War As A Norm

Our military is in action in the Red Sea and this is CNN's front page.

Despite a lifelong interest in military history, I'm pretty offended by the normalization of war as a means of solving international disputes. Over the last thirty years the United States has been continuously involved in some type of war. I'm not sure how we talked ourselves into that. At a given time, most countries are not involved in any war at all. At any given time, our troops are involved in multiple conflicts.

Somehow that became a norm. Certainly there are always justifications for our wars. "We have interests" is often said. Well everybody has interests but not everybody goes to war over them. It seems to me part of the issue is that most of our recent conflicts are with non-state groups, such as terrorists and provisional militias. That provides an opening to circumvent constitutional barriers to war. We should be suspicious of people advocating for military action.

News stories about fighting that once would have preempted normal television are now just small pieces lost in the ocean of information that is the internet.

I'm not a pacifist but we need to stop seeing everything as a matter for military action. It shouldn't be a norm.