When should the United States of America go to war?

[The Mark]

As in, when an "opportunity" presents itself (however slight and flimsy, or great and imperative), what reasons/incidents do you consider necessary to justify the USA going to war, or even a "conflict/whatever".

Please choose your generalized poll option and post with your reasons for doing so.

 

[spud_meister]

when it is directly threatened.

 

[Your Star]

What Spud said.

 

[CaptainCourtesy]

Ditto to the above, though I would be a little more liberal in what the term "directly threatened" means. For example, I support both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

[molten_dragon]

When the United States or its interests are threatened to a degree that justifies going to war to remove the threat.

 

[tacomancer]

I don't understand the top & bottom few votes. Are you suggesting we should go to war on some sort of schedule?

 

[ludahai]

When there is a legitimate threat to U.S. national security/interests (I know, what is and what isn't is debatable), obviously when the U.S. is directly or indirectly attacked and when a state that the U.S. has a treaty obligation with is attacked...

 

[Jetboogieman]

when it is directly threatened.

Problem is, the American people can be tricked into going to war without actually being threatened.

.I.E. Iraq

 

[Korimyr the Rat]

As in, when an "opportunity" presents itself (however slight and flimsy, or great and imperative), what reasons/incidents do you consider necessary to justify the USA going to war, or even a "conflict/whatever".

Pretty much whenever the opportunity presents itself. At least every couple decades or so, whether we have an excuse or not. War is necessary for the economy and for maintaining the martial spirit of the nation, and is generally good for the species.

 

[earthworm]

Who was it now, several hundred years ago, advised that the still young USA stay clear of European conflicts..
Thomas Jefferson?
How little he knew, but he was basically right.
I think that this whole Islamic extremest thing has to be fought politically, not militarily..
Our last 3 to 5 responses were not right.
We have a UN , lets use it for its intended purpose..

 

[TOJ]

To remove a potiental threat.

Also, whenever the President is in political trouble and needs to distract the dumbmasses.

.

 

[spud_meister]

Pretty much whenever the opportunity presents itself. At least every couple decades or so, whether we have an excuse or not. War is necessary for the economy and for maintaining the martial spirit of the nation, and is generally good for the species.

i understand the rest (not agree with though) but how is it good for the species?

 

[earthworm]

Pretty much whenever the opportunity presents itself. At least every couple decades or so, whether we have an excuse or not. War is necessary for the economy and for maintaining the martial spirit of the nation, and is generally good for the species.

You are not being serious, are you, Rat ?
But, look to Germany and Japan........
War is the worst possible thing for a nations economy.

 

[chickie]

I think we need to take out Iran's nuke facilities. They have already said they will wipe the USA and Israel off the map. I support pre-emptive or helping Israel hit it.
I disagree war is bad for the econ. We had TWO wars under W and the econ was amazing until liberals took over CONgress in 07.

 

[earthworm]

I think that all of us were tricked, a huge emotional response (9-11-01).
People are easily fooled when emotions are predominant.

 

[spud_meister]

You are not being serious, are you, Rat ?
But, look to Germany and Japan........
War is the worst possible thing for a nations economy.

only if you lose.

 

[chickie]

I disagree. There was no trickery. Muslims attacked us 911. That started it. W decided to fight back. He went after the world's worst terrorist, Saddam Hussein, took him out and won the war. Mission accomplished. The war on terror is ongoing. As long as we have people whose version of their Bible tells them to kill us, we will always have violence and war.

 

[spud_meister]

I disagree. There was no trickery. Muslims attacked us 911. That started it. W decided to fight back. He went after the world's worst terrorist, Saddam Hussein, took him out and won the war. Mission accomplished. The war on terror is ongoing. As long as we have people whose version of their Bible tells them to kill us, we will always have violence and war.

saddam had nothing to do with 911, Afganistan was for 911, Iraq was Bush cleaning up after his daddy.

 

[chickie]

I never said Saddam had anything to do with 911. He was the world's worst terrorist. He threated to destroy us. We beat him at his game. Bush does not clean up after daddy. W did the world a favor taking out Saddam who was a vile, demonic monster who killed/tortured 1.5 MILLION of his own people.

 

[Korimyr the Rat]

Who was it now, several hundred years ago, advised that the still young USA stay clear of European conflicts..
Thomas Jefferson?
How little he knew, but he was basically right.

Was he? We owe almost all of the power and wealth we've enjoyed for the past century to our involvement in the two World Wars. It's a shame that most of Europe has lost their taste for war and the Russians aren't an effective enemy any more. I'm not sad to see international communism in its death throes, but at least the Soviets could set us up with real wars on a regular basis.

i understand the rest (not agree with though) but how is it good for the species?

The most basic benefit that warfare provides the species is that it causes surges in the birth rate and encourages exogamous breeding. And since most of the new fathers are soldiers, it encourages breeding among people who are fitter than the general population.

 

[Korimyr the Rat]

But, look to Germany and Japan........
War is the worst possible thing for a nations economy.

Germany and Japan are the best possible examples of my point. Germany was an economic wasteland in the 1930s. Japan was irrelevant. World War II turned them into superpowers until they both bit off more than they could chew. If America and the Soviets hadn't gotten involved in the war, Germany and Japan would have remained superpowers. Not to mention, winning the war turned the United States and the USSR into superpowers and the Cold War allowed the Soviets to prop up their economy far longer than their policies should have allowed.

War is wonderful for the economy, especially if you can keep all the fighting in the other guy's country.

 

[Goshin]

As in, when an "opportunity" presents itself (however slight and flimsy, or great and imperative), what reasons/incidents do you consider necessary to justify the USA going to war, or even a "conflict/whatever".

Please choose your generalized poll option and post with your reasons for doing so.

None of the poll options really suit my views all that well.

At present, we are acting as the world's superpower and policeman. We go to war when we decide some nation is a threat to the Pax Americana, the American-imposed world Peace, not necessarily a threat to us directly.

If you think that's a good thing, then it is in our intrests to attack nations that building up to attacking their neighbors before they are actually ready to do so. Case in point, Iraq and Iran. My own opinion on that is, well maybe... sometimes.

Otherhandwise, we should go to war when our intrests are threatened and war is the best option for securing our intrests, if you are a pragmatist. I tend to lean this way. Afganistan, Korea, WW2...

Then there's the thought that we should only go to war as a last resort, if someone is threatening us directly with real and imminent harm or invasion. The last really serious threat was Cold War USSR; before that maybe 1812 or the Mex-American war for any kind of "invasion". I think that when we take this position, we run the risk of letting a new "Hitler" grow too powerul before moving to deal with him.

 

[Gardener]

Looking back a few decades, I would have supported America going to war much earlier in ww2 than we did. Had we done so, the price paid in human lives would have been FEWER dead rather than more, and so it really isn't a case of being directly threatened so much as it is gauging whether or not war is inevitable and then reacting in such a way as to face down the threat.

It's not really so much that we, as a nation, should only respond to a direct attack so much as it is our need to ensure that our way of life is preserved. That means coming to the aid of those who share it when THEY are attacked as well.

 

[rathi]

The United States should go to war when the benefits gained are worth the cost in terms of lives and money. It is disturbing to me that nobody who has answered the thread has made any mention of actually of the viability of winning the war or of the price you have to pay to win. Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam have proved that having the worlds most powerful military doesn't mean anything if your political objectives can't be accomplished with force alone. We have strengths and weaknesses just like anyone else. We need to base our war planning around those concepts.

 

[The Uncola]

I went with "Only when extremely necessary, however, "Only when there are no other viable options" would have been much more accurate.