Assignment 9-Tag Howard

    Death is, of course, always something that should be avoided when possible, but in extraordinary circumstances, it can be warranted. War is something that has existed almost as long as society and the causes for war have been as varied as a society. But because of these varied reasons, there is no easy answer for when war is justified. However, while there may not be a black and white line we can explore the nature of that grey area. There are obvious occasions when, if all other options have been exhausted, war is arguably necessary such as in the case of massive violations of basic human rights or genocide as occurred in the holocaust. Then there those occasions where circumstances are more vague, if a nation perceives an existential threat to itself or its people, the leaders of that nation often consider a military response. Yet, the question of whether or not a nation goes to war is different than whether or not the nation should go to war. A people only need to go to war for self-protection when there is a threat of material harm. And then one must also acknowledge the even more vague scenario where one nation is called to aid its ally as was the case in the first world war. In this case, a nation is often bound to aid their ally, even if there may be no real reason to go to war. In addition, there are lesser reasons a nation goes to war: to gain land, money, resources, power, or recognition. In all of these cases, there are far less violent ways to accomplish a nation's goals. In these cases, there are many alternatives a nation has, the UN, NATO, G20, and the African Union all exist for this purpose. Diplomatic channels can often yield solutions if only nations were willing to put aside their differences and work together. But alas, if this were the case we wouldn't ever have the circumstances for even moral war because no nation would ever go rouge from the international community. Therefore, in practice war will never be strictly moral, because in a truly moral world there would be no cause for moral war.