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1 month agoThere have definitely been unjust wars, where various propaganda has been used to get people to fight for corporate or imperialistic agendas.
Acting like the people that died fighting Nazis, or the people that died prevented North Korea from taking the South, didn’t die protecting others is just disrespecting those people. Imagine how many people that have survived, lived, and prospered on the European continent and in South Korea because soldiers and resistance fighters were willing to lay down their life for a greater cause.
This isn’t a black-and-white issue.
I see your point, however
I don’t really agree on this, I think that’s what diplomacy is for. Armies are for when someone shows up with weapons, trying to kill you and your family, displace you from your home, and take everything that is yours. Armies are the backstop when diplomacy fails and you have no choice but to defend yourself with violence.
Yes, armies can’t defeat an ideology completely (as you say, Nazi ideas are still with us today, and North Korea is still a threat to the South). However, armies did ensure that a bunch of people that would have been purged by the Nazis have instead lived fulfilling lives. Armies did ensure that a lot of Koreans actually don’t live under the oppression of the Kim regime. An army is currently preventing Putin from taking Ukraine, displacing Ukrainians, and wiping out Ukrainian culture.
The last example is perhaps the best, because we can see in real time that Ukraine would obviously prefer not to fight this war. They would have preferred to build bridges and friendship with their neighbouring country. That is the job of diplomats and politicians. The army is there for when that neighbour decides to invade, because they don’t want bridges and friendship, but complete control.