ABSTRACT

If you know even as little history as I do, it is hard not to doubt the efficacy of modern war as a solution to any problem except that of retribution – the “justice” of exchanging one damage for another. Apologists for war will insist that war answers the problem of national self-defence. But the doubter, in reply, will ask to what extent the cost even of a successful war of national defence – in life, money, material, foods, health, and (inevitably) freedom – may amount to a national defeat. National defence through war always involves some degree of national defeat. This paradox has been with us from the very beginning of the American republic. Militarisation in defence of freedom reduces the freedom of the defenders. There is a fundamental inconsistency between war and freedom.