Why War Is Justified?

George Washington once said: “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means for preserving peace.” As much of an irony it is, war is needed to safeguard our amity and to ensure that the balance of power will not be disturbed. The idea of war has been received with countless different altercations. In history, we learned that governments have glorified war to recruit young men to join the army by using propaganda. Soldiers who have died for their country were depicted as heroes, fighting for their own freedoms. However, in this modern age the horrors of war come to light, what happens on the battlefield is nothing to be triumphant about. Although war has never been a favorable option, it can be justified. A war is justified if
War is a very imprecise action as it is impossible to predict an outcome, even if the state tries to avoid the general population, there will always be civilian casualties. The loss of innocent civilian lives are even seen as “collateral damage” in seeking justice for the deaths of civilian lives. A country often has vested interest to pursue the group of aggressors or even kill them, yet this puts in danger the lives of innocents. This also puts in jeopardy the livelihood of ordinary civilians as they live in terror. When the responding nation also kills the uninvolved citizens in the quest for justice, they too commit the act of injustice first inflicted on them, making both countries equally wrong. Thus when a country kills more innocents to seek equity, even more resentment and hatred will be created, creating a cycle of violence and counter-violence. This happened in World War II, the Americans declared war with Japan after the Pearl Harbour bombing. In order to end the war, the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This resulted in the death of 129,000–246,000 people killed, and large numbers of civilians died months after the bombing due to the effects of burns, radiation sickness and other injuries. The Americans justified the bombing as a necessity, choosing not to invade Japanese home islands which would result the death of millions of Japanese and Allied forces. Yet the death toll of the bombings greatly outnumbers those in Pearl Harbour. Although the U.S. had a right intention to declare war and did manage to end it, the Japanese seem to have taken a much bigger penance than they should from America. Of course, war itself brings suffering. World War II itself had 85 million casualties, while the Holocaust in Europe killed 17 million people. Thus it can be seen that war is unjustified based on the loss of