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Comment by true_religion | Hacker News Reader

Traditionally, once the decision is made to go to war, all debate about the justifications for the war must end.

Countries where the debate continues end up having a social split where part of the nation supports the war, and part does not. This kind of civil division is fatal during war time if your enemy isn't similarly hobbled.

Any war, even the most worthy, is susceptible to having its justifications criticized but the consequences of not being unified during the conflict are so catastrophic that people prefer to criticise wars only after they have been won or lost.

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That's certainly true about total war where the nation's survival is threatened by defeat, but it's not true about the kind of limited wars was have seen since world war 2. In fact, because these wars are limited wars for the world powers that start them, but total wars for the postcolonial states in the receiving end, I think it's very correct that the public e.g. in the US continue to aggressively question the rationale for war even after it's begun in e.g. Vietnam, Iraq, and so on.

Henry Kissinger would certainly have been happier to see a US public united behind the Vietnam war effort because it would have made it easier to win in a geopolitical sense, but what about in a moral sense? The US wasn't threatened existentially by failure in Vietnam, and it's right that we didn't adopt the attitude expressed in your comment.

On that note, the US spends almost as much in defense as the entire rest of the world.

Losing a "war" in the middle East would not affect the US very much outside reputation.

I would respectively suggest that most countries in the rest of the world don't behave in such a was as to require this level of excessive spending on "defence". As you state, if you are conducting defensive operations, how can it be that failure of that defence will not impact your country.

This is true with the current realities of oil supply, maybe not so much 10 or 20 years ago. With indefinite domestic/local supplies now established, I really wish we could let them live their lives without our interference.

Calling it “defence” is almost Orwellian... when the majority of the budget is spent on attack and offence in other countries?

> Traditionally, once the decision is made to go to war, all debate about the justifications for the war must end.

"traditionally"? This makes starting a war the perfect way to unite a country. Dictatorships and oligarchies seems to love this trick.

> This kind of civil division is fatal during war time if your enemy isn't similarly hobbled.

For dissenting citizens losing a war is often much better than dragging it longer or even winning it.

See Germany in WW2 for example.

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