The Pros And Cons Of War

One would think that an American citizen of the United States would have knowledge of all the wars that our military has fought in sadly, this American, meaning myself, does not. In fact, the wars I do know about is most likely only a small tiny portion of the battles that were fought. I know there were wars with other countries and wars within our own country but even then, I still don’t know much about them. Here is a brief example of all the war’s I am familiar with; First, The American Revolutionary War that was fought in America in 1775, against Great Britain. The purpose of the war was to fight for our independence and declare ourselves an independent United States (thirteen colonies) of America. Second, The American Civil War in 1861. …show more content…
According to Robert W. Brimlow in his book What about Hitler, there are two parts to the just war theories jus ad bellum and jus in bello (Brimlow, p. 39). Jus ad bellum is “a set of rules for going to war” and jus in bello “outline the constraints on the means a country at war may employ to reach its justified end or goal” (Brimlow, pp. 39-40). Personally, I don’t think I am capable of truly deciding if going to war is justifiable, but I do think I can understand, somewhat, if our military is acting in a justifiable way during a war. When I think of most wars, I think that jus in bello was a broken rule. There are two rules in jus in bello proportionate and discriminate. Proportionality is a term used to determine the level of collateral damage or death to civilians in proportion to the death of military personnel, in order to avoid excessiveness and discrimination is a concern of who are legitimate targets. It seems that in all wars collateral damage and death is always excessive and even more so, that many innocent men women and children who don’t take part in the wars are being