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Comment by l33t233372 | Hacker News Reader

Wars of defense are entirely different in my opinion.

Those are not up for debate, as the US has never been properly attacked, as far as I know. (The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor might be an exception, but that wasn't the US mainland, though the US attack on Japan did involve the Japanese mainland, so this probably doesn't count as a purely defensive war.)

Are you really going to suggest an attack that killed 2,403 Americans, sunk five U.S. battleships & damaged 4 others ships, and destroyed 188 aircraft, is not a proper attack? because it wasn't on the "mainland?"

An attack made with the explicit purpose to prevent the US from putting up a fight as Japan took internationally recognized US territory.

The point is that the US war against Japan wasn't a purely defensive war.

But it absolutely was, and the idea that an attack isn’t an attack and responding to it isn’t defense if it isn't on the “mainland” is ludicrous. (Also, Japan attacked the US mainland during WWII, and did so before any US attacks on Japan proper, so you’ll need to move the goalposts farther.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Ellwood

Of course one can argue about the semantics of "defensive war", but as far as I understand, there was basically zero chance Japan would have conquered the US, or any American territory for an extended period of time, without the US invading Japan. So in this sense the war wasn't purely defensive. It was nothing remotely like the defensive war of France against Germany during WW2.

> > so you’ll need to move the goalposts farther.

> […] there was basically zero chance Japan would have conquered the US, or any American territory for an extended period of time, without the US invading Japan. So in this sense the war wasn’t purely defensive.

War is only defensive if the attacker is likely to conquer and hold territory for an extended period of time? Well, there go the goalposts as expected, though I could not have predicted that that was where they would go.

The OP talked about "defensive wars". If X tries to steal Y's pocket, and Y prevents X from stealing it, and additionally gives X a kick in the ass, then that might be justified, but it's not just an act of self-defense.

Japan stole quite a bit, from quite a few people, in the Pacific theater. The war doesn't end when the US gets back what was stolen - it ends when all of its allies get back, what was stolen.

That's hardly a universal truth. Nations, the US included, don't wait until War every time another country is wronged. They don't continue until every wrong has been righted. It is far from clear that the us would have entered the Pacific War simply to to defend other countries, even if us strategists wanted to.

We aren't arguing universal truths. This was a fought war with context. No claim of universal truth was made.

> They don't continue until every wrong has been righted. It is far from clear that the us would have entered the Pacific War simply to to defend other countries, even if us strategists wanted to.

Once the US entered the war and thus entered into deeper agreements with allies it was inevitable. The war was never ending once the US righted its own wrongs. It made promises to allies.

If that was your point, I agree. War can have multiple objectives. Depending on how things started and played out, they could have been different, which was my primary point.

If Japan had not attacked Peral harbor, it is possible that the US objectives could have been different.

That not really how it works when nations go to war.

Once hostilities start, you need either complete submission or a high degree of trust to stop them. This is because there is a large downside risk to stopping prematurely.

By way of analogy, if you are in a fist fight and stop before you know the opponent is down, you may be knocked out yourself

I think the greater point is people can have a reasonable debate over that, since Americans were actually attacked on American soil. There is no reasonable debate over the other 100+ wars and invasions we've been involved in over the last two centuries where all of the hostilities, from start to finish, took place outside of our own borders.

The U.S. was "properly attacked" in the War of 1812, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11.

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There are conspiracy theories (which I don't believe) that the latter two were known, but deliberately permitted to happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor_advance-knowledge...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories

I'm not an expert on American history, but the War of 1812 was first declared by the US against the UK. It doesn't sound like a purely defensive matter. 9/11 was a terrorist attack which is not something one could fight a defensive war against.

Yes, the US declared war first. (After Britain seized American ships.)

The US was "properly attacked" -- and capital burned -- though whether they were attacked first is a matter of debate.

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