Simply put, "people think you can win a war"
I have spent many years studying modern warfare, especially the two "great wars", the first world war and the second world war.
When I was a youngster growing up in East London, there were several huge memorials to the fallen soldiers from the East London region. Every year there was a "Day of Remembrance". There used to be "Moth" homes where the widows would be looked after in their waning years. My Dad, uncles and grandfathers, were all involved as soldiers in both world wars. Our family lines are more English and hence volunteered to support Britain in her fight against Germany and her allies. A feeling of deep respect was felt for the fallen soldiers, their former comrades, in our families.
I remember a few years ago, the British television reported that their last living soldier from the first world war had passed away.
The first world war was regarded as the "war to end all wars", yet twenty years later, another war was started by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. The unfair and onerous conditions imposed upon Germany and the German misconception that they had never been defeated in the field of combat, created a fertile ground for Hitler to rise to power.
Just as in the first world war, millions upon millions of people died in the second world war. The victorious nations again declared their victory, their armies had triumphed over the foe.
This great misconception that wars achieve victory was fostered, the "good guys" will beat the "bad guys".
So the myth continues...
America and the Western nations have gone to war in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and Korea, just to name a few places. Russia has also gone to war against other nations. Failed diplomacy seems to give aggressive nations the "right" to go to war, to "defend" themselves.
It has always seemed strange to me that so many "defensive" wars are fought in other nations' lands, not their own.
Despite huge military advantages, the "victors" do not always seem to "win the war".
In Korea, the Chinese taught the Americans and the UN, that weapon superiority will not always overcome lesser armed nations. When a person is prepared to die, or forced to die for their country, it is virtually impossible to defeat your foe.
The Middle East is a vast tragedy, hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced as they flee the combat zones. Problems that emerge from war often seem greater than the earlier problems. Look at Libya for instance. Before the death of Qaddafi, there seemed to be a fair amount of stability in the region. Now that he is gone, the country has collapsed into anarchy. These regions are a hotbed for creating future terrorists. These unidentified terrorists join the refugees and are absorbed into Western nations. There they wait, biding their time.
Now instead of the enemies of the West being in the Middle East, they are now in the very societies of those Western nations.
The price to get the resources of oil from those defeated nations, may be too high a price to pay when we look to the future.
If I take a step back and just look at the situation before the conflict and now, years later, and ask myself "did the West really win?" Look at the Middle East, at Afghanistan? Does Russia think it will win in Syria?
So I ask, when is "going to war" justified? Who is to gauge when to fight or not? Whose moral compass is to be used?
The West went to war with Hitler, not because of the murder of many thousands of Jews (at that stage; the millions came later) but because of an alliance with Poland. Russia invaded Poland at the same time, what happened to Russia? Nothing.
The Murder of tens of thousands of muslims in Serbia was ignored as there was no oil to "pay" for the armies of the West. Hundreds of thousands of Tsutsi butchered in Rwanda, nothing done. Mugabe murdered tens of thousands in Zimbabwe, nothing done. Pol Pot was responsible for the deaths of a quarter of the population of Cambodia in the 1970's, approximately two million dead. Much wringing of hands but millions died.
It is estimated that Stalin and Mao Tse Tung are responsible for the deaths of approximately 100 million people. Yet what was done? Nothing. Why you may wonder. Probably it is fine for a dictator to murder his own people, just don't murder the people of other nations outside your borders.
So we have this dilemma. Do we fight to save the lives of the defenseless? Do we do nothing? Allow them to die?
Can we "win" the war? So many questions, so few easy answers.
My concluding opinion:
The winners of war are the military industrialists. If a country has an armaments industry, they must sell the stuff. Somebody must buy the weapons, and why buy them if not to use them? The big nations and their allies use them against their smaller enemies. The bigger nations will never use them against each other because of the nuclear deterrent. So until a nation has a nuclear weapon, the "unthinkable, unusable" threat, they will never really be safe.
The "man in the street", the little fellow, he (or she) will always be the loser. Cannon - fodder for the plans of the Mighty.
