4 ms·

How do you define "defensive"? The US has repeatedly been involved in wars to defend our allies from external attack.

somenameforme 3y ago
If you are invaded by another country, then you are in a defensive war. Beyond that, countries often will claim they are in defensive wars, when reality is somewhat more ambiguous. Imagine Mexico announced plans to enter into a military alliance with China, which would entail setting up nukes right on the US border. We would invade Mexico approximately 0 seconds later, to ensure such an outcome never happened. The closest we ever came to intentional nuclear war happened over this exact sort of scenario with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Is that defensive? Let's say we're slightly more subtle with the above. And we 'compel' a region in Mexico to declare their independence and announce an association with the US; we immediately acknowledge their independence. Mexico predictably seeks to shut down said rebellion and invades. We then come to their aid, and start a war against Mexico. Is that defensive? What if said independence seeking was completely organic instead of compelled? I'm not speaking rhetorically. These questions are difficult, if not impossible to answer. So when I say defensive war, I am speaking literally of the most basic form imaginable. Otherwise, you end up with a million scenarios where the line between defender and invader often come down to one's perspective, instead of some objective qualification. You also risk recreating WW1 where a Bosnian Serb assassinating an Austro-Hungarian royal results in Brits killing Germans over it, and everybody has a plausible claim of behaving defensively, somehow.
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
  I'm always irked to no end when someone omits the context of the cuban missile crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, romanized: Karibskiy krizis), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis and countless other sources) They were just a response, tit for tat. And were only removed after the USA removed theirs. Secretly, the United States agreed to dismantle all of the offensive weapons it had deployed to Turkey. (same source) That aside, what about some conventionally armed IC/SLBM-swarm advising via ADS-B: NONUKE/JUSTTNT/KINETIC/GODSRODS/HELOKITY/WHATSUP/DIPLOMAT/COURIER/MESSAGE/AIRMAIL/DELIVERY/BLOWME/FORFUN? Let's call it the W69-MK6...maybe deployed by some LongDong YeeHaa...

If you are invaded by another country, then you are in a defensive war. Beyond that, countries often will claim they are in defensive wars, when reality is somewhat more ambiguous. Imagine Mexico announced plans to enter into a military alliance with China, which would entail setting up nukes right on the US border. We would invade Mexico approximately 0 seconds later, to ensure such an outcome never happened. The closest we ever came to intentional nuclear war happened over this exact sort of scenario with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Is that defensive? Let's say we're slightly more subtle with the above. And we 'compel' a region in Mexico to declare their independence and announce an association with the US; we immediately acknowledge their independence. Mexico predictably seeks to shut down said rebellion and invades. We then come to their aid, and start a war against Mexico. Is that defensive? What if said independence seeking was completely organic instead of compelled? I'm not speaking rhetorically. These questions are difficult, if not impossible to answer. So when I say defensive war, I am speaking literally of the most basic form imaginable. Otherwise, you end up with a million scenarios where the line between defender and invader often come down to one's perspective, instead of some objective qualification. You also risk recreating WW1 where a Bosnian Serb assassinating an Austro-Hungarian royal results in Brits killing Germans over it, and everybody has a plausible claim of behaving defensively, somehow.

LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
I'm always irked to no end when someone omits the context of the cuban missile crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, romanized: Karibskiy krizis), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis and countless other sources) They were just a response, tit for tat. And were only removed after the USA removed theirs. Secretly, the United States agreed to dismantle all of the offensive weapons it had deployed to Turkey. (same source) That aside, what about some conventionally armed IC/SLBM-swarm advising via ADS-B: NONUKE/JUSTTNT/KINETIC/GODSRODS/HELOKITY/WHATSUP/DIPLOMAT/COURIER/MESSAGE/AIRMAIL/DELIVERY/BLOWME/FORFUN? Let's call it the W69-MK6...maybe deployed by some LongDong YeeHaa...