August 04, 2004

Wars of Necessity

Matthew Yglesias makes a profound point:

Near as I can tell, the United States has fought one war of necessity -- the second world war. Since the country wouldn't have existed without the Revolution, you can add that in. Beyond that, the US has fought for a variety of more-or-less abstract principles and more-or-less concrete material interests (often mixed together as in the Civil War), but never for its survival as a nation or in response to direct aggression.
What, exactly, is meant by 'War of Necessity' anyway? For example, can anyone really argue that the actions taken by the Jefferson administration against the North African city-states were 'necessary' for the survival of the country? Was that not a 'war-of-choice' and not of 'necessity?

Unless we define choice and necessity in some way that the definitions only fits on partisan grounds. For instance, the war in Iraq was one of 'choice' because Bush chose to go there, even though it was not 'necessary'. Or, the war in the Balkaans was 'necessary' because Clinton had to go there and therefore did not have any real 'choice'. See how this works?

UPDATE: Chris Cross has a great take on this. Exactly what I was thinking!

By Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at 11:27 PM | |