that does not mean war has ended; sub-atomic conflicts have regularly sprung up around the world, and many of those are presently of the asymmetrical variety, involving terrorism and/or guerilla warfare and insurgencies. Another common type of war in recent times has been the internecine inter-tribal, inter-ethnic, and/or inter-religious conflicts of the third world, particularly Africa.
As for nuclear weapons, unfortunately they have recently become tools that seem more likely to be used. We now have an enemy who is less obviously interested in life than in death, and motivated at least in part by apocalyptic religious thinking (example: Iran). We also have another and related enemy that is not a state and therefore has no nation of people to protect, would be difficult to trace a bomb back to, and is driven by the same aforementioned religious motivation and otherwordly emphasis, (examples: al Qaeda and its spawn).
All of this fuels the depth of the desire to find an alternative to war—an alternative that provides not only “an” answer, but “the” answer, in a way that war never can. If you go to websites that promote pacifism, such as this one run by a Quaker lobby, you’ll find attempts to explain what that alternative solution should be [NOTE: unfortunately that link is now dead].
What you find there, of course, is not “the” answer, either. This is no surprise, because if you hold the more tragic (and, I believe, more realistic) view of human nature that I happen to hold, then you’re not looking for “the” answer, because you believe there never can be one.
There’s really nothing so terribly wrong with the “solutions” offered there (except for reliance on the corrupt and/or incompetent UN), at least as far as they go, which isn’t all that far. But let’s not fool ourselves. Pope John Paul II negotiating a deal between Argentina and Chile over the Beagle Channel, or a social service society soothing the seething shantytowns of Ahmedabad in India through street plays and festivals—laudable though such things may be—aren’t about to give us “the answer.”
Prevention is wonderful, and I’m all for it. It’s good to exercise aerobically, to eat healthfully, try to avoid carcinogens, and to get your vaccinations. The disease model dictates, however, that although an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, human beings rarely follow all the rules, and even those who do can end up with the shock of cancer or some other dread disease. When that happens, cure is worth many ounces of prevention, because prevention is no longer possible. And treatment must occur quickly.
Does that mean that someone who is diagnosed with cancer should give up practicing good health habits? Of course not; the two—prevention and treatment—work in tandem, and healthful practices can make treatment more effective. That’s why the “treatment” known as war does not preclude peace efforts such as those described on the Quaker website, as well.
War as a treatment? Yes—an exceptionally drastic one that should only be resorted to when there are no good alternatives, or when time has run out on the ones that might have worked in the past (the problem, of course, is deciding when that has happened). And like all drastic treatments it has many side effects, and can backfire and cause worse problems than those it attempts to address.
With war, every now and then there’s a cure, of course—World War II as a “cure” for Nazism, for example (although of course small pockets of that particular disease remain). But although World War II “cured” Nazism on a worldwide basis, the side effects were profound and devastating, and its aftermath fostered the growth of another already-existing disease: Communism.
Yes, indeed, war is not the answer to the problems that bring about armed conflict, and war is probably the least benign “treatment” on earth. But when prevention (and our very incomplete knowledge of how to accomplish it) has failed, sometimes it’s the only answer.
“War never solved anything,”
Wasn’t that a bumper sticker in Carthage?
The best way to avoid wars is to be prepared to fight if necessary. World War I gave that concept a bad name because it was misunderstood. World War I began because a web of alliances created a cascade effect if one of two countries chose to go to war. Germany, which had developed the paranoia that has been such a characteristic of it the past 200 years, feared Russia. France, which was still resentful over the loss of the Franco -Prussian War of 1870 (Which France started), was arming and funding both Russia and Serbia. Austria, a weak ally of Germany, had annexed Bosnia, as Turkey was gradually being expelled from Europe. Serbia, which had been active in expelling Turkey, believed that Bosnia should have been its possession. Bosnian Serbs, abetted by a Serbia intelligence officer, Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevi?, known more commonly as Apis, plotted to kill the Archduke who was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire throne.
The intrigues, in which France was not innocent, are a plot worthy of all the books that have been written about them. The alliances, not the presence off arms, were the more proximate cause of the war.
During the Soviet era, the fear of war and nuclear weapons was a constantly promoted meme. Today, when the risk of nuclear weapons is actually greater, due to rogue/unstable regimes in Iran, N Korea and Pakistan, the meme is noticeable by it’s absence.
Walter & Kazha – The War Is Not Over (Latvia) Live – Eurovision Song Festival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5HAilNn4fs
we have been in a warmer cold war since the reorganization of russia (not collapse)… thats argument for consumption..
but since EVERYTHING is discussed separately, you cant form a cohesive picture..
like the poor blind scientists reaching through a hole in the wall to examine a part of an elephant… (the whole in the wall is the keeper of the power of choice in conversation – it insured the researchers are limited even if they decide to do something else, the wall is the framework everything HAS to occur in – purpose is irrelevant as purpose does not change outcome, it only assuages feelings or inflames]
They have been closing things on us, and we have ignored it
seriously ignored it..
want some historical precedents? not like most study every conflict that man has had… (told you to read the Ospray series for military, covers ALL conflicts of man in all of history one at a time)…
i have tried to point out new weapons, new capabilities, new first strike doctrines, new unlimited warfare doctrine, our state destabilzed as soviet loving judges protect the KPD i mean antifa. just watch fox news ONLY play the video from the alley way, not the long video which shows the whole thing from the street from leaving the center to the altercation, showing ANTIFA ran around the block to get them on the other side..
but antifa is east germany, stasi took over it..
so you dont mind the stasi in your state?
what about primikov and marcus wolf designing our passports? we are about a year to three away from total surveillance.. did you realize that?
how could you… no one can bring that up and have a discussion on those key points until AFTER thye happen and ambiguity is gone… why not go back to the early days and find ot what i said about how you hide the evil you do in ambiguity, so good peole stand there like deer or morons in front of a train and do NOTHING useful
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lets make a SHORT LIST (covering 10 years of separation of information – very hard to compute and conclude if your variables are all separate and never joined into one) of what we dont want to see put together!! ????
useful
remember you missed that the newspaper that reported the KPD beating up hitlers brownshirts and killing them, was Voorowarts? FORWARDS… The dems call, is the old Nazi one… but thats just accidental… which is why russia re-awakened Vpered (means forwards)
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how would YOU feel neo, if you were like Szilard and knew what was going to happen in germany and knew what was going on with nukes? would you stay quiet? would you do what he did?
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here are the winners of the “name the new nuclear weapons and missiles contest’ Peresvet and Burevestnik.’
the first one they say is named after a monk… which i true to a point..
our press is saying that.. what is our press NOT TELLING NEO?
well there was a prior ship with that name:
Russian battleship Peresvet
the lead ship of the three Peresvet-class pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Russian Navy at the end of the nineteenth century.
[again, they use old names over again, makes you guys confused and think someone is bringing up old stuff when its new stuff.. neo did it early on when i said the new missiles came out.. pish tosh.. now a decade later, they are out and oh boy… we dont have a response… i guess the old names WERE a cover… too bad for us, eh?]
Lets see, we have China make our solid state lasers for us..
and they sell tons of them online.. go ebay (i have lots)
“Peresvet” Combat Laser Complex [ Peresvet Voevoi Lazernoy Kompleks]
it was announced in service in july… oops we missed that, as we missed years of building islands to take over the china sea… you thing that wont end in a war? it HAS to… or you have to sell out the pacific the way the americans sold out in the BETRAYAL AT YALTA.
what originally brought me here was that neo claimed to want to know why, and how, and all that… she never did… as that was always avoided in favor of less meaning, more entertaining, less useful, more distracting… which is fine, but wont lead you anywhere knowlege actually resides, even less so that you can read peoples explainations are complete fabrications, or repeats of complete fabrications, and no one seems to know or care…
its like discussing train schedules for a train system you dont know doesnt exist… all the discussions sound great, have the schedules to base them on, and more… but there is no station, thre are no trains, and the people at the table dont know it, so they uselessly think that what they are doing has meaning and is useful, because it FEELS that way
[i suspect neo will cut this last part out… want to make bets? lets see – what else can i do but play it like the horses, its capricious at best, avoidance, and hurtful also at best… so, have to diffuse the common and approved destruction of others thoughts, by making fun of it… isnt that what we as humans do to make the worst things palatable? ]
There are a great many Americans of Vietnamese descent in the University of California-Irvine medical facilities; which we use.
This week my wife saw one, a Lady MD. I am always interested in the stories of people who “escaped” from South Vietnam, and had a conversation with this delightful woman.
Her point of view was similar to others, but she was more emphatic. She said that if the United States had not gone to war in Vietnam, she would not exist. Her grandfather, a government official in Saigon who, like so many of the intelligentsia, had migrated from the North when the Communists took over, would have been purged, along with any adult male children. As it was, during the time that we bought for them, he sent his older sons (including her father) abroad to study. After the fall, he and the remaining family escaped to sea, and were picked up by the U.S. Navy some three weeks into an attempt to reach Singapore. My wife will next see her Uncle, who is also an MD in a needed specialty.
There are many similar stories available to anyone who is interested enough to ask. So, even a war that is popularly perceived as a disaster was the answer for some people.
MikeK makes an interesting point about alliances. His point is WWI but there’s a relevant event in WWII, that I think I had heard before, but had forgotten until a saw a documentary recently.
The Nazi’s invaded Poland early in the war and apparently Poland had a decent armored/tank division that was holding its own in early battles. I’d guess that Poland would have eventually lost against the Germans 1-on-1, but … Because Germany had an alliance with the Soviets at that point in time, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east side, and that war was over rather quickly.
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Nuclear weapons safety: Our weapons have extensive safety mechanisms, such that if we were to drop/fire one, there would be a small but significant probability that it would not detonate properly. On the other hand, there is a vanishingly small probability that one would detonate by accident.
I have no idea how much we know about the N. Korea and Pakistani bombs, but the conjectures I’d read in the past suggest that they put little effort into nuke safety.
Great post. And it leads, very indirectly to my perpetually and annoyingly posed obsession/question as to who is obligated to protect whom; and who, if anyone, has a right to expect others to protect them; and, if they that desire to be protected have any reciprocal moral obligation to their protector.
In the past, the gist of your (or someone’s) – quite reasonable – response when I pushed the issue on a broader front was, in principle, something along the lines of the “haven’t you any fellow feelings?” or “have you adopted no religious convictions along those lines?”
But in a deeply fractured sociopolitical world where the presumption of atheism is the default position for any discussions of secular morality, the resolution of conflict, and the (perhaps unnecessary in an absolute and radical sense) toleration of the uncongenial and annoying in one’s circle of associates, it seems a reasonable question when any question of potential individual or group sacrifice comes up.
We are not a nation, a family, a people; nor even anymore – except perhaps here – individuals with a largely shared sense of values, and an appreciation for similar, if not identical, lifeways.
Emotional bonds is not the answer when there is so much deep antipathy between persons based on what they find valuable and uplifting, and how they wish to live out their lives.
Some years ago progressives were trying out a new ploy, labeling conservatives as “eliminationists” which has a nice terrifying sound to it although all that was strictly implied was that they asserted some conservatives preferred not to live in association with some progressives.
Recently, and I cannot cite it, someone has been touting a survey which purports to show that progressives would actually prefer that conservatives died, not just associated with others elsewhere.
How long we can even wage war in a social setting where the “we” is dissolving before our eyes is a serious question.
Though I would not harm her nor wish her harm,I would not lift a finger to save Angela Merkel personally. Would you? I think most here would.
But I don’t think that they could make a very convincing argument as to why.
I have never agreed with the aphorism that “War never solved anything.” because it is so clearly fallacious. When I was a child, I was bullied until I learned how to stand up to the bullies and fight them. Problem solved!
Or, it was solved until I got strong enough do real damage to my antagonists. I then realized that I needed to learn other ways of solving my problems. So, I learned to deflect bullying with humor. I learned how to humiliate bullies in the eyes of their peers with words only. But, I never forgot that, when all else fails, I had my fists and my feet.
So, while war can solve problems, there are other ways. War is the solution only after the diplomats have failed. And, the better prepared you are to go to war, the more cards the diplomats will have to play when they sit at the table.
The nation that forsakes all possibility of war will be destroyed and consumed by the first bully that comes along.
To your list of enemies who threaten us with nuclear weapons, you need to add
Congressman
Eric Swalwell
Tommy Jay, the alliance between Hitler and Stalin teaches a lesson that should never be forgotten. With few exceptions, alliances are simply a matter of necessity, or convenience. When the underlying motivation no longer applies, an alliance can be worse than useless. Worse, if one element does not recognize the changing situation, and is lulled into complacency. (Ironic that the Monster Stalin apparently did not recognize that Hitler was his equal, or even surpassed him, as such.)
To an extent, our alliances with Great Britain and Europe were also motivated by a common heritage. It is worth noting that with immigration, migration, and changing cultures, even that underlying motivation is becoming somewhat problematic.
Neo wrote:
“you’ll find attempts to explain what that alternative solution should be [NOTE: unfortunately that link is now dead].”
Most of Neo’s readers probably don’t want to track down the pacifist content behind this dead link, but for those few who do, I’d like to put in another plug for Archive dot org.
The Archive dot org URL for the dead-link page is a long one, so here’s a conversion: https://tinyurl.com/yazcxvlv
I think that, at base, the issue that is really being highlighted by this bumper sticker slogan is the question of the essence of human nature.
Is man innately good or, if left to ourselves, are we just naturally going to misbehave?
Are we naturally hostile and aggressive–is it hardwired into us–because of our roots in and emergence from our ancient primate base, and the primordial struggle for survival which formed us?
And while that aggression can sometimes be worked around, or somewhat tamed–that is what K-12 and manners used to be for–is it the case that it can never can be removed; it’s a feature, not a bug.
To put it in theological terms, “we are all sinners,” yet, we all also have free will and are responsible for our actions.
If this is the case, you have to recognize and take into account the intractability and fallibility of human nature, and then build social, legal, and governmental systems around and tailored to those facts of human nature, systems that make it easier–more profitable in some way–to behave; rewards and punishments.
Or, are we actually innately good, and perfectible beings–as the Marxists say they believe–and our hostility and aggression, our bad behavior, is actually caused by the pressures of the environment we find ourselves in; our economic and social circumstances; bad behavior is a bug, not a feature.
Thus, change man’s economic and social circumstances, the environment he lives in, and you will change man’s behavior. Give man all of the things he needs to live a good, healthy, meaningful, and dignified life, and you will eliminate the aggression and hostility that results from each man’s struggle to compete for his piece of such a good, healthy, meaningful, and dignified life.
This view sees man as the helpless victim of forces largely beyond his control, and not master of his fate and responsible for his actions.
Man needs someone of superior knowledge, vision, and intellect to come along and to “fix” things, an organization of such people, something like the Communist Party and its ideas, the “vanguard of the proletariat.”
Of course, that will mean that you will be totally dependent on that “vanguard” and it’s members, whoever is rectifying all those harmful economic and social conditions, and whoever is handing out all the goodies.
Subject, as well, to whatever conditions they might set for you to receive all those goodies.
Mildly off topic, but Neo did say it:
“Does that mean that someone who is diagnosed with cancer should give up practicing good health habits? Of course not; the two—prevention and treatment—work in tandem, and healthful practices can make treatment more effective.”
That is unfortunately wrong. In the internet age, so many believe they know so much about good and ill health, but are almost always wrong.
Cancer and its treatment both cause anorexia. The short-term goal then becomes the ingestion of adequate calories to minimize weight loss. I asked all of my cancer patients losing weight with treatment what their favorite meal was. Almost all said “breakfast”. I told them to eat breakfast three or four times a day- in the South this includes eggs, sausage or bacon, grits or toast or both. Many said, “But what about my cholesterol”? I replied that cholesterol was a long-term issue that must not obscure their acute nutritional needs.
Fat is 9 calories per gram; proteins and carbohydrates, 4 calories per gram. For those with poor appetites (anorexia), concentrated calories is the best answer, not bunny food.
“Prevention and treatment work in tandem” is a phrasing, the logic of which escapes me, especially in the cancer context.
Finally, exactly what “healthful practices” make (cancer or other ills) treatment “more effective”?
Cicero,
“First, do no harm.”
If ever there be a blanket rule that isn’t, this is it!
Even if we restrict the maxim to the practice of medicine and surgery alone. Obviously cancer treatments cause harm most of the time. Fortunately, the patient is often lucky enough to escape long-term damage from the treatments … be they surgical, chemotherapeutic, or radiological.
If you wash a cut with rubbing alcohol, you do harm. If you amputate a gangrenous or otherwise unsalvagable limb you do harm. Etc., etc., etc.
One can only hope that the maxim is understood to mean “do not knowingly cause irreparable damage unless the lack of treatment is, or to your best knowledge likely, to cause worse, longer-term damage.”
In a way it’s a nit-pick I suppose, but so often the blanket-rules-that-aren’t are taken as absolute bars to or requirements for some action or some policy. Yet, God or the devil (as you prefer) is almost always in the details.
Dr. Stephen Kotkin, prof of history (I think it is) at Princeton, gave a very interesting talk at Dartmouth last year — the year of the 1917 Centennial — on the topic “War, Revolution, Socialism, War.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcE3jaMuuy8
He discusses first the geopolitical history leading up to WW I; and he brings up a point about Neville Chamberlain, which is that Chamberlain believed that if Hitler was challenged and defeated, Europe would then be faced with the issue of how to keep Stalin and the USSR from taking over Europe. His point is not to “rehabilitate” Chamberlain, but only to recognize that the problem existed and Chamberlain apparently saw no solution, which is why (aside from any other reasons) he sought to avoid war with Germany.
Dr. Kotkin is a specialist in modern history, and the history of Russia and the Cold War in particular. He’s written two of a projected three volumes of a biography of Stalin, on which he’s given some interesting talks. Also there is a series of three talks on the “Sphere of Influence,” which discuss Russia’s and the USSR’s place and ambitions in the 20th century. The first of these, “The Gift of Geopolitics: How Worlds are Made, and Unmade,” is at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNHFGB5X7R8 .
(Links to the second, ‘What, if anything, is the Difference between Fascism and Communism?,’ and the third, “The Chip on the Shoulder,” are given in the sidebar.)
< His point is WWI but there’s a relevant event in WWII, that I think I had heard before, but had forgotten until a saw a documentary recently.
World War II is an even better example of alliances. What if Chamberlain had never given Poland the guarantee ? There was no way England and France could support Poland, short of invading Germany which they had no intention of doing. What might have happened ? Would Hitler and Stalin have had a falling out over spoils ? Chamberlain had appeased Hitler until Poland. Czechoslovakia might have made a better fight of it even with the Sudeten Germans in the way.
Chamberlain’s last moment guarantee to Poland was a catastrophic error. It was too late to do any good and ensured that war would come to France and England.
Pat Buchanan has an interesting book, with which I disagree mostly, but it does ask some interesting questions.
Many said, “But what about my cholesterol”? I replied that cholesterol was a long-term issue that must not obscure their acute nutritional needs.
When my mother was over 90, a new internist talked to her about her cholesterol. Aside from my conviction that cholesterol phobia has led to the present epidemic of obesity and type II diabetes, she asked him why she should care at 90? She lived to 103.
About that time, when she was about 88, an ophthalmologist in Chicago refused to operate on her cataracts, telling her she was too old. I flew her to California and had a friend do the surgery. She did fine and returned to Chicago to live another 15 years.
A better phrasing of “War is not the answer “ is WAR is a CRAPPY answer.
In the sixties my mother took to the slogan:
War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things
http://www.thepeacecompany.com/store/prod_cards_warnothealthy.php
She had the peace keychain with that slogan and the bumpersticker on her car.
I was with her one time when she pulled into a gas station. In those halcyon days an attendant came out to to check the tires and oil, wipe the windshield, and fill ‘er up. That day, I forget how we knew, a Vietnam vet took care of Mom’s car.
My mother, in a rare display of confrontation, asked the vet if her bumpersticker was OK.
The vet paused, then said, “Well, ma’m, we all have to have the courage of our convictions.”
I never forgot that guy or what he said. Since I turned conservative, I have thought that would have made a splendid “teachable moment” in the anti-war coverage of the time.
To quote the great Thomas Sowell, “There are no solutions, only trade-offs“
Seabury and Codevilla, “War: Ends and Means” A good history of war and discussions of the political and moral issues.
Each chapter finishes a particular issue.
It struck me as brutal, in that nonsense like”War is Not The Answer” was dealt with calmly but so fully that it was like being hammered–if you were an adherent.
They referred frequently to the Just War Doctrine.
After the Gulf War, the liberal Presbyterian Church (USA) wanted to redo the Just War Doctrine. The problem was that the US had checked all the JWD boxes and still gone to war. Can’t have that. So I guess they wanted to add a codicil, “The foregoing notwithstanding, nothing the US does anyway can be moral.” That was my guess, but it fizzled in the actual workup. I guess the idea that a construct put together by a couple of guys named “Saint” wasn’t going to be improved by a week’s discussion between people who could get off work for the purpose.
So war is not the answer for the US and other democracies. The socialists, the FMLN, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, perfectly justified.
MikeK, you raise some very interesting points. The tragedy of Eastern Europe is that it had to live under Nazi tyranny and then Communist tyranny for decades. What if Britain and France had stood up for Czechoslovakia at Munich? Could this have been avoided?
I’m not saying I have the answer. Some might say that if we had acted differently at the end of WWII we could have forestalled the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe.
Now, now, Neo, you couldn’t continue conjuring crafty alliterations after ‘Ahmedabad’? So sad to see such a splendid sequence stifled. 🙂
Julie near Chicago:
Thank you for the links to the Dr, Kotlin lectures on youtube,
What if Britain and France had stood up for Czechoslovakia at Munich? Could this have been avoided?
I kind of doubt it as the Czechs had the Sudeten Germans, who of course were refugees as soon as the war was over.
Everything goes back to WWI. That was, as the book says, “A wrinkle in Time.”
Here is a thoughtful post by the late Neptunus Lex…he was getting a massage, and the therapist, on learning that he had been in the Navy, asked:
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
https://thelexicans.wordpress.com/2016/08/13/chance-encounters/
om, you’re very welcome. :>)
. . .
David, thank you for the link. …. The piece made me think of American Sniper. Mr. Kyle was also a very thoughtful man.
I value their comments on their experiences.
And I give great thanks that there are such men.
David wins the intertububes. I was going to post a comment but how do I even compete with Neptunus Lex. The ultimate lighteness of Lex.
Well, neo does a good job. I bet there’s a lot of peeps out there who will say that I’m just gratuitously handing out tongue baths. Think what you want. How many years have it been since the knife-throwing Georgian ballet? And when, exactly, have I not…
OK, tell me about the markings on my bayonet.
This sort of reminds me of anti-bullying programs, and their most vocal advocates, whose mission is to eliminate bullying all together. Bullying will always happen, either in its most conventional form or its modern expanding form (e.g., feelings of human dignity potentially threatened by opposing thoughts and principles). Elimination is futile. This is not to say nothing should happen and discourse should not take place. What should be done is to encourage reduction.
It occurs to me that *economic* warfare has replaced a great many conflicts that used to be resolved with traditional armed conflict. Instead of raising armies and spending fortunes on tanks and battleships, expansionist countries now rely on banking systems, oil & gas pipelines, trade treaties, massive loans, etc. to dominate vulnerable neighbors. Germany has now created a de facto takeover of most of Europe through control of the EU and euro, with virtually no military spending of its own and none of the unstable overhead of the Hitler years. When any of the occupied provinces try to rebel, as the UK has shown us, it turns out that resistance is tremendously difficult (and often impossible).
It’s hard to know if Donald Trump thinks in terms of economic war (he’s certainly not foolish enough to blab about his core strategies), but it’s worth pointing out that his three largest international conflicts–with China, Iran, and Korea–rely almost entirely on economic leverage. If we manage to win these battles without a shot fired, I hope the anti-war folks will have the decency to give him credit…
That leaves us with the third category, the one that interests me most, the committed and relatively thoughtful and well-meaning people who sustain a hope that, although war will sometimes happen, they can promote a set of programs that will lead to a world in which war will be resorted to less and less.” neo
It’s my understanding that no democracy has ever attacked another democracy. If true, that would indicate that ending war is possible but a larger obstacle remains; every generation produces a percentage of the criminally inclined i.e. demagogues and an even larger percentage of sheep who want to be told what to do… they merely hope for a beneficent ruler. That combination is I suspect why democracy has failed to become the universal form of governance.
“there are no solutions to the problem of human conflict that will eliminate the need for force… if you hold the more tragic (and, I believe, more realistic) view of human nature that I happen to hold, then you’re not looking for “the” answer, because you believe there never can be one.”
While I hold a similar analysis of human nature, I do not believe that “there can never be one”. I subscribe to the biblical view in genesis, that our fallen nature is the result of our ancestor(s) having prematurely taken on “the knowledge of good and evil” but without the requisite ability to unerringly discern between the two. I also accept that God will restore humanity to wholeness and in a time known to no man.
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance. But if true, of infinite importance, the only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” C.S. Lewis
But as mankind is congenitally incapable of straightening out the mess… until the time arrives when God intervenes, the Roman author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus* advice still holds true; “Si vis pacem, para bellum”… “If you want peace, prepare for war”.
*An idea first expressed in writing by Plato and in “The Records of the Grand Historian”, also known by its Chinese name “Shiji”.
With a logical characterization, war, killing fields, refugee crises, and racism, are properly social justice (i.e. painting with broad-sweeping strokes), abortion fields (self-explanatory), [catastrophic anthropogenic] immigration reform (e.g. anti-nativism), and diversity (i.e. color judgments, including Jew… White privilege).
not wanting to be facetious about such a subject, but years ago i would swear i saw a bumper sticker which read:
IF VIOLENCE IS NOT THE ANSWER YOU ARE ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION.
And how many of the people who think war is never the answer are ok with waging war on the unborn? I have argued with liberal pacifist Christians who have more problems with someone using a gun to defend themselves than they do with abortion. There was a pastor a few months ago that defended a third party in a parking lot from a rampaging criminal. The liberals I was debating with thought it was terrible a pastor had shot a man. But they supported a “women’s right to choose”.
huxley on November 30, 2018 at 4:10 pm at 4:10 pm said:
In the sixties my mother took to the slogan:
War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things
* * *
The problem is, this is absolutely true; but it is answered by Ilion’s quote from Thomas Sowell.
Every decision we make is a trade off, and the biggest problem is that the beneficiaries of the trade on one end are seldom the victims of the trade on the other end.