How does your country perceive war?

[3stan]

So Anzac Day is here, and naturally it's got me thinking about war - in particular how different countries view war.

When I was a kid, we did a project on Gallipoli in school every April. We watched interviews with people who survived the campaign, read books on it from both the perspective of the common soldier and a broader military standpoint, visited memorials and museums, and were often given projects where we had to try and imagine life from the view of a common soldier (one that stands out is pretending to be a soldier writing a letter home). There were a lot of recurring themes throughout the stories - day-to-day life in the trenches given story precedence over the actual fighting, the youth and naivete of the soldiers (who would then die horribly), and generally acts of helping mates out being portrayed more heroically than actual military prowess (see this guy for basically the big example. tl;dr he deserted his post and spent three weeks bringing in wounded before getting shot).

All this built up a perception of the campaign (and, by extension, war as a whole) as a bloody, grim, pointless waste of life.

What I find both interesting and disturbing (and I admit, this is a bit of a cheap shot and as someone who has never been to the US I am very probably misreading the situation) is how this contrasts with USA culture. Whenever I hear an American talk about someone awesome from WWI or WWII, they're talking about guys who managed to kill a thousand Nazis with a bow and arrow or something. So much American pop culture glorifies war and violence that it's become trite to even point this out.

My questions are these: How were you taught war in school? How do you think it influenced your view on war as an adult? And how do you think it influenced your nation as a whole?

[Flarecobra]

Having experanced it firsthand, I can see it as an nessessary evil sometimes, and an unfortunate facet of humanity.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

How is it a "necessary evil" except as a means to ensure our paymasters pit us against one another for their own financial gain.

[Geminex]

Well, I'm german, so as you can imagine, we take a rather dim view of the whole affair! Our constitution limits us pretty strongly in what we can and can't do with our military, and we recently abolished conscription, which is nice.

And the glorification of the allies' role in WWII really, really bugs me! I'd go on to rant about this, but I'm afraid I'll offend people, so I'll just shush. Suffice to say that nobody should associate with what we were back then.

[Flarecobra]

Because it feels like it's just something people always consider in dealing with other nations.

Might just be a poor choise of words on my part maybe.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I'll do it. The allied war effort was funded by massive exploitation of Africa, by mass crackdowns in colonies- particularly in India, by forced conscription, by financial and political double dealing to extend the war so as to profit more from it, and a vast demonisation of minorities and alternative thinking. We're still recovering from the immense backlash of World War 2 in that it empowered a particularly narrow range of philosophies and values as right and correct.

Also Winston Churchill enlisted the Daleks on his side.

[shiney]

My country views War as an instrument in which to Support Our Troops via yellow car ribbons, and otherwise as a minor inconvenience which we can just put on a credit card. We aren't asked to contribute, or sacrifice, or otherwise actually support war, and as such it has little impact on the average american short of raising the price of everything. So essentially my country doesn't care one way or the other about war, we offer platitudes to end war and suchlike but in reality nobody gives a single damn how many wars we are actually in because they don't have to actually pay for it. If they did it would likely be a much different story.

[Ecks]

I bet if there were a draft everybody would sober the fuck up right quick. Not that I'm advocating for a draft or anything.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Ecks

I bet if there were a draft everybody would sober the fuck up right quick. Not that I'm advocating for a draft or anything.

My father (in one of his zany ideas) advocates bringing back the draft (in an actual automatic way as in the past, not in the current "well we might use it maybe if like China invaded us") so that it won't be only poor people fighting these wars they insist on declaring every few years (of course, most rich people who wanted to probably got out of Vietnam, but supposedly not alll). Presumably, at least some rich people would get drafted, which would increase anti-war sympathy at home amongst the high and mighty who can actually affect such things.

On the other hand, forcing people to go to war is wrong, imo, so there's that.

Originally Posted by Professor Smarmiarty

I'll do it. The allied war effort was funded by massive exploitation of Africa, by mass crackdowns in colonies- particularly in India, by forced conscription, by financial and political double dealing to extend the war so as to profit more from it, and a vast demonisation of minorities and alternative thinking. We're still recovering from the immense backlash of World War 2 in that it empowered a particularly narrow range of philosophies and values as right and correct.

This is precisely where the "necessary evil" argument comes in though, because on the other hand, NAZIS.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Magus

This is precisely where the "necessary evil" argument comes in though, because on the other hand, NAZIS.

Thanks for summing up the exact view I'm railing against.