What are the general conditions under which a war is just?

[Phlegmak]

Which means there aren't any.

That is incorrect.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Yeah, because if some americans were wackos then they all obviously were right?

Right.

Formaldehyde. Master of the Ad hom.

Ironically, don't you mean Mobboss, master of the Straw Man yet again, since I obviously never claimed or even suggested anything like that? Right?

Right.

What that doesn't say is that 8000 bombers from December 8th 1941 to August 15th 1945, is still a bomber every four hours. Not quite what was allegedly promised, but I'd say still an impressive feat.

The point of the video was really that Henry Ford was a notorious anti-Semite and Nazi supporter, as were many Americans back then.

But being off by a factor of 4 in the actual production rate isn't exactly what I would call a precision engineering estimate. Even being off by half that amount is suspect at best. The money would have been much better spent on multiple facilities instead of Ford's uberfacility.


Link to video.

 

[onedreamer]

That is incorrect.

that is incomplete.

 

[Formaldehyde]

In a legal sense, today, I suppose that simply means in abidance with United Nations regulations, which usually means approval by the UNSC. Assuming said country is a member of said organization, that is.

I agree. If you can't even convince the UNSC that engaging in war is "just", it likely is not. Take invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, for instance. But in either case, it should usually be the first step taken. The next step would be utilizing a combined UN force to engage the enemy instead of doing it yourself, since this approach will greatly reduce any blowback from others.

 

[Dachs]

I agree. If you can't even convince the UNSC that engaging in war is "just", it likely is not. Take invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, for instance.

You're cool with the 1991 Gulf War?

 

[JohnRM]

Only no Pearl Harbors or Lusitanias. It's not aggression if you deliberately provoke them into attacking you.

And certainly no USS Maines. Concocting an attack based on an apparent accident is right out.

I am curious. Were we (the US) wrong for ending trade with Japan, because we did not support the war on China? We we (the US) wrong to transit our Pacific Fleet between two of our own territories and base it wherever the hell we wanted to? I don't see the provocation.

With regard to the Maine, stop rewriting history. At the time, it was not known to have been an accident. It was not apparent that it was so. Later investigations revealed only the the powder for her guns exploded, destroying the bow of the ship. No investigation has ever been able to determine, conclusively, what caused that explosion in the first place.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

With regard to the Maine, stop rewriting history. At the time, it was not known to have been an accident. It was not apparent that it was so. Later investigations revealed only the the power for her guns exploded, destroying the bow of the ship. No investigation has ever been able to determine, conclusively, what caused that explosion in the first place.

He was probably referring to the extensive yellow journalism that whipped the country into a vengeful war frenzy. Not merely irresponsible, but wrong, since the politicians did nothing to stop that yellow journalism, since they all wanted to go to war in Cuba anyway, and had for the past fifty years.

 

[innonimatu]

Think carefully about your answer!!!

Seems like most people think that wars can sometimes be justified, but its not clear under what conditions most people consider wars to be justified.

A war always involves several people, so it cannot, ever be just for everyone involved. By its very definition (an action intended to chance the status quo) a war is meant to take away from someone in order to give to someone else. Justice is about the individual's relation with society, so each participant in a war matters. Different individual participants are bound to have different opinions on whether a war is just.

How does the individual evaluates the justice of a war? I'm afraid that an honest answer must point to moral relativism. The most I can do is generalize and say that a war is just when the individual participant believes that the war is just, whatever his reasons. Anything else (specific reasons listed) is just an attempt to justify a war to someone else.

 

[JohnRM]

Generally speaking, from an American point of view, I believe that all military action whose aim is to save or prevent the loss of American lives is justified. There are varying sets of circumstances that can change the situation, but this is almost always the case. This would also include pre-emptive strikes upon nations that are playing the role of 'annihilator'. We should not wait until those nations get around to taking us out. So...

American-British War of 1812, just
Mexican-American War, unjust (could have been avoided, but both sides wanted war)
American Civil War, unjust (The South was provoked into firing on Ft. Sumter)
Spanish-American War, just
Philippine-American War, unjust
Boxer Rebellion, unjust
World War One, just
World War Two, just
Korean War, just
Vietnam War, just
Gulf War, just
Iraq War, unjust
Afghan War, just

 

[JohnRM]

He was probably referring to the extensive yellow journalism that whipped the country into a vengeful war frenzy. Not merely irresponsible, but wrong, since the politicians did nothing to stop that yellow journalism, since they all wanted to go to war in Cuba anyway, and had for the past fifty years.

I see. Well, if that is the case, then he is most certainly right about that.

 

[innonimatu]

You're cool with the 1991 Gulf War?

Wasn't Saddam first provoked and then kind of encouraged to have a go at Kuwait?

 

[Dachs]

Wasn't Saddam first provoked and then kind of encouraged to have a go at Kuwait?

Well, he said that it's gotta be okayed by the UNSC...

 

[MobBoss]

You speak in awfully certain (and yet, at the same time, vague; what does "needlessly" mean here anyway) terms about the probable actions of a semimythical person.

Have you ever read the Art of War? Instead of trying to address your points, I will simply say go read it, and then you will get what i was saying.

Ironically, don't you mean Mobboss, master of the Straw Man yet again, since I obviously never claimed or even suggested anything like that? Right?

You dont think exlusively showing how (a few) americans supported the Nazis suggests anything?

And if it wasnt suggestive of anything, then what was the purpose of posting it?

The point of the video was really that Henry Ford was a notorious anti-Semite and Nazi supporter, as were many Americans back then.

And the point of making that observation is......?

But being off by a factor of 4 in the actual production rate isn't exactly what I would call a precision engineering estimate. Even being off by half that amount is suspect at best. The money would have been much better spent on multiple facilities instead of Ford's uberfacility.

Without any comparative analysis that doing so would have resulted in more than 8000 bombers being built for the same cost simply makes your comments assumptive and nothing more. As was pointed out to you earlier, a bomber being built on an average of one every 4 hours for literally years while the war waged on is still a hugely impressive feat. Ford could have very well have hit that 1 every hour estimate by the end of the war.....1 every 4 hours is simply the average production over those years, not the fastest rate of production.

 

[Dachs]

Have you ever read the Art of War? Instead of trying to address your points, I will simply say go read it, and then you will get what i was saying.

BY GOLLY I HAVE! I regard it with disdain, but not contempt, and believe that it is often fetishized, as many tracts on military theory are, especially because it was ostensibly written by a (1) Chinese who was (2) around a long time ago in (3) a fairly difficult to parse manner that lends itself to wildly variant conclusions about what the author(s) w(as/ere) trying to get across and is (4) fairly famous so you look really (5) smart for having read it. Much the same applies to other authors like the baron de Jomini and Karl von Clausewitz, but at least von Clausewitz came up with stuff that actually applies in the context of war and politics!

Frankly, I think it's kind of outrageous how you blatantly ignored the OP's injunction as to whether "might makes right" is to be considered a valid answer and then chose to hide behind Art of War in order to do so!

 

[JohnRM]

^Indeed, I started the Art of War and I just could not finish it, it was that boring and nonsensical.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The format is weird, too. Machiavelli's Art of War is similarly strange in composition.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You're cool with the 1991 Gulf War?

I am in the sense that the UN was the organization which gave Hussein the ulitmatum to leave Kuwait instead of the US.

Of course, the entire situation should have never happened in the first place since the US saw Iraq deploying troops along the border in preparation for an attack. And then Ambassador Glasspie even gave him a response which he took as permission to invade:

An example is when U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met with our then-ally Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990, in Baghdad. Saddam was up in arms about what he called illegal cross-border oil drilling by the Kuwaitis. Glaspie told Saddam that “we have no opinions on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” Perhaps assuming, quite plausibly, that he had a “green light” from his chief sponsor, Saddam invaded Kuwait eight days later.

But in realpolitik, one tyrant's “green light” is another tyrant's misunderstanding. Upon Glaspie's return to the United States, she told The New York Times, “[O]bviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.” So would just a little bit of Kuwait have been all right?

As usual, it was really more a matter of inept US foreign policy than anything else. We were in a position to have stopped it before it even occurred.

But at least using the UN to give Iraq the ultimatum spared the US from being the target of future terrorism. That threat only occurred years later when the US refused to leave Saudi Arabia, even after Hussein's army was almost completely destroyed during the first war.

I am curious. Were we (the US) wrong for ending trade with Japan, because we did not support the war on China? We we (the US) wrong to transit our Pacific Fleet between two of our own territories and base it wherever the hell we wanted to? I don't see the provocation.

The US really created the inevitable confrontation, once again through completely inept foreign policy decisions:

http://www.theamericancause.org/patwhydidjapan.htm

But why did Japan, with a 10th of our industrial power, launch a sneak attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, an act of state terror that must ignite a war to the death it could not win? Were they insane? No, the Japanese were desperate.

To understand why Japan lashed out, we must go back to World War I. Japan had been our ally. But when she tried to collect her share of the booty at Versailles, she ran into an obdurate Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson rejected Japan's claim to German concessions in Shantung, home of Confucius, which Japan had captured at a price in blood. Tokyo threatened a walkout if denied what she had been promised by the British. "They are not bluffing," warned Wilson, as he capitulated. "We gave them what they should not have."

In 1921, at the Washington Naval Conference, the United States pressured the British to end their 20-year alliance with Japan. By appeasing the Americans, the British enraged and alienated a proud nation that had been a loyal friend.

Japan was now isolated, with Stalin's brooding empire to the north, a rising China to the east and, to the south, Western imperial powers that detested and distrusted her.

When civil war broke out in China, Japan in 1931 occupied Manchuria as a buffer state. This was the way the Europeans had collected their empires. Yet, the West was "shocked, shocked" that Japan would embark upon a course of "aggression." Said one Japanese diplomat, "Just when we learn how to play poker, they change the game to bridge."

Japan now decided to create in China what the British had in India – a vast colony to exploit that would place her among the world powers. In 1937, after a clash at Marco Polo Bridge near Peking, Japan invaded and, after four years of fighting, including the horrific Rape of Nanking, Japan controlled the coastal cities, but not the interior.

When France capitulated in June 1940, Japan moved into northern French Indochina. And though the United States had no interest there, we imposed an embargo on steel and scrap metal. After Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941, Japan moved into southern Indochina. FDR ordered all Japanese assets frozen.

But FDR did not want to cut off oil. As he told his Cabinet on July 18, an embargo meant war, for that would force oil-starved Japan to seize the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies. But a State Department lawyer named Dean Acheson drew up the sanctions in such a way as to block any Japanese purchases of U.S. oil. By the time FDR found out, in September, he could not back down.

With regard to the Maine, stop rewriting history. At the time, it was not known to have been an accident. It was not apparent that it was so. Later investigations revealed only the the powder for her guns exploded, destroying the bow of the ship. No investigation has ever been able to determine, conclusively, what caused that explosion in the first place.

That is why I used the word "apparently". However, recent evidence definitely points towards it being a convenient accident. My money is on the latest in-depth investigation which occurred since the 1999 National Geographic episode that claimed it was a mine, and Admiral Rickover's own 1976 investigation which also determined it was an accident.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq71-1.htm

Technical experts at the time of both investigations disagreed with the findings, believing that spontaneous combustion of coal in the bunker adjacent to the reserve six-inch magazine was the most likely cause of the explosion on board the ship. In 1976, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover published his book, How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed. The admiral became interested in the disaster and wondered if the application of modern scientific knowledge could determine the cause. He called on two experts on explosions and their effects on ship hulls. Using documentation gathered from the two official inquiries, as well as information on the construction and ammunition of Maine, the experts concluded that the damage caused to the ship was inconsistent with the external explosion of a mine. The most likely cause, they speculated, was spontaneous combustion of coal in the bunker next to the magazine.

Some historians have disputed the findings in Rickover's book, maintaining that failure to detect spontaneous combustion in the coal bunker was highly unlikely. Yet evidence of a mine remains thin and such theories are based primarily on conjecture. Despite the best efforts of experts and historians in investigating this complex and technical subject, a definitive explanation for the destruction of Maine remains elusive.

YMMV, of course. But I'm obviously not "rewriting history" as you falsely allege. The US was obviously looking for any excuse it could find to attack Spain at that time, which was why the Maine was in Cuba the first place. And the sinking of the USS Maine provided that excuse.

 

[JohnRM]

The Maine was in Havanna to protect American lives, but by all means, spout your vile propaganda. It is obvious that you detest the United States and that all of your statements about her are stained with this bias. Reply if you wish and I shall read it, but we have nothing further to discuss. Nothing productive shall come of it.

 

[Dachs]

The US really created the inevitable confrontation, once again through completely inept foreign policy decisions:

http://www.theamericancause.org/patwhydidjapan.htm

That summary is grossly misrepresentative of the facts, especially as regards prior Japanese-American diplomatic incidents in the context of the Japanese aggression in China and the statement that "the United States had no interest there" - though even if the United States had had no interest in seeing French Indochina out of Japanese control, I fail to see how that makes it unjust to enact a trade embargo in response to naked aggression. Furthermore, the Japanese conducted their intervention in Indochina while fully cognizant of the likelihood that the United States would take umbrage and respond in a material fashion. By your own reasoning, they should be censored for their actions.

 

[joycem10]

What a stirring defense of Japanese militarism. Is this from the walls of the Yasukuni Shrine?

Can we find an article in which the author blames the Rape of Nanking on the Chinese?