Quote Originally Posted by Stig
Yes but is the price worth it.
What has WW1 brought us? Nothing more then WW2 I think, and millions of deaths.
What has WW2 brought us? Yeah Hitler is gone, but the price? 6 million Jews, Germany destroyed, loads of death soldiers.

Is the price worth it?

Vietnam brought us nothing, all Korea did was make sure that the small country we call South-Korea is communist as well. The First Gulf War did nothing at all. Somalia in the early nineties? nothing.
World War I brought the end of several empires, ushering in a more politically modern Europe, not to mention flight, submarine, and armor technology, advances in chemicals and artillery, and so on. It brought the United States into the position of a major player on the world stage, at a time when our political leadership was fairly idealistic. It caused the birth of the prototype of the UN. It also deglamourized war, making it a much more serious undertaking for nations. Not all of these are necessarily good things, but they're not all necessarily bad either.

World War II, didn't cause the death of 6 million Jews; the Nazis did that. If anything, the war prevented more Jews and other Nazi target peoples from being killed. It also saw the birth of jet aircraft, atomic power, the superpower status of the US and Soviet Union, advanced rocket technology, etc., etc., and ended the Great Depression. What's more, there wasn't much choice about fighting World War II. It was either let Hitler be in charge of the world and do whatever he wanted, or else stop him.

Vietnam, I'll agree was pretty pointless and would have been better off never having been fought, though with the craze of communism rising, leaders at the time had a very skewed perspective and couldn't really figure that out.

I've no idea what you mean by saying the Korean War made South Korea communist as well. Last I checked they're avowed capitalists. Korea was a defensive action against an aggressor, like World War II, and ultimately just reaffirmed the status quo: communist north, capitalist (free) south.

The first gulf war was another defensive war against an aggressor, this time to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and ensure western access to gulf state oil, and it was a success ('nothing at all' doesn't quite cut it).

Was Somalia even a war? I thought it was a peacekeeping/humanitarian mission . . .

War doesn't just cause good things, and it definitely has a high price, but it's much more complicated and multi-faceted than the picture you paint. Is the price worth it? Hard to say, but some of those wars had to be fought. Allowing the Hitler's and Hussein's of this world to seize whatever territory they like and do whatever they like to the people there is unacceptable.

Ajax