Should a war be fought to win quickly by any means necessary?

Question

If not, should a country not even go to war in first place?

Answer 1

No you should not try to win a war quickly at any cost. That is the road to WWIII or defeat.

To win the Korean War or the Vietnam War America could have used an atomic bomb and just nuked the northern providence. But, that would have brought in China and probably the Soviet Union and they would have retaliated with their own nuclear weapons, the US would respond and the war would get out of hand quickly. Hence the saying if WW3 is fought with nuclear weapons WW4 will be fought with clubs. A nuclear sized World War would almost totally destroy civilization.

That's why the US was so careful to fight a limited war in Southeast Asia. The US kept its troop levels down, and escalated slowly. Bombing missions over North Vietnam were only authorized later in the war, and they were all limited ones. The great fear was what would happen if a single Russian or Chinese Advisor were killed. That could be all that was required to get the communists involved in the war, and that could lead to WWIII. Emotions were hot at the time and the use of a single nuclear weapon could have been enough to trigger all out war.

If Israel really wanted to win its war with Hezbollah all they would have to do would be to drop nuclear bombs on Syria and Iran. Hezbollah was founded by Iran as a proxy to fight against Israel and the US. Syria got soundly beaten in their only War with Israel, so they don't want to fight Israel again. Instead they provide funds to Hezbollah and Hamas to fight Israel. Israel knows this, they have known if for a long time, and they have had the atomic bomb for at least 20 years. They have also deployed their weapons so no single strike can take them out. This deployment also allows a quick response if needed.

WHEN (not if) Iran develops the atomic bomb they will never use it, that would bring down universal complaints and hatred from the entire world. Iran would simply “sell” their small bombs to Hezbollah and they would use it on the Israelis. Iran can claim to be innocent, and Hezbollah isn’t a country so it will be hard to fight against. WHEN Hezbollah uses the atomic bomb on Israel the Israelis will retaliate. They will bomb Hezbollah controlled Lebanon and that will bring the rest of the Middle East into the conflict which would be bad. America can survive without the Middle East oil reserves, but China cannot. If the huge Middle East oil reserves are threatened then China will enter the conflict to save their own economy and security. After that happens things could get really bad. Europe gets a lot of its oil from the Middle East so the can easily get sucked into the war (like they were sucked into WWI). If a NATO nation is attacked or WHEN Israel is attacked the US will have no choice but to get involved. That involvement will be minor at first, so as to not offend our allies like Saudi Arabia, but it can easily escalate. The hard part will be trying to confine the war. Nations as far flung, as Australia have an interest in the Middle East. Japan gets ALL of its oil from the Middle East. Any conflict with Israel in the Middle East has a danger of turning into a full scale World War. WHEN nuclear weapons are used then the chance will skyrocket up to 99%.

The UN is hamstrung and has no power. If a resolution were put through the UN, China (a permanent member of the Security Council) would exercise its veto right and kill it. Too many people in the region hate the US so they couldn’t mediate. Most of those people also hate the US allies, which includes over 70% of the world. They might listen to someone like India, but India gets a lot of oil from the Middle East too, they won’t be considered neutral. Any other country would be considered a US ally, and therefore an enemy, or as one that depends on the Middle East to survive.

Emotions between Israel and the Middle East are hotter than they were in the cold war. Groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are fighting for the land that was stolen from them. Israel is fighting for its very survival. Since both groups can’t own the land there is no easy solution to this hostility or any way to stop a major war if one breaks out. The latest dustup between Israel and Hezbollah could have easily lead to a major conflict. Luckily no one else got involved and few nations considered Israel to be a threat to Lebanon. The same can’t be said of a nuclear exchange, that would threat the oil reserves, and that would threaten the economy of every single nation in the world.

The best way to avoid WW3 is to wean people off of oil. That isn’t going to happen anytime soon, so we all face a major threat growing in the Middle East.

War is a tactic of last resort. After you go to war there is nothing else you can do except escalate the war. A limited war is the only way to insure that a single war doesn’t turn into a global one. If a quick attack is made for a single objective then it can be a good move, but if your strategy is to try for a quick attack to win, then you put too much at risk (tactics are used to conduct the battle, strategy is every thing else you need to conduct that battle). If you fail to take even one of your objectives then you have to risk a response from the enemy. That enemy will be in an unknown location and behind your lines. They may not win the war, but they will hurt you very much until they are defeated. If you fight a quick war you also have the diplomatic danger of getting the nations allies involved. Kuwait was defeated and quickly being turned into a new Iraqi providence in the blink of an eye. Casualties were very light, little ammunition was expended and no MWDs had to be used. The Kuwaiti government was in exile, and from that little group the response to Iraq was formed. If there wasn’t at least a stub of Kuwaiti government it would have been hard to restore that nation, but with the stub everything is possible, if you have allies. Iraq not only lost its war against Kuwaiti, but the government in power has been either imprisoned, are on the run, in hiding, or forced to act like insurgents. As a nation Iraq has been totally defeated and its government broken apart; that is the result of one quick war where the leader thought he could get away with a short little war and still hold on to his gains. The world is just too complex for all out warfare. It has been since WW2, and that was the result of unfinished issues from WW1.

Hitler invented the Lightning Attack; the Blitzkrieg. It is still a good tactic to use in battles, but it is a poor strategy to use to conduct your entire war. The war needs to be limited and only started after all diplomatic issues have been addressed. To do otherwise is to invite total defeat or escalation into a large-scale war that you cannot win, without drawing in all your allies. If that is done then there is a danger of sparking a World War. If Iraq had any friends in the region then they might have had a chance, but when the war escalated beyond just Iraq and Kuwait they never had a chance.

Answer 2

Bookish made a great point. If it were the leaders shooting at each other then they would think twice. The same care should go into war planning.

I've been studying foreign policy & military strategy for about 2 years now and I've learned that most of the time careful planning is always the case. 1 of the biggest failures noted was Vietnam.

Answer 3

the term 'any means necessary' voices a problem because it may mean the death of a lot of innocent people, and just lots of death in general. it might even mean something big like nuclear bomb or something just as unsightly. the choice to go to war should be weighed carefully, win quickly and a lot of people may be killed go slowly and it will just take way too long and still many people will die. but if there were no war, there would be someone out there who was killing innocent people just for fun, a dangerous and evil persons. with war you at least have the opportunity to get them out of the world.

Answer 4

The reason that people go to war breaks down to this...You have something that I want, and you will not share with me, so I'm going to get whatever that is, whether you like it or not. The other party responds in turn. Then you have war.

Simple answer, good question.

P.S.
Ending a war quickly nowadays results in some very ugly side-effects...stopping the war before it starts is best.

Answer 5

No. Americans are ignorant because they do not know what war is. I don't say this as an insult, but as an invitation to war hawks to stop and think.

In America, war is something you see on TV where you hope your side has fewer deaths than the other side. It is about explosion shots and statistics. To a much more minor extent we sometimes are curious to see how many civilians died too.

It is innapropriate and irresponsibe to tout the benefits of war and to boldly support war, if you yourself have not personally experienced being in a war zone. If you have not hid under the side of a house for three days choking on the smell of dead people, seeing decapitated children, soldiers. Seeing towns destroyed and generations of family destroyed. You cannot possibly know what it means to support war.

Answer 6

Well, we could end every war really fast if we dropped an atomic bomb, couldn't we? Not a big fan of war, myself, and it seems to me the people in charge of the world should give a little more thought to things before they go starting wars. If the leaders were the ones out shooting at each other, you can bet they'd think twice.

Answer 7

Obviously not. Let's say the quickest means to destroy the enemy involved unleashing a nuclear holocost.

Ok that was pretty extreme.

How about killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians, causing a civil war, destroying a nation's economy and infrastructure, torturing and abusing prisoners for tiny scraps of information, comprimising our political and moral authority on the world stage, enciting untold thousands to become terrorists who hate America....all to make Americans feel a little bit "safer"

do you think that is a good idea?

Answer 8

Thats a good question to ask Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. After all, there the ones who decided that we only needed 150,000 troops in Iraq instead of the 200-300 thousand that General Shinseki not only asked for but was censored because he disagreed with Rumsfeld. Perhaps this quagmire would be over by now if those idiots really wanted it to be over.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Eric_Shinseki

Answer 9

Well any means necessary would make the answer NO! The Romans, Mongols,Turks and others has brutal ways of winning wars that noone would want to see happen again.

Answer 10

IF you are going to fight a war, the goal is to win. "Second place" in a war pretty much sucks. "All's fair in love and war." Nobody starts a war with the goal of losing, except in the movie "The Mouse That Roared".