Why Nations Wage War

A review of wars going back to the Greeks reveals one primary reason nations wage war, which not surprisingly is the same reason individual leaders do evil; to get more stuff. America, for the last eighty years, has been one of the few countries that doesn’t wage war to acquire more stuff, we have other reasons. We conquered Afghanistan, then turned their vast rare earth mineral deposits and poppy fields over to the Chinese. We conquered Iraq, then turned the oil fields over to ISIS. We steamrolled Granada, then left…both in one weekend. We defeated the Germans twice, and the Japanese and Italians once, but kept no prize.

But that wasn’t always the case, during our nation’s first hundred plus years we fought many wars for stuff. We fought the Indians, for everything they hand, including their way of life. We fought the British and Canadians, once for independence, and once for land. We fought Mexico and Spain multiple times for land. During each of these conquests, we created a moral narrative to rally support, but the real underlying reasons were often far from moral. But the formula works, and it pretty much works without question, that is until some radical students in the 1960’s stood up and said “enough!” That was a nation defining moment of transformative consequence, because for the first time in our history, politicians had to ask themselves, “what if we start a war and no one shows up?“

That more than anything, is why American conflicts since the 1960’s have been minor (in a relative to full on war sort of way), and fought with national guard troops versus potentially unwilling draftees. It hasn’t deterred us from getting involved in wars, just changed how we, as a nation, go about it. But since we don’t fight wars anymore to get more stuff, why has America been engaged in war more often than not for the last sixty years? We went to war in Iraq based on Colin Powell’s immoral lie about weapons of mass destruction, but what was the real underlying reason? We went to war with Afghanistan because we needed to kick the crap out of someone after 911, and they were the most complicit. But what about all the other wars, why were they necessary; what was the moral imperative we were sold, and what was the real underlying reason?

In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, staged the Tonkin Incident as a pretense to start America’s participation in Vietnam. Government propagandist spun the incident as a “Remember the Alamo” moment, but the real benefit, for the Democrats, was that it boosted their election chances while providing billions to their benefactors in the military industrial complex. In 1983, with scandals plaguing his administration, Republican President Ronald Reagan invaded Grenada under a fabricated pretense about rescuing students who weren’t in danger, but the real benefit was distracting Americans from scandals and boosting Republican election chances. Democratic President Bill Clinton’s 1995 decision to bomb Bosina ironically coincided with his impeachment following the Monica Lewinsky scandal and of course, boosted his re-election chances.

Democratic President Barack Obama is the only president to involve our nation in continual wars throughout his entire eight-year presidency, with wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Remember his grand propaganda moment, when he saved killing Osama Bin Laden until the Democratic convention to boost his re-election chances? Since 1933, the only presidents not to start a war during their terms were Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Donald Trump. Ironically our peacetime presidents were all Republicans, except Jimmy Carter. It’s also interesting to note, they were all one-term presidents (technically).

Why do we as a nation enjoy more peacetime with Republican presidents? Is it that they are loath to start wars? Can’t really make that assertion when we consider the crap the two Bush presidents got us into. Is it that Republican Presidents have fewer scandals or failed presidencies requiring that special re-election boost that only wars provide? Perhaps, or maybe it’s that despot foreign leaders don’t fear Democratic presidents, which I’m pretty sure is the case with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and President Biden. I am sure Washington is dotted with Institutes and Think Tanks who tackle this question with an array of causal conclusions, and no doubt right now there’s a Harvard grad student with less than impressive academic credentials presenting a Doctoral dissertation defending every president’s use of aggression to solidify his political party’s re-election chances.

Remember the hot mic moment just before Putin seized Crimea when President Obama was caught whispering to Putin’s puppet president “after my election I have more flexibility.” Shortly after that backroom deal, Barry did nothing to slow or stop Putin’s invasion of a sovereign country. Now we have Barry’s puppet Biden announcing to the world at this week’s press conference that he’s okay with Russia taking more chunks of Ukraine. One can imagine that Biden has issues with Ukraine, after all, they did nothing to squash stories regarding his son Hunter profiting millions in shady Ukrainian oil deals of which, the “Big Guy” (i.e., Biden) got a huge cut. Throughout Biden’s political career, he has viciously gone after people that cross him, that is when he’s not vigorously supporting racist policies that target minorities.

By signaling to Russia that it’s okay to invade Ukraine, Biden gets a twofer, he can punish the people of Ukraine for daring to turn off the flow of his precious payola, while working a deal with Putin, a sociopathic killer, to save his presidency – and anyone who’s looked at the polls knows, Biden’s presidency is pretty deep in the crapper. When Putin invades Ukraine, Biden will mount a halfhearted response based on the moral imperative that he’s saving the world from communism and hostile aggression, while the real underlying reason is that he wants to save his failed presidency and be re-elected. And of course Russians will have no compunction about invading Ukraine, after all, these are the same people who willfully starved 4.6 million Ukrainians so they could steal their land in the Holodomor. I’m sure there are many Russians right now lusting after their piece of coastal Ukraine or lush interior farmland. Russians are, if nothing else, a consistent lot when it comes to brutal aggression to get more stuff . . . sort of like, I don’t know, America during its Manifest Destiny period?

They say for any successful negotiation, both sides have to get something, we know what Biden gets with war, a chance to salvage his failed presidency, but what’s in it for Putin, besides Ukraine I mean? Like Biden, Putin’s upside down in the Russian polls, not the official state fake news polls that show Putin with a high approval rating, but the real polls. Putin’s been unable to subdue opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who remains defiant even after being poisoned by Putin and tortured in prison. Navalny has broad-based support, especially among young adults who will be called upon to die in Ukraine for the edification of their dictator. Putin needs a quick win to make him appear the conquering hero, while not having it cost too many Russian lives or Navalny will use that against him.

Biden’s signal to Vladimir during his press conference that it would be okay to take chucks of Ukraine, is his way of saying they have a deal as both sides can now get what they want, or in Wall Street terms, a win-win situation, that is of course as long as you’re not Ukraine…….

…..Imagine what a world defining moment it would be, if Biden and his business partner Vladimir decide to wage war, and no one shows up?????