Which US conflicts Pre-2000 were justified?

Ethics
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I have been engaging in some discussions on this on a fairly regular basis with people as of late (they were always initiating the convo).

Anyways, I don’t want to focus on Iraq & Afghanistan, but rather these previous wars.

Which do you believe were in the United States’ rational self-interest (I am talking about involving ourselves, not whether or not we handled it properly once we decided to do so) and would be supported by the likes of Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand details at length at how war is one of the worst atrocities known to man but she also realizes that at times it is absolutely necessary. Unfortunately the United States has suffered from everything from super-pacifists and hippies to Wilsonian doctrine, Christian Just War theory, NeoCon Warhawks and everything in between. As a result we have often been criticized, and sometimes rightly so, for being overly adventurous when it comes to involving ourselves in such conflicts.

Someone told me today they believe only the American Revolution and WW2 were justified, I told him I disagreed (I am assuming he left out the Civil War for some reason, but that one is such a mess on the details level that I would like to avoid much discussion of that one as well, as that was an internal conflict, not an external one).

Now, I am not very well versed on some of these conflicts, especially the ones Pre-WW2 for obvious reasons, so I would appreciate some input.

Here is a list of all US-involved conflicts:

http://en.wikipedia…tary_operations

I would primarily like to focus on the main ones, as they are of most import, such as the following, and any others I forget to mention:

-First Barbary War (I only remember very little from a brief textbook overview in primary school about this)

-War of 1812

-Mexican-American War

-Civil War (lets exclude this)

-World War 1

-World War 2 (If I remember correctly Rand suggested that the retaliation against Japan was both necessary and moral, no disagreement there, but I believe she also said we should have let the Western powers fight it out, having the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany weaken each other first, and I believe she implied we would not have had, or it would have been less severe…the Cold War period of Soviet power after WW2.)

-Korean War

-Vietnam War

-Desert Storm

I also think we should keep in mind that these decisions were made based on their knowledge and understanding of the situation AT THAT TIME and they were not able to look back on it like we are able to, with complete clarity.

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Good topic. I don’t know enough about all of these wars to say one way or the other. I will say that the Korean and Vietnam wars were justified in one sense. A government does not have a right to govern by trampling on individual rights, so it cannot claim moral protection against governments that respect rights. On the other hand, I don’t think it was in the interests of the US to fight the wars the way it did. The draft was a big problem, obviously. Also, to fight several compartmentalized wars across the globe as part of a “cold war,” while neglecting to take the war to the real threat (USSR), was not in US interests. So with US interests in mind, I’d say those two wars were not justified. I’ve said before that the US should have crushed the USSR when it had the chance.

I’m prepared to say that the Barbary War was justified. If you want specifics I’ll give them, but specifics seem more important to this topic when a war is claimed to be unjust.

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I am really glad that we went to war with the communists in Korea.

I don’t know if this is a good way to judge this. However South Korea iis kind of a nice country that has a lot of good businesses that trade on the international market with Americans.

Imagine if they were communist?

On the other hand its only me who is benefiting now from that war, and I am not sure if it was worth it to the American people or soldiers at the time of the conflict.

Is a long term investment like that worth it?

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Is a long term investment like that worth it?

An investment is something that you stand to gain from. Standing up to evil isn’t just an investment. If you don’t stand up to evil, you don’t just lose what you would’ve gained by doing so. You eventually lose everything. What we gained, when we went to war against the Communists, isn’t just trading partners in South Korea. We also gained everything else we would’ve lost: the whole of Asia, and probably the whole world.

So the question should never be “Is it worth it to stand up to evil?”. It’s always worth it. The question should be “What’s the best way to stand up to evil, at any given point?”.

Also, in answering that question for past generations, you should always keep in mind that you have the luxury of hind sight, and they didn’t. Judge their decision making with that in mind.

1 Like
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So basically the reasoning is

When a country is in peril, Americans must ask themselves, which is preferable “A communist Korea, or a capitalist Korea?”, or “Israel existing or Israel not existing?”.

I agree.

I should add though that this really only applies when there is already a capitalist nation. I think the neo-cons make the mistake of thinking that they can ask that question when there is only one nation and say “I prefer a democratic iraq”.

This doeasn’t work because war is only justified on the basis of self defense, so unless the United States or its allies are threatened we can’t justify missle strikes against people.