Does War Ever Work?

31 Mar

After last week’s exploration of how love wins, we thought it was logical to explore the other end of the spectrum: Does war ever work?

When Initial Objectives Prove Unattainable

Often, wars evolve as they go on, and the original goals shift or become unattainable. You have to go far into history to find an example of a nation’s stated objective matching the outcome.

For instance, during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), Napoleon aimed for continental dominance and came close for a time, but ultimately failed. For the U.S., one would have to go back to 1898 and the Spanish-American War, where the U.S. did gain the territories they sought. All the wars of modern times have been an absolute failure in achieving their initial stated objectives.

Support for War

For the sake of simplicity, we will focus on wars the U.S. has entered into. Hypothetically, the U.S. is a government composed of representatives whose job it is to reflect the desires of citizens of the states they work for. The president should theoretically act in accordance with the desires of a majority of Americans. Let’s take a look at wars of the modern era—and examine if they truly reflect the majority of Americans’ interests. The war with the most unanimous support was WWII, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Ninety percent of Americans supported entering the war after that attack, and support for the war continued to remain high–even support for using the atomic bomb.. As time has gone on, the positive opinion on using the atomic bomb has dropped dramatically, especially with younger Americans.

Many modern wars the U.S. has been involved in start with the unanimous support of Americans, but that support quickly dwindles as the war continues and it becomes obvious that the initial stated objectives will never be reached. For example, after 9/11, support was high to enter into a war with Afghanistan, but as the war dragged on, only 30% of Americans were in favor of continuing the war efforts. The war coined a new term in U.S. culture: The Forever War. Objectives kept changing throughout the 20-year war–the longest in U.S. history. Support for the war in Iraq was similarly high at the start of the war, built on the back of the alleged intelligence that Iraq had successfully built a nuclear weapon of mass destruction. As it became more and more obvious that these claims were false, the support dropped dramatically, with the majority of Americans favoring a withdrawal from Afghanistan. The current war with Iran is only supported by 27% of U.S. citizens. The support is particularly low with younger Americans, with only 16% of 18-29 year-olds supporting the invasion of Iran. This has been a pattern in U.S. wars since Vietnam..

This leads to the logical conclusion that the U.S. government is not making decisions that reflect the unanimous will of its people.

The Cost of War

Would it surprise you to learn that, since the war in Iraq, the U.S. has spent 8.5 trillion dollars on its war efforts? That’s enough to provide free healthcare for all Americans, as well as repair infrastructure like deteriorating roads, replacing or fixing aging bridges, and expanding systems of travel in congested areas. The current invasion of Iraq is costing the U.S. 2 billion dollars per day.

Loss of Life

Since the war in Vietnam, approximately 65,000 U.S. armed service members have been killed in war. The U.S. military has killed up to 6 million foreign military personnel in war since Vietnam. The U.S. has killed approximately 7 million foreign civilians. (Yes, a million more than the military personnel that have been killed. These statistics are the ultimate proof that war is not worth it. That’s nearly 14 million sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers.