# Is war always evil? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 16, 2002, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075 "2002-12-16T14:06:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![serenitynow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@serenitynow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/serenitynow)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/1 "2002-12-16T14:06:59Z")
In Jimmy Carter’s acceptance of the nobel prize last week, he made a comment to the effect that war is always evil. I have never thought that was the case, but was curious as to what some of you thought. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Go\_alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_alien)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/2 "2002-12-16T14:15:11Z")
To twist words like a shifty politician, I would say that all wars are evil buty some wars are necessary. For example WW2 was necessary to defeat evil. Had Britain and the US (and France, initially) decided that because all war is evil, they weren’t going to partake, even if necessary, then Hitler (or Stalin) would have stomped all over the world. However, most wars have not been as clear cut. ---
**Author:** ![rampisad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/858c86/32.png) [@rampisad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rampisad)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/3 "2002-12-16T14:32:22Z")
Go Go Alien! I would phrase it a bit differently - some wars are the lesser of two evils. As well as WW2, more recently there’s been Kosovo. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/4 "2002-12-16T14:43:07Z")
Would Hitler really have stomped all over the world? ---
**Author:** ![Firebat023](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a4c791/32.png) [@Firebat023](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Firebat023)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/5 "2002-12-16T14:45:20Z")
Hitler would not stomped so much as done an Irish Jig. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/6 "2002-12-16T14:50:47Z")
No seriously. If he had gotten what he wanted, Lebensraum in the East and the destruction of communism, what indication is there that he would have wanted more? ---
**Author:** ![Go\_alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Go\_alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_alien)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/7 "2002-12-16T14:51:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Latro \* > \*\*Would Hitler really have stomped all over the world? \*\* If the USA and UK didn’t fight back, it would have been betwen him and Stalin. My WAG is 60/40 in Hitler’s favour. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/8 "2002-12-16T15:01:29Z")
[quote] [ol][li]Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.[_]Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a poor diet.[_]Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous: evil omens. [_]Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous: an evil reputation. [_]Characterized by anger or spite; malicious: an evil temper. [/ol][/li][/quote] Is war always evil? YES by #2 and #5. NO by #1, #3, and #4. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/9 "2002-12-16T15:03:55Z")
> [@](#): > > If the USA and UK didn’t fight back, it would have been betwen him and Stalin. My WAG is 60/40 in Hitler’s favour. Exactly. If the U.K. and France hadn’t put their foot down, or Poland would have granted passage, to a German invasion of the Soviet-Union. We would have had a Great Patriottic War but would we have had a WW2? Would Hitler have stopped there or would he have attacked the rest of Europe too? . ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/10 "2002-12-16T15:16:47Z")
Yes War is evil. Young men and women are taken from home and given weapons and trained to hate and to kill other young men and women. Many times civilians end up targets either directly or inadvertantly that results in their death. Those who are not killed are deprived food and water and shelter, some are driven away from their homes. Land is destroyed resources are diverted from the population to go to teh armies. All of this because their leaders have ambitions one way or the other and lack the imagination to settle their differences in any other way than to kill people. Are they necessary? If they can be prevented then no. The prime example of a necessary War is usually WWII but I submit Hitler could have been stopped without a shot fired had the French army shown up when the Germans re militarized the Rhine land. The Army was ordered to retreat in that case and the Military would have ousted Hitler for a reckless venture. All wars are preventable but the leaders need the imagination to do this. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/11 "2002-12-16T16:06:35Z")
Hitler tried to avoid going to war with Britain and Fance and offered what he considered to be generous peace terms to the British after France fell. There is no way Germany (or Japan or both together for that matter) had the wherewithal to invade North America, thus calling into question this business of the WWII vets being reponsible for “our freedom”. As for the OP, it should be pointed out that war is not one thing that can be morally judged, but rather two things. The two sides in a war are doing two different things for two different reasons. One side is attempting to impose its will and the other side is resisting. Each side would have peferred to get their way without resorting to armed conflict, but the other side isn’t cooperating. This is unlike, say, a sporting event where both sides agree to stage a physical contest and which is often organized by a neutral party. ---
**Author:** ![JustPlainBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JustPlainBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustPlainBryan)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/12 "2002-12-16T16:15:11Z")
War in itself is not evil, any more than disease and famine are evil. It is the people who foment war and are willing to expend innocent lives in order to further a personal agenda that are evil. ---
**Author:** ![0rbytal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/0/65b543/32.png) [@0rbytal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/0rbytal)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/13 "2002-12-16T17:08:59Z")
Evil? Is killing always evil? What about when someone shot your mother… is killing him/her evil? is selling marijauna evil? What if your friend’s grandmother had glaucoma? what if your friend’s grandfather had served in the army through 4 wars resisting other countries trying to impose their systems / beliefs on you and just wanted to enjoy a doobie in his rocking chair on his 65th birthday? If you needed some money to feed your daughter, is selling it to them evil? [sub]there are plenty of other examples[/sub] Of course these are relative type scenarios and not everything is relative… so what is absolute? I think the ten commandments are pretty fair guidelines for social behavior. (BTW: \*6. Thou shalt not kill \* was understood to mean [murder](http://www.biblestudy.org/question/notkill.html) in the Old testament ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/14 "2002-12-16T17:12:52Z")
“There never was a good war or a bad peace.” – Ben Franklin, in a letter to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1773. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/15 "2002-12-16T17:53:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JustPlainBryan \* > \*\*War in itself is not evil, any more than disease and famine are evil. It is the people who foment war and are willing to expend innocent lives in order to further a personal agenda that are evil. \*\* Well lets see war caused by is a conscious decision while the other events you mention are not. It can be evil. “Thou shalt not kill” means just that for me. War is murder even if it is concidered lawful it is premeditated and carried out by any means necessary with the aims to destroy the enemy. So yes I can see it as evil. ---
**Author:** ![JustPlainBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JustPlainBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustPlainBryan)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/16 "2002-12-16T18:51:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Well lets see war caused by is a conscious decision while the other events you mention are not. It can be evil. What I contend is that the ones who make the conscious decision are what can be labelled as evil. War is merely the instrument of carrying out the decision-maker’s whim. Another analogy would be whether one would consider the handgun to be evil. And both famine and disease can be caused by conscious decision. > [@](#): > > “Thou shalt not kill” means just that for me. I respect that, just don’t impinge on my right to kill someone in self defense. > [@](#): > > War is murder even if it is concidered lawful it is premeditated and carried out by any means necessary with the aims to destroy the enemy. If that were true, we would be all dead by now, due to a nuclear holocaust we as a species couldn’t avoid. > [@](#): > > So yes I can see it as evil. Meh. ---
**Author:** ![Azael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a8b319/32.png) [@Azael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azael)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/17 "2002-12-16T18:52:37Z")
War is evil to the losers. War is justified to the winners. But War is always evil. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/18 "2002-12-16T19:09:18Z")
War is just not a nice situation to be in. ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/19 "2002-12-16T19:14:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Go alien \* > \*\*To twist words like a shifty politician, I would say that all wars are evil buty some wars are necessary. For example WW2 was necessary to defeat evil. Had Britain and the US (and France, initially) decided that because all war is evil, they weren’t going to partake, even if necessary, then Hitler (or Stalin) would have stomped all over the world. > > However, most wars have not been as clear cut. \*\* About the only thing I agreed with here was the first sentence. I think evil is pretty much unavoidable in any kind of human society; war is just one expression of that evil. For the record, Stalin had no territorialist ambitions on the scale of Hitler’s, and the only conquering Stalin did was as a strategic buffer against Germany. Britain and France were dragged, kicking and screaming, into war only after it became all too apparent that Hitler wasn’t just going to be nice and go away. They sold out plenty of people, including the entire populations of Austria and Czechoslovakia (whose Jewish populations paid with their lives), to avoid fighting along the way. So much for their idealism. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_of\_Graymatter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/74df32/32.png) [@Baron\_of\_Graymatter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_of_Graymatter)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2002, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075/20 "2002-12-16T19:32:04Z")
Yes, war CAN be evil, but… “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” -John Stuart Mill [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-war-always-evil/143075.md?page=2)