Is War Inherently Amoral?

[DR]

Is protecting national interests ever a "higher duty" than adhering to moral norms, and are codes of conduct realistic or useful?  Or, is war merely mankinds lowest common denominator?  As General Sherman once said, perhaps "War is Hell" and perhaps we should refrain from trying to rationalize war with moral theory.

[FPENA98]

We should always question the morality of any war, no matter the politics involved and why a war started and who started.  It will be the end of mankind if at some point in our future history we take an amoral view of war because then any action will be justified against any enemy.  War should be a matter of last resort and as we have in the past we will most likely have to go to war to preserve or maintain the peace, however, even when we are forced into war by an attack upon our country or our citizens we must always and vigilantly question our actions in that war.  This is particularly the case of the United States in our invasion of Iraq.

[Firefly]

the thought of a moral war is difficult to wrap my brain around.  even in wars in which our history textbooks have assured us we were in the right, the reality is much less glamorous and one-sided.  i'm currently thinking of the revolutionary war.  our fight for freedom was glorious and wonderful in many senses, but it's not so clear that britain was quite so oppressive as we were made to believe as children.  was the revolutionary war moral?  i'm not sure i can say that it was.  growing up, i had this notion of a civilized conflict in which lines of soldiers dutifully marched towards one another and lobbed vollies of musket balls back and forth.  of course, after doing some reading, i've realized it's much more complex than that.  what would we consider war crimes occurred in the revolutionary war, and most certainly have occurred in every war known to mankind.

what's the point of all this?  well, i suppose i believe that despite that fact the someone will inevitably breach any moral boundaries we try to place around conduct during a war, they need to exist.  i'm an idealist, but no so naive as to believe that war won't continue to shape our planet.  and while expecting all soldiers to behave according to a code of honor is ludicrous, we still must make the effort to ensure that they do so.  war is the lowest common denominator, as dr pointed out.  but we need to make an effort to determine exactly how low we can let it go.  and as fp pointed out, we could use a little questioning with regard to our involvement in the current war. 

[udo]

I think you've asked an extremely complicated question, DR.

For one, we're told (quite correctly) "Thou shalt not kill."  Veering from the purely moral view (God said so) and heading into ethics: it makes sense that the preservation of our species depends on each of us striving our hardest to lift each other up, rather than drag them down.  Killing somebody else, naturally, is dragging them down.

And yet, when faced with a person who is rabid, psychopathic or elsewise dangerous to us, we then have the right to use even deadly force to defend ourselves.  And every movie proves that once you allow the bad guy to go free, he'll instantly pull a knife out of nowhere and try to stab you in the back.

But now we have a situation in Iran, and it looks as though we may invade there as well.  Because Iran will not drop their nuclear program.  Their research, apparently, is being conducted inside a nuclear power plant which the USA gave to them.  There is no proof whatsoever that Iran is attempting to produce a nuclear weapon, but merely wants to have nuclear power.  But the UN instead says that they "believe" that Iran is secretly conducting nuclear weapons testing (and somehow hiding nuclear detonations from the rest of the world).

So we now are thinking "Okay, if Iran has nuclear weapons they perhaps might use them to attack us" and will instead make a preemptive strike.

OR

If all the dominoes happen to be lined up correctly, we'll be justified at the end.

The question is: who lined up the dominoes?

[DanM]

Interesting discussion.  Note to Udo:  Don't forget that India managed to develop nuclear weapons without the U.S. noticing until the last second.  It can be done.

War is simply the physical face of international politics, isn't it?  It seems to me that many countries, including the U.S., have entered conflicts with an economic or other agenda, only to try to mask that motivation with after-the-fact moralizing.  Note how often the term "freedom" is thrown around by a certain President.

Did we invade Iraq to "free" the populace?  No.  We invaded because Saddam was purportedly either manufacturing weapons of mass destruction or harboring terrorists who were doing so.  We now know that was completely false.  Since then, a moral argument has been made in favor of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, namely the "freedom" and "democracy" tag-lines we hear so often.  Here, it seems that the moral 'justification' for war is nothing more than after-the-fact rationalization. 

When they're genuine, moral guidelines for warfare can be useful.  When they're ignored or flaunted, they lose their meaning all-too rapidly.

[Gee3666]

I can't believe that this discussion is actually taking place.  Debating the morality of war is akin to discussing the rationalty of human existence.  War is an inevitable conclusion of our existence.  Moreover, I would say that war is a necessary and  inevitable conclusion of our 'modern' existence for one reason.  In pre-historic times, such clashes between tribes invariably took place.  At that time, it was a matter of survival to engage in violent conflict to resolve disputes.  As much as we'd like to believe humans have evolved beyond physical brutality to resolve disagreements, any number of instances would suffice as examples to the contrary.  In modern times, War, in technologically advanced societies, has simply become a device of the power mongers to exercise their own agendas. And in that sense, yes, war has BECOME immoral.  However, war, or rather 'armed conflict', has no morality attached to it other than that which we assign to it.  It is what it is. 

[Maximus]

Morality and war are indeed difficult topics, but I don't think it's a futile discussion.  I think that war has always been a device of the power mongers wishing to exercise their own agendas.  Nothing has changed there.  However, perhaps some power mongers, in the process of obtaining more power, are also achieving noble goals.

I also wonder about whether rising above war as a means of resolving disputes will ever become a reality?  I think that as Gee points out, probably not.  What if Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was universal, though?  How did the US and the Soviet Union manage to remain enemies for so long, yet never directly challenge each other in a direct conflict?  MAD is the answer.  The problem with MAD theory is that it requires rational actors.  The Soviets may have been rational.  Religious zealots are not.  I suppose I just answered my own question. 

There is no hope.   

[Josh]

War is a matter of scale. A single man can fight a war, with individual battles, wins and losses, just as an entire country or group of countries can. War is a very broad definition. At its heart, war is conflict, a battle between forces. So war is not exactly moral or immoral in and of itself. The purpose that drives the conflict is the only thing that can be categorized by morality. And the problem is, a war's purpose is a very convoluted thing. There are so many individuals involved, each with his or her own purpose that drives them to action, that the ultimate purpose of a war is sometimes impossible to define. I think when it comes down to it, though, morality in war can only be applied to individuals and their actions, especially those in command of the forces of war. For they are the ones with the power, and therefore the responsibility in wielding that power, when it comes to resolving conflicts with others in the world.

[Oldbob]

Having had a bit of experience with war myself, I thought I should drop a comment here.

Yes, the generals and admirals who give out high-level orders have a duty to issue morally correct commands.  But it is those in the field who have to decide whether or not to act on that command.  It is up to the 2nd lt or ensign or senior NCO or sargeant to draw the line in the field when things go awry.  They have a wonderful power.  The power to say NO.  Yes, they might be reprimanded for it, but our country will be better off for their discretion in the long run.  The young officer or sargeant who is willing to sacrifice a promotion for what is right is the one who truly brings morality to war.

[udo]

All good stories have conflict.  That's the first thing a person learns in creative writing.  That conflict, however, does not have to involve Man v. Man.  It can be Man v. Nature, Man v. the unknown, etc.
Star Trek, or Isaac Asimov's Foundation series point toward a unity of Mankind, with other conflicts.  Will there be infighting?  Of course--we're people.  But we all recognize the "strength in numbers" principle.  That's what the EEU is all about; that's what the 13 colonies recognized when choosing to secede from the British Empire.
Right now, it looks as if the world has closed down to about 3 or 4 major factions.  It looks like the USA has chosen to remove one of those factions (the Arab community).  I think that is a terrible policy.
Now, to respectfully disagree with Gee, I must say that I think that wars are a matter of at least one party who wishes to impose their ways upon another party, whether it be for territory, power, money or religion.  And, while it may be an inevitable part of humanity, that doesn't make it moral; it means that we believe that those of us who are amoral have a tendency toward climbing upon others to take power.