What about defensive wars, though? Occupations are often quite brutal, as well.
this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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Even when a war is necessary to prevent a worse outcome, it is still bad
Well yeah, but if that's the only kind of war that a military is planning on fighting, IMO it's a bit much to call it "evil".
As militaries are a tool of states to protect their sovereign power: That's not what militaries do, though.
I don't want to die for a state. Even if that state is being challenged in it's sovereignity.
Of course depending on a defensive war, but often times you're not fighting for the state, but your loved ones. Like on a smaller scale nearly everyone would defend the people close to them from harm, for example trying to stop a rapist from abusing your wife/sister/daughter of course not limited to women. Rape can be used against men as well.
In a defensive war the goal of states sovereignty and you defending your loved ones can align.
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What if the state attacking is doing so for the purpose of murdering you and your family and everyone who remotely looks like you or shares your culture?
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I think every army that had to defend their home country would have preferred doing other things, and until 2022 i honestly tought that invasions were a thing of the past, at least in Europe. Russia showed otherwise, now i think that being capable of defending yourself is important. You dont have to have a ginormous army like the US but you have to be enough of a threat that somebody would think twice before attacking.
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You're right, all war is bad. War sucks and it should never have to happen. Even wars fought for good reasons are still terrible and it would be a better world if they never had to be fought at all.
The part you're missing is that war is not the military. They're different things. Militaries fight wars, that doesn't mean that wars will magically stop happening to everyone who gets rid of their military. It would be wonderful to live in a world where militaries aren't needed, but instead we live in a world where many countries live under the constant threat of invasion.
The Canadian military maintains a constant presence in Latvia, because if we didn't, Russia would walk in there tomorrow and take over. My wife just finished a tour. The Latvians don't resent the presence of our military, they love us. Everywhere she went, barring some very specific exceptions, people were glad to see them. They felt happy, reassured by their visible presence. People from the other side of the world who had upended their lives to spend six months away from family and loved ones defending their tiny little country from the threat of brutal autocratic rule.
No one wants these things to be necessary, but they are, whether we like it or not. We would not be living in a better world right now if, in 1939, the whole world had just rolled over and let the Nazis walk in without a fight, would we?
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Defensive wars? Like insurrections against invading armies and mercenaries?
Oftentimes governments make use of that and try to indoctrinate their governments into thinking a war is defensive when it isn't. False flags, clamping down on freedom of speech, large-scale censorship, promoting authoritarian and totalitarian tenets, violence against independent journalists and protesters, and so on.
That said, billionnaires and power-tripping CEOs are the source of far-right ideologies (as it benefits them to repress all labourers), and those should be combatted. When someone claims antifascism is an issue, they have practically admitted to being a fascist. And the only good fascist...
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Joining a military that aggresses other nations? Yeah, spot on. Joining a military to defend your line on the ground against people you see as fellow earthlings? Still a fair take. Joining a military to defend against people who want you dead because of how you were born? That's where this starts to unravel. That kind of stuff sadly exists in this world.
I'm not gonna fault an american for an opinion like that, but if you're involved with european leftists who are too busy virtue signalling to adopt any pragmatic defense policy positions, you get a real appreciation for the nuance.
I'm all for artistic prose, emphatic amd impactful prose, but so many people think impact is more important than accuracy and coherence.
We can assume they mean (or would accept the substitution of) "the military industrial complex" instead of the concept of "maintaining a military", but the symmetry required them to be less accurate.
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So many absurd things that I was told "you'll understand/agree when you're older" that turned out to just be boomer copium.
No, I don't hate taxes (the opposite). No, I'm not more conservative (the opposite).
One thing I've noticed about boomers is the constant TV on in the background. Very commonly FOX news, or newsmax these days, cnn, etc. Their world view is absolutely shaped by their media diet.
Meanwhile, our generation has always had the Internet. We view the world through that lens, which has a bit more of an expanded view, especially since people from those "scary" countries can come on places like reddit and post. Which is why I think the push for AI has been so strong. Now the Epstein class have some sort of means to taint what we read online, slowly moving our own worldview to the one the boomers have had from their own propaganda. It used to take owning the news stations to push their agenda, but now they had to pivot to now posting via bots to get their messages in.
All this to say, I think we had a nice gap where a kinder worldview emerged for some generations, but I worry that the generation growing up with the internet how it is becoming is going to slip back into the boomer thinking if it continues this way.
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I mean self-defense is not bad. US is just not defending itself from anyone.
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As someone pointed out, this is understandable if you're from the USA.
Otherwise, I see it like this:
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Every country has an army.
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Their own, or the one of another country.
The baseline is that going to war is bad, having a defensive army is absolutely not (and will prevent deaths as russia won't dare attack you).
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When I was young people around me told me that the further west on the map country is, the wealthiest and more free people live there without any conflict bothering them. With USA (the west-most country on map) as a shiny utopia with everyone peacefully living there being rich and free.
When I was a teen and my country joined EU I saw countless young adults emigrate west, seeking wealth and freedom beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Terrorists and oppressive regimes waged war in the eastern lands.
When I am an adult, the supposed peacekeeper of the world is waging wars to protect pedophiles. Former empire where sun never sets is trying to outlaw being young and sell their citizens data to highest bidder. And EU is bi-yearly trying to pass universal invigilation act.
I feel like my moral compass never really changed, it's just the world around me that changed beyond recognition. I worry how it will be when I get old, if I even get to live to old age.
Hang in there, buddy, it's rough but we are all in this together.
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What's even more wild is to ask a religious leader for a religion that says "don't kill people" about how killing people in a war isn't a sin. I was only a child when I saw one of my peers ask a priest this. The mental gymnastics the priest was trying to pull was blatantly obvious to me, even as a kid.
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I was once asked why I joined the military and my answer was 'l needed money'. This seemed to shock my companion who was astounded that I was willing to potentially kill people over money. My response was that it was a far better reason than for imaginary friends or the colour of their skin.
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I always had a deep puzzlement with the military as an institution. It’s basically an organization designed to take young people and teach them to run toward a firing machine gun when told to do so. It defies all logic at the individual level, and it scares me.
But... It's not?
You seem to have developed an understanding of the military based entirely around a small slice of WW2 movies and video games, and then assumed that has any bearing on the real world.
The way you actually learn to deal with a machine gun (and this was true even in WW2) is find cover, set up suppressing fires, use smoke and terrain for concealment as you advance, and eventually get someone into a position where they can flank and take out the machine gun nest, probably with a grenade so they don't expose themselves. Most importantly, everything I just described above involves teamwork. You protect each other, you trust each other, you rely on each other.
Safety is paramount. No one is teaching you to run screaming at a machine gun nest with no regard for your own life. That shit barely even happens in movies anymore.
A huge amount of what you learn as a soldier is basically how to keep yourself safe in extremely dangerous situations. Yes, you still have to have a willingness to put yourself in extremely dangerous situations in the first place, but the whole point of learning to do this stuff well is learning how to be the person who can survive those extremely dangerous situations.
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it teaches them that the cause is more important than their individual life.
the cause is usually some politician getting more power... so yeah, lots of brainwashing needed
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The police are made to oppress your own citizens while the military is made to oppress foreign citizens
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itt: people justifying why their institution of mass murder is actually good
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Killing people is wrong.
But you have only a couple of choices when someone wrong shows up to kill you.
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Give in and let them take you over, maybe they kill you
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Put up a fight, possibly killing them, possibly killing you
The military is necessarily bad because humans are necessarily bad. If everyone could just train to defend themselves and agree not to use the military on it's own citizens, it would be a closer to neutral
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Killing people is bad and war is bad and the military is evil and the only way to stop it is to use the military to do a war and kill people.
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You don't get it - there are lots of natural resources there!
As a teen I talked to people from all around the world, usually connected by our shared fandoms. I remember talking to a girl in California who said she wanted to join the military when she grew up. Apparently she came from a military family, and couldn't understand why I was appalled at the idea of choosing such a path. We discussed it civilly, and eventually agreed to disagree. I can't help but wonder if she went through with it and, if so, how she feels about it today.
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And suprise, suprise, House always wins.
You will get the murder and destruction when you grow up kid. It all makes sense once you become part of the machine /S
This and the electoral college. Even 12 year old me was like this shit is fucked right?? Only to be told by adults how stupid I was… smh
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