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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> Whether a war is fought defensively or offensively, war is still war

Someone being invaded should lay down arms because invasion and fighting an invader are morally equal?

> that changing one word in a bureaucratic ensemble of Departments is going to change meaning of what it means to go to war or the reality of war itself

Department of War celebrates an era when wars of conquest were profitably fought. It explicitly embraces the notion that war is good and accretive to America. Renaming something the Department of War means we're going to have more wars. America being America, they're mostly going to be offensive.

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> Someone being invaded should lay down arms because invasion and fighting an invader are morally equal?

The morality of a war is not easily encompassed in small words like “war” or “defense”.

> America being America, they're mostly going to be offensive.

America being America, any war fought by us not in direct defense of American people & territory is by definition an offensive war. Doesn’t stop us from calling wars fought elsewhere “defense”.

> morality of a war is not easily encompassed in small words like “war” or “defense”

It's not. But you're avoiding the question. If you claim all war is morally equal, then a defender is equally at fault as an invader, and we're going to fundamentally disagree. If you don't believe that, I'm still curious about your position.

> America being America, any war fought by us not in direct defense of American people & territory is by definition an offensive war

Agree.

> Doesn’t stop us from calling wars fought elsewhere “defense”

We still call them wars. Nobody calls what we did in Iraq or Vietnam or Korea the defense or whatever. We call them wars.

I think we agree that renaming the DoW the DoD didn't reduce American military adventurism. What I'm saying is returning the DoD to the DoW absolutely presages a difference in attitude that is more dangerous and more violent.

> If you claim all war is morally equal

I didn’t make this claim. War is war, but the morality of our actions is found not in the act of war, but in the why & how of war.

> We still call them wars. Nobody calls what we did in Iraq or Vietnam or Korea the defense or whatever. We call them wars.

Of course we still call them wars. That was not mutually exclusive with politicians justifying it as “defense”. The mantra is defense abroad rather than defense at home, which is a fine enough mantra if you’re selling a war, but I’m not going to nod along & pretend that it’s not actually offense.

> What I'm saying is returning the DoD to the DoW absolutely presages a difference in attitude that is more dangerous and more violent.

The election of more dangerous & more violent politicians presaged that. Turns out America is more dangerous. As to whether we’re more violent? TBD. The President’s unwillingness to actually put boots on the ground abroad despite trying to talk a dangerous game makes this part less objectively clear to me.

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