Huh? One wages war to acquire territory, resources, people, trade routes, prestige, or buffer zones. Or else to eliminate or subjugate rivals who pose threats, real or imagined, to those things.

I am glad to see your thread discussion and the article links, and I think that the ethics of war and peace is an interesting area.

I have always had a leaning towards pacifism and its philosophy. I found a CND badge when was I still at school and felt that the non violent protest of Ghandi was an important philosophy to follow. However, I am aware of it can be seen as a form of idealism to oppose war, and, of course, CND is against the idea of nuclear weapons, not war outrightly. There is also the big question of just and unjust war, but I do still believe it is better to find solutions which don't involve war.

I often try to get a white poppy rather than a red one, but that is not to say that I undervalue the people who lost their lives in the first and second world wars. But, I think that we have gone past the age of martyrdom and the couple of individuals who I know who joined the army hoped that they would not be in any frontline conflict. But, I also believe that avoiding war is the best option for leaders with all the sophisticated weaponry available because increasingly it looks more possible that mass destruction could occur.

I'm uncertain just what a philosophy of war is supposed to be. Is it an explanation of it? Is it the consideration of how war should be waged? Does it involve the question of when war is "just"?

what a philosophy of war is supposed to be. — Ciceronianus the White

Perhaps this way. A metaphysician might lay out and lay bare the presuppositions of the combatants on both sides. That is, not just their reasons for warring, but also the presuppositions underlying those reasons, being that which the reasons are grounded on. A philosopher might then attempt to think in an organized way about the thinking about war that he can determine had in fact been done.

Two wars come to mind to think about: the American Civil War and Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia. In both, the right, or preponderance of right, both seems and seemed on one side and not the other. And in both it appears the wrong side brought - caused - the war, such that the right side had little or no choice.

(Which leads to an interesting side discussion, what is the right, and does it always win sooner or later?)

An immediate consequence is that for many, not warring is not an option. Where there is no choice philosophy cannot be of much help unless peripherally. For the people who choose war, I don't see how that can be justified. Hmm. Maybe there is no philosophy of war, except insofar as it recognizes that there can be none.

War is the result of an error of humanity. We have already moved past the biological reason to have conflict within the same species. The biological factor is that of fighting for the best genes to mate. Through our evolving intelligence, that drive has been put onto the idea of power. Instead of just going by the instinct of fighting for the chance of spreading one's genes, we've conjured up other reasons driven by those instincts as the core drive.

In the end, the politics involved in pushing for war usually comes from people who have primal minds, stuck in instincts because they are weak-minded. Like a catholic priest who can't stop touching his dick. People who are well-balanced and understand how to balance the ego and the collective rarely go to war, but instead collaborate, build and find solutions that last and are constructive.

Today though, most major powers of war mostly have a strong military as a necessary protection, but no one really wants to go to a major war (world war size), because it's draining resources and there are no resources left in the nations to conquer. War has become so destructive that it's not a viable solution to anyone except the stupid and crazy leaders (who are usually invaded early and executed before they can even try to do anything stupid).

The better way today is to use corporations and establish yourself in other nations. This is what China is doing. They establish a lot of power through corporations and economies outside their nation in order to control through that. Most major politicians know that corporations have more power in free-market capitalism than they would ever have as a political party. So they play the charade of democracy to the stupid sheep herd people who don't realize this and then they establish power through corporations powers overseas.

The second cold war that we live in today is so cold and silent that hell froze over.

@Amity @Sheps
This song is so popular amongst the Italians and Opera goers but beyond that I don't know because I grew up with this song being used as a lullaby by my Grands who came to America from Italy.
My Dad wanted it to be sung at his funeral, another promise I was unable to keep.
He was a family man and got out of the draft because of college and flat feet. My Uncle (his brother) quit Loyala medical school before his senior year and left for Vietnam.
The irony for me personally was impactful.


Ave Maria (Schubert) (With Pavarotti)
Bono

Bono:
Ave Maria
Where is the justice in this world?
The wicked make so much noice mother
The righteous stay oddly still
With no wisdom
All of the riches in the world
Leaves us poor tonight

And strength is not without humility
It's weakness and untreatable disease
And war is always the choice
Of the chosen
Who will not have to fight
Ave Maria

Pavarotti:
Ave Maria
Gratia plena
Maria gratia plena
Maria gratia plena
Ave ave Dominus
Te cum

Bono:
And strength is not without humility
It's weakness and untreatable disease
And war is always the choice
Of the chosen
Who will not have to fight

Bono and Pavarotti:
Ave Maria

:up: "Best job I ever had."

War, even more so than religion (re: Göbekli Tepe?) or the plow, may have been our species' greatest organizing principle the last tens of millennia. In the preface to Infinity and Totality (which I don't have at hand to quote from at the moment), Levinas suggests that war is the complete negation (suspension? à la Kierkeegaard) of ethics and (my read) therefore, paradoxically, it's raison d'etre is to remind us to oppose and then how to recover from war.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=17CsLvJS4cc :death:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TLV4_xaYynY :flower:

Like the majority here on this forum (I assume), I am a man of peace and never seen war personally. I really hope that I or my children never see war. I have no illusions of war being just a distant thing happening somewhere else, that couldn't happen here. I don't think that people would be now more reasonable than in the 20th Century. War could happen even if at the present there is peace and good relations in this area of the globe.

My parents did remember WW2 as young children. My father remembered the bombings and being in air raid shelter, my mother remembered when she was six falling from a horse when riding to the country house when it was accommodating German soldiers in the summer of 1944. Both of my grandfathers fought in that war and they remembered from their own childhood the civil war, which basically was part of the Russian revolution during the WWI era. My country has never enjoyed such a long time of peace as we have seen now (thanks to the Crimean war disrupting an otherwise largely peaceful 19th Century as a Grand Duchy of Russia).

I don't have high hopes for the goodness of man, for universal pacifism or other high mindedness and pompous grandstanding. I believe in the old Roman saying from Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus "Si vis pacem, para bellum".

I think it is a proper and realistic way to confront one of the worst things humans do to each other. Deterrence along with friendly relations can sustain peace.

I know that the politicians of this country see war as not the likeliest, but the greatest threat possible to this country. I know that they and the military have taken and take dead seriously the possibility of war, unlike our Western neighbors that basically got rid of their large army after the Cold War ended and genuinely believed in a "New World Order" or something. As the only country that had fought on the axis side yet survived WW2 without an occupation, people here do believe that defending oneself is a rational thing to do. In many countries were the attempt of defending militarily the country from a bigger aggressor has meant only death, pain and humiliation, the attitude can be different.

If I would have been an American, I surely would support the troops, but would have never thought of volunteering to the military as I wasn't good in sports and haven't seen myself at all as the military type that Hollywood depicts (which is largely absolute bullshit). Here of course military service is obligatory and as I'm not a hippie I was conscripted and hence to my total surprise I found myself as a reserve officer in the war time army, which for some years I still will be.

Is there another philosophy for war?
I remember what once war veteran once told me: "In war never forget your humanity".

I think that is a great philosophy especially for an officer to remember.

I believe in the old Roman saying from Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus "Si vis pacem, para bellum". — ssu

:100:

Is there another philosophy for war?
I remember what once war veteran once told me: "In war never forget your humanity".

I think that is a great philosophy especially for an officer to remember.

Epictetus & Marcus Aurelius come to mind. Also the contemporary Stoicist writings of James Stockdale and Nancy Sherman.

As two time recipient of the medal of honor, Smedley Butler said:

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses...

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912...

I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

Gospel :fire: :death:

Ain't that the truth. I read the story in Niall Ferguson's Ascent of Money, of how the Rothschilds expanded their massive fortune on the back of the Napoleonic wars.

And imagine the money involved in the global arms trade today. Every time a Cruise missile is fired, some sales rep in Tucson Arizona probably makes a couple of hundred grand. That film, Merchants of War, tells the story.

But aside from all that, war is always the absolute worst-case scenario - especially in today's world. Wars have only ever been justifiable from a defensive perspective - I believe that the Allied forces had a moral imperative to win the Second World War so as to save the world from Hitler. But it can never be a good thing, especially now, with weapons that can destroy all life on earth. I'm just old enough to remember the Cuban Missile crisis, my parents were terrified by it. And I'm pretty scared of armed conflict involving China. Pray that never happens.

Yep. The Cuban Missile crises was averted by one Russian general who refused to launch a nuclear missile as his submarine was being bombed.

Now people don't worry about nuclear weapons, when, as you say, the situation in Taiwan is extremely delicate. WWII is the exception, which could have been avoided had The Treaty of Versailles not been so harsh with Germany.

War is still about money and power.

The Cuban Missile crises was averted by one Russian general who refused to launch a nuclear missile as his submarine was being bombed. — Manuel

Never knew that! I was always of the view that Kruschev backed down at the last minute.

I studied origins of WWII at school, well aware of the role of Versailles and so on, but it still never would have crystallised without the meglomaniacal Hitler to drive it.

Noticed this CCN story on Chinese missile silos yesterday, sent a shiver down my spine.

I've also had the gloomy thought that the reason that SETI has never found a trace of another intelligent civilization is that any one of them that discovered nuclear war obliterated themselves before going interstellar. :yikes:

Yeah. I'm no fan of the Chinese government, but it is surrounded by countries that have the capacity to hit them with nukes. It's not surprising they are responding in kind.

But it will likely lead to escalation...

The story of Arkhipov is quite nuts:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/you-and-almost-everyone-you-know-owe-your-life-to-this-man

Fascinating. Links to another great PBS documentary by the look of it. Just finished watching HBO's Chernobyl last week. Also terrifying. (But then discovered these Russians. Put a whole different spin on it. :-) )

I've yet to see that one. Yay, more doom and gloom.

Just what I need given the state of the world. :wink:

It was scarifying, but the best realistic production I've ever seen, by a long way. I've been interested in Chernobyl a long while, actually took a book out of the library on it once. The last episode gives a minute-by-minute breakdown of the single greatest cock-up in history. Also an incredible insight into the Soviet state mentality.

Sounds interesting, I'll be sure to check it out.

Huh? One wages war to acquire territory, resources, people, trade routes, prestige, or buffer zones. Or else to eliminate or subjugate rivals who pose threats, real or imagined, to those things. — StreetlightX

'Huh?' - what is that supposed to mean. It sounds dismissive. Why did you feel you had to start off with that, huh ?

Let's look at 'threats real or imagined' - there are different desires are fears involved.
Fear of invasion. Desire for peace and security. Against different ideologies, competing religions.
Any war of independence isn't the elimination of a threat, as such, it is a response to actual conditions that prevent independence.

'War' can be at a personal level as well as global. Individual struggles to conquer inner demons, to find peace. None more so than the soldiers who are conflicted - their concerns that the war they are fighting might not be 'just' - the guilt involved. The realisation that comes when the pockets of dead enemy soldiers are picked or discovered - the diaries, the family photos - just like those carried by themselves. Who is the enemy ?

The moral issues creating an inner war.

I have always had a leaning towards pacifism and its philosophy — Jack Cummins

We can't talk about 'war' without discussing 'peace' and pacifism.
As usual, the SEP has an article and its definition.
When defined as 'anti-warism', we need to define war.

War is usually thought of as violence between states or, more broadly speaking, political communities. But the term “war” can also be applied to violent conflicts among individuals, as in Hobbes’ idea that the state of nature is a state of war. Similarly, although peace is usually thought of as a political condition of amicable relations between states, terms like “peace” or “peaceful” can also be used to describe a relation between individuals or even a person’s state of mind. — SEP: Pacifism

There is also the big question of just and unjust war, but I do still believe it is better to find solutions which don't involve war. — Jack Cummins

Indeed. We can even wonder what problem is it that war is supposed to be the solution for.
Is 'war' not the problem, in and of itself ?
How do we solve it ?

I'm uncertain just what a philosophy of war is supposed to be. Is it an explanation of it? Is it the consideration of how war should be waged? Does it involve the question of when war is "just"? — Ciceronianus the White

You and me both. I am not a student of war or 'philosophy of war'.
As to your questions, I would say 'All of the above and more...'.

The usual resources can be used to read more:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/
https://iep.utm.edu/war/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_war

More than the various theories, I wonder about your own perspective and thoughts.

I asked earlier if 'war' is seen not as a solution but a problem in itself, how do we solve it ?
What sayest the Pragmatist or Stoic view. John Dewey, Epictetus ?

...for many, not warring is not an option. Where there is no choice philosophy cannot be of much help unless peripherally. For the people who choose war, I don't see how that can be justified. — tim wood

Well, we can ask : Is it true that 'not warring is not an option' ?

The only time an individual doesn't have choice is when they are conscripted, as in WWII.
Populations don't choose war, it is usually a decision made by those wielding political power.
As to it being 'justified', there are screeds written about 'just war' in philosophy.
For example:
https://iep.utm.edu/justwar/

'Huh?' - what is that supposed to mean. It sounds dismissive. Why did you feel you had to start off with that, huh ? — Amity

Because the OP seems to barely have anything to do with war. It reads like how someone who has spent too much time reading books treats war - as an issue of 'beliefs' and 'justifications' and 'ideologies' or else negative feelings. Your other posts speak of 'fear' and 'desire' and 'inner wars' and so on. It's like a 12 year old's view of war. War is material first and foremost. It involves arms, metal, wood and stone. It involves bodies and their destruction, the logistics of moving men and supplies across treacherous lines, the conquering of lands and the negotiation of geography. It involves production at home and the organization of economies for the sake of sustaining troops on battefronts longs distances away, along with defense infrastructure, among other things.The OP reads like an academic whose notion of war was formed by watching too many Hollywood war movies and reflecting not on war, but on how those movies made them feel.

If your thread on war begins with a discussion of feelings, it's probably not a thread on war, but some librarian's bookish take on it from the comfort of a cozy chair somewhere pontificating about war as a matter of ideas and feelings and erasing almost the entirety of what war has ever meant for human beings both today and throughout history. 'Inner war'? What a pathetic notion. The appropriation of the horror of one of the most destructive things that humans do to each other to be twisted into some New Age hippie kumbaya 'find yourself' nonsense. It's hard to imagine anything that makes more of a mockery of war and those who have suffered from it than this kind of spiritualization of it.

War & ethics:

War causes ethical inversion, a few instances of which are:

1. Killing is permissible and even glorified. Death to the enemy!

2. Rape becomes a crime more heinous than killing. War atrocities, crimes against humanity. The Koreans & Chinese have more or less forgiven Japanese-inflicted war casualties but so-called comfort women still, after even 7 decades, are seeking justice.

Instead of just going by the instinct of fighting for the chance of spreading one's genes, we've conjured up other reasons driven by those instincts as the core drive. — Christoffer

That's an interesting take. The 'chance of spreading one's genes', I would have thought would be more about making love than war. In one evolutionary sense, yes, 'war' and fighting is about 'survival of the fittest'.

most major powers of war mostly have a strong military as a necessary protection, but no one really wants to go to a major war (world war size), because it's draining resources and there are no resources left in the nations to conquer. — Christoffer

Global resources such as oil are still available to plunder...
The economic resources involved in war efforts are astronomical.
The profit gained is what some see as the 'good of war'.

...got out of the draft because of college and flat feet. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Wonder how he felt - relieved tinged with guilt ?

My Uncle (his brother) quit Loyala medical school before his senior year and left for Vietnam. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Did he survive ?

What do you think of the films portraying 'Vietnam' ?
Last night, I watched 'We were soldiers'...

Ave Maria (Schubert) (With Pavarotti)
Bono — ArguingWAristotleTiff

:sparkle:

"Best job I ever had." — 180 Proof

Thanks.
You might like this article - a personal story of tank warfare - March 2003, Iraq - discussing the film 'Fury'.
https://warontherocks.com/2014/11/best-job-ive-ever-had/

Levinas suggests that war is the complete negation (suspension? à la Kierkeegaard) of ethics and (my read) therefore, paradoxically, it's raison d'etre is to remind us to oppose and then how to recover from war. — 180 Proof

War as the negation of ethics. Permission to kill ?

The latter is an aspect which isn't really given much attention. The history of WWI and WWII shows the importance of fairness in treaty negotiations. One example:

The Treaty created much resentment in Germany, which was exploited by Adolf Hitler in his rise to power at the helm of Nazi Germany. Central to this was belief in the stab-in-the-back myth, which held that the German army had not lost the war and had been betrayed by the Weimar Republic, who negotiated an unnecessary surrender. The Great Depression exacerbated the issue and led to a collapse of the German economy. Though the treaty may not have caused the crash, it was a convenient scapegoat. Germans viewed the treaty as a humiliation and eagerly listened to Hitler's oratory which blamed the treaty for Germany's ills. Hitler promised to reverse the depredations of the Allied powers and recover Germany's lost territory and pride, which has led to the treaty being cited as a cause of World War II.[184][176] — Treaty of Versailles: Rise of the Nazis

Thanks for sharing your family story of WWII.

I don't have high hopes for the goodness of man, for universal pacifism or other high mindedness and pompous grandstanding. I believe in the old Roman saying from Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus "Si vis pacem, para bellum". — ssu

So, 'universal pacifism' might not be achieved but there are other kinds, perhaps more realistic.
Peacebuilding interventions - and asking questions about 'whose peace' for whose benefit and at what cost ? Peace has to become the more attractive option - how can that be done ?

'Si vis pacem, para bellum'.
From wiki:

Therefore let him who desires peace prepare for war."

The idea which it conveys also appears in earlier works such as Plato's Nomoi (Laws) and the Chinese Shi Ji.[3][4][5] The phrase presents the insight that the conditions of peace are often preserved by a readiness to make war when necessitated — Wiki

Is there another philosophy for war?
I remember what once war veteran once told me: "In war never forget your humanity".
I think that is a great philosophy especially for an officer to remember.
- ssu

Epictetus & Marcus Aurelius come to mind. Also the contemporary Stoicist writings of James Stockdale and Nancy Sherman. — 180 Proof

:up:
A bit tired now after responding to posts - but all of these I have read to some extent, especially Marcus Aurelius...more later.

The 'chance of spreading one's genes', I would have thought would be more about making love than war. — Amity

It's basically what the conflicts within groups of primates are about. The dominant ape conquers over the weak and gets the girl. But since humans in civilizations aren't just thinking about food and sex, but unable to ignore such instinctual drives, it forms into other needs and wants. Some seek it in art, others in war.

Global resources such as oil are still available to plunder...
The economic resources involved in war efforts are astronomical.
The profit gained is what some see as the 'good of war'. — Amity

Resources like oil are going out of fashion, technology is much more interesting to governments today. There's still money in oil, but everyone knows they can't keep up the charade for long when floods and other environmental disasters keep getting worse, so they know they need a backup plan for their wealth and power.

But no one goes to war over resources. Why do that when you have proxy wars? Feed weapons into the hands of some minor forces and militias and pit them against other superpowers' little toy soldiers. It's basically the game Russia and US has played since far into the previous cold war.

I'm not saying the craving for resources is gone, it's just that no one but the crazy dictator will go to a world war in the name of it. Resources are gained by diplomacy or smart surgical strikes that are hard to blame the superpower for. "Giving weapons to these people wasn't supposed to make them terrorists, it's not our fault they became Al-Qaida."

The cold war era was an identity crisis for most superpowers. Eventually it led to the collapse of the soviet union and a massive decline in the popularity of war in US. Instead of doing another Vietnam, US took part in the Gulf war with much more emphasis on claiming oil than fighting communists. And they did it with more focus on technology as a means to fight the war than brute force numbers. The next big conflict was the post 9/11 Iraq war. This was based on a delusional president who tricked US into why they were there. But underneath it was all about oil, they wanted an excuse to setup moneymakers in the middle east so they used the anger of the US population after the 9/11 attacks.

Today, however, 20 years later, it's almost impossible to trick the people in the same way. Information flows much more freely. Conflicts have changed into information wars and cyber warfare. Why send troops when you can take out a nuclear power plant with a virus? A couple of years back there was an attack on a nuclear power plant in Iran. Made by an unknown virus that shut down many of the cooling rods. This virus was deemed created by a government and not something someone could just cook up in their basement. Everyone knows this was most likely a strike test by the US military. And it was successful.

The next big conflict will be so sudden and strange that people won't know what has happened before it's over. Surgical strikes are preferable over a nuclear blast. The superpower that finds a way to just flip a button and eradicate the enemies and leave a vacuum for the attacker to take power in, will be the way of war going forward.