A Good War?

I suppose since I've come out of the closet as a detractor of the Afghanistan war and my corresponding views on the Iraq war should be more than clear by now, that it might seem as though I'm an opponent of any and all wars. One of those dirty, stinking hippy pacifists that seems a subject of such concern. Which, I assure you, I'm not. I don't oppose all wars, just the stupid ones.

War is such a costly, terrible endeavor that it's not something to be undertaken lightly. For the safety and security of a country and a people's beliefs it has to exist, has to be a recourse that can be pursued. But only when all else fails. War isn't the second or third option, it's the last one, to be used when all other options have failed (As the Asimov quote goes, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”). Because as much as people want to talk about glory and honor and how a war might improve the national character or whatever is the latest, ultra-modern model of “dulce et decorum est” that they want to wheel out to justify a conflict, the sad truth is that war kills people. People who don't deserve to die. People who might otherwise have gone on to full, happy lives.

And while that might seem like a pacifist's creed - that all life is sacred and deserves to be respected - I pitch it in more utilitarian concerns. Each person killed in war is one who would otherwise be alive and contributing to society, to civilization in some other way. Each life lost diminishes us all for the simple fact that humanity is a complex net of interwoven dependencies and removing even one person makes the entire system poorer. Just as the resources spent on warfare might be better spent elsewhere, to more of a net benefit, so are those people a squandered resource. They're labor, they're scientists, they're poets, who might have done nothing much important but might also have the potential to do something amazing, to have a lasting impact on the course of human events. You don't know, after all, where the next Shakespear or Picaso or Hawking will come from, and they could just as easily be caught in the shrapnel and ravages of war as anyone else. That human toll has to be taken into the calculus of whether or not the cost of a war is worthwhile.

And for me, what offsets that cost has to be dauntingly, almost insurmountably high. In fact, I think I'd go so far as to say that a country should only wage war in the face of an existential threat. Only if the fate of their nation hinges on the outcome of the fight. Because when the gamble could result in your having nothing left at the end of the game, then it's alright to wager everything you have on the outcome being in your favor – you can't tolerate the risk of it being anything else. But there is no such thing as a good war, no such thing as war that's just, only the dirty, desperate fight for survival that should be avoided at all costs. And that's many things but a thing of grace or something to be respected it's not.

To say as such. To say that war is terrible and should be avoided is not a position of weakness. That's not a position borne out of fear or cowardice. It's a recognition, instead, of the hideous costs that war brings with it. That it leaves lives, economies, nations ruined in its wake. And far from being the view of wide-eye innocence, it's the hard won viewpoint of experience. Of tired warriors returning home from the field of battle. Of those who've headed the warning of history not to follow along that dark path. Or even of those who favor somber reflection over the flush of emotions.