> a problem of their own creation...

The DoD didn't invent war. It doesn't declare war. It just fights wars.

Who sends our young people to be blown up? Our elected leadership.

So we all made this problem.

As they used to say, "war is our profession - peace is our product."

Production appears to have stopped for almost 17 years, now.

Has the US ever not been involved in a war in the last 100 or so years? They went to Korea and Vietnam and Iraq pretty much back-to-back after WW2.

Years in which the US was not at war:

- 1796 and 1797

- 1807, 1808 and 1809

- 1826

- 1828, 1829 and 1830

- 1897

- 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939 and 1940

- 1976, 1977 and 1978

- 1997

- 2000

This list counts major wars until 2016. Some of the wars led in this time were of defensive nature. This list does not account for covert operations and other, similar acts that might be considered war.

Since 1955: The Korean war was never ended, and there was an active and continued military engagement with daily exchanges in Iraq from 1991 through 2003.

The mainland United States has not been attacked as a part of a military operation in the modern era, so the defensive claim is questionable.

I pulled the list from the internet, it was probably incomplete. I sadly can't amend it anymore. The defensive claim is from the source I used.

Fair enough.

I think we need to market images of badly disfigured veterans as a tragedy instead of an honor.

Just on the topic of why people sign up: I think many people join because they really think they're doing something good - defending those that need protection or help from the 'real' bad guys. Obviously that's not 100% what's really going on all the time but it has enough truth in it to be attractive. And I think it's true that some real good is done by (most?) military organisations - ie disaster relief, some major engineering projects, policing in areas without effective security, etc, so some people do get to live those ideals out, and pass along that part of the military culture. It's not _entirely_ propaganda, nor it is all shooting guns at people.

Yeah, I recently met a guy in the engineering corps who was super proud of the humanitarian work he's done and the opportunities he's had to travel, learn languages, etc. Could be that he got lucky with his placements, though.

It also helps a lot of poorer kids with opportunities for study and/or travel that they might not otherwise have had.

>people who can't think for themselves.

If this is really your mental model of people who join, I suggest you do some deeper research; or, you know, talk to them.

As a general rule of thumb, if your view of a group of millions of people with all education levels is that they can't think for themselves, it's wrong. It's a silly simplification that gains you nothing but bitterness and makes you look ignorant to people actually in the service.

People who don't think just like you != people who can't think for themselves.

That's not their argument, you are making a much stronger claim than they are.

> not their argument

It's a direct quote from their comment.

no it is not, unless you are taking liberties with the word "direct"

> people who can't think for themselves.

It's literally word for word from the comment.

yes, if you cut it in half. Not dishonest at all

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you may not be aware of what "!=" means. They are saying that "people who can't think for themselves" -- the original argument -- are not the same as "people who don't think just like you" -- which is their rebuttal.

I'm aware of what "!=" means, thanks. The rebuttal was saying that just because people think differently from OP, doesn't mean they can't think for themselves. OP never said that people who think differently from them can't think for themselves, they specified a type of people who can't think for themselves, a group much smaller than "everyone who thinks differently".

It is disgusting to watch military recruitment videos in the US. They are clearly designed to prey upon the immature, ego-filled fantasies of 17yr old boys.

It's supported by the media as well. The DoD is involved in Hollywood movies, and while they will supply military vehicles and such for movie use, that does mean they have to approve the script.

Likewise, movies aimed at the Chinese market often need to involve Chinese people or Chinese locations - something you can see in a number of big budget action movies recently.

Not everyone in the military is fighting wars all the time. Many people are getting educations and building careers in normal professions that just happen to be part of the military organization.

The front-line soldiers are a small percentage, and they deserve respect for their sacrifices regardless of why they chose to join. It's easy to take freedom and peace for granted without knowing just how much conflict and blood it requires.

Most people, in my experience, sign up to pay for college or because their parents kicked them out at 18 and they couldn't find a job. That's about all it takes; ideology doesn't really enter into it.

> I hate the glamorization of the military. I don't understand how anyone would actually join.

In many countries you do not have a choice; it is mandatory. And in those countries, at least in peacetime, it is usually seen as neither glamorous nor desirable. Somewhere between a painless but a wasted year and a miserable time you must mobilize to endure to avoid corrupting your brain.

Go visit Taliban controlled Afghanistan when girls couldn’t go to school. Visit areas of Afghanistan after the US cleared Taliban areas and built schools. The girls that can now go to school aren’t rich and powerful, but it’s a fact that fighting that war helped make that possible.

The CIA were happy to supply hundreds of millions of dollars in arms to the mujahideen during the 1980s. The US chose to support Islamist insurgents in a proxy war against the Soviet Union and the Afghan people have paid the price for that decision ever since. Many of the American soldiers who died in the war in Afghanistan were killed with weapons that were bought and paid for by their own government. If you believe that the American invasion of Afghanistan was a humanitarian gesture, you have been given an extremely narrow understanding of history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

While this is true, it's whataboutism. You can be fixing a fuckup resulting from your government's previous actions, but it's still fixing it.

It sure seems to take a long time to fix things. Maybe fixing things at the point of a gun is the problem?

...except that now (at least AFAIU) we're backing out of those areas and the Taliban are right back in control. Maybe that military-intervention-as-societal-revenge-plot wasn't so helpful?

Precisely because the war wasn't finished... political pressure led to the military being recalled and this is the outcome. Rebuilding a nation does not just happen in a few months, it takes decades of peace. The biggest problem is the lack of commitment, due in part to a public that has lost touch with what conflict is and the will it takes to fight.

Does no one at any level of the military (excepting perhaps the Commander-in-Chief) bear any responsibility for the horrors of war?

I would have hoped that the Nuremberg trials had put an end to that line of thinking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders

> Does no one at any level of the military (excepting perhaps the Commander-in-Chief) bear any responsibility for the horrors of war?

Yes, responsibility for the horrors of war. But not the decision to declare war.

Wouldn't it be great if it was just so simple? A single organization can just stop it all? Who would oppose that?

Humans create war. It is in our nature. Every tiny effort to improve lives and perform these miracles should be cherished and encouraged, regardless of military background. It is perhaps one of the few ways we have to overcome conflict and look towards a better future.

Literally a single person could stop the vast majority of organized armed conflict in the world today.

Are you being serious? The vast majority? It absolutely does not work like that.

I can't be bothered to source this information and admit it may be wrong, but common sense tells me that the vast majority of loss of life in the past 20 years that is related to armed combat happened in places where there are US troops or governments whose defense spending is subsidized by the US government. Considering the ridiculous amount the US spends on defense I can't see how this wouldn't be the case.

Oh hey, that's an idea. Why didn't we think of that earlier? Hey everybody lets just stop wars!

Unfortunately, there will always be bad people and the only way to keep the innocent safe is for good people to step in and do difficult things.

And most good people concentrated in one set of countries and most bad people concentrated in another. It’s not grids of interests and interesting consequences, it’s just a distribution, man! All bad guys just happen to be over there hating you. Just because you’re better and know better. /s

Surprisingly, most of the times you don’t get bites by simply not sticking your nose into every wasp nest. Still, doing that creates enough chaos and green light to “protect by any means necessary”.

It’s not too hard to look up what kinda of childhood experiences create “bad people”. If your economy is 100x your target, you just pay to make those things happen more often. Wait 20 years and you have a bunch of bad people who hate us. Instant war. Billions to be made.

Pretty neat plan. Not sure how it ends.

It doesn’t. Military and politicians can now control how much hate there is via slight moves here and there. The end seems when otherwise smart people would stop claiming things like “war is human nature”, “don’t look at the military background of good deeds” and would finally open their eyes to see what psychopaths they are electing on and on. Until then it is a positive feedback loop.

And this is not specific to US, if that matters.

In particular the DoD. It's not like the Iraq war helped anybody except turning Al-Qaeda from 500 people on the verge of getting kicked out of Afghanistan into an army large enough to have it's own internal civil war in Syria. And there are a lot cheaper ways to accomplish that.

A country without a military (or a dependable ally with one) is very quickly not a country. The US could stop funding the military, but the world would be a worse place for it.

Stop fighting overseas wars != stop funding the military