So you want to start a war?

A great deal has been written about various and assorted wars going back to Thucydides. But, I haven't yet come across a book that attempts to show how past wars have begun and what, if anything, such commencements have had in common.

I belong to a group that assembles to discuss current events. Be that as it may, some individual invariably gets up to voice his opinion that FDR had secret knowledge of Japan's planned attack on Pearl Harbor. Another, got up the other day and claimed that the Lusitania was not stuck by a German submarine, but rather sank when munitions in its hold suddenly exploded. He mentions that because it is relevant to America's entry into WW I.

That started me thinking about the start of the Spanish American war, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and our entry into Iraq and Afghanistan. In all cases, there was a predisposition for getting into the scrap. The actual initiating events were almost secondary.

That doesn't prove that a war, or all wars, are good or bad. The Civil War, as horrendous as it was, was necessary. Whether we needed to go into WW I can be debated. Entry into WW II was not only necessary, but should have been begun much earlier. (It then might not have escalated into such an inferno.) Vietnam was unnecessary and stupid. The Korean War began because the Chinese and Russians misinterpreted an omission in a speech given by Dean Acheson. And, how and why we got into Iraq is still being debated.

But clearly there are wars the U.S. cannot avoid and wars that we really ought to avoid. Unfortunately, it is usually decades later before we can sort out which was which.