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A Just War

© Andrew Willis

"So to the indifferent inquirer who asks why Memorial Day is still kept up we may answer, it celebrates and solemnly reaffirms from year to year a national act of enthusiasm and faith. It embodies in the most impressive form our belief that to act with enthusiasm and faith is the condition of acting greatly. To fight out a war, you must believe something and want something with all your might. So must you do to carry anything else to an end worth reaching. More than that, you must be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out. All that is required of you is that you should go somewhither as hard as ever you can. The rest belongs to fate. One may fall-at the beginning of the charge or at the top of the earthworks; but in no other way can he reach the rewards of victory." --Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1884

A few months ago, a friend and I were discussing this statement and how it applies to today’s American culture, military and political leadership.

My friend (I don’t have permission to use his name, so I won’t) made the point that the meaning of Holmes’s language is lost because we have changed so much as a country in the century since these words were first heard, that people today want an assurance of victory and an exit strategy. Because of the political reality that exists today, my friend asked, “So where does that leave us?”

Frankly, it leaves us misusing the military more. Sounds weird, huh? But bear with me.

Prior to WW2, the US fought essentially two wars of agression where we were the agressors, the war with Mexico in 1848 and the war with Spain in 1898. Many people feel that we had no reason to go to war at that time, and the only interest we had in those wars was gaining territory. Was this a proper use of the military?

I said all that to say that the question of "proper use" goes way back.

That begs the question now, though, what is a proper use of the military in the modern context? I don't think that it has changed. The job of the military is to kill people and break things. What has changed is what is considered a "national interest."

Desert Storm was in the national interest because of political and economic stability in an area that is notoriously unstable. Kosovo, I feel, had no national interest at all. Somalia the same. In fact, most "peace keeping missions" don't keep anything near to peace, and "humanitarian missions" are only effective as long as we keep delivering the pizza (which isn't the job of the military to start with). So why are we in so many diverse locations doing things that we have no business doing? Because someone, somewhere decided it was indeed in our national interest to do so.