When Should The United States Use Its Military?

There is a large amount of military families around the world. About Forty- three percent of active military members have children (Website). These children face so many challenges and struggles in their life while having a parent in the military. Children of Active duty military members exhibit anxiety, depression and stress just as much as the service members and spouses experience. For instance the children experience going through multiple deployments, long separations, frequent moves and awkward reunions when their parents return home from deployment. Even more so if the parent has been physically or mentally traumatized from overseas.

The United States is a land that was created through war. To end a war we must have a solid army to defend the things we want to achieve. Whether its freedom from our fathering country’s or to show the power we have. Understanding how we have come to be from wars like the French and Indian war that sparked the beginning of the American revolution and the military culture and how the experience and significance of our country’s soldiers and militia men compared and brings us to our American military culture and the value’s of American thought, culture, and society. We would not have things like “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”, if it wasn’t for our great nations military force. A time period ranging from about 1755 to 1861 America has dealt with many trials and stipulations that

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said that America ‘must be the great Arsenal of Democracy. For us, this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.’ Meaning that America should use their workforce to have an impact on a war that supports the protection of the ideals of democracy. That we must come together to protect what we believe is morally correct and to protect those who are vulnerable to oppression.This hasn't been the only time that we’ve seen America at ‘war’ for a more noble cause. Years ago, Woodrow Wilson claimed that ‘The

Military intervention is defined as the deliberate act of a nation or a group of nations to introduce its military forces into the course of an existing controversy. For the most part, military intervention is focused on upholding basic human rights throughout the world but, the idea of the military intervention itself is a controversy, there is a constant debate on whether it is good or bad. Many people believe that military intervention does more harm than it does good to all the countries involved and is a violation of the Constitution of the United States of America, arguing that the government is in place to protect its citizens from violation of their rights and from domestic violence. Which being said is to be upheld by the police force and the military is there to protect American citizens from foreign

Due to conflict in the Middle East, American families are coping with deployment and the stress that comes along with it. Deployment of American armed forces to conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a cause of anxiety for military and their family members (Link & Palinkas, p. 376, 2013). According to the Department of Defense, “Over 2.1 million troops have been deployed in support of these conflicts, of which, 44% are parents…Of these parents, 48% have deployed multiple times…Roughly 2 million children have been impacted by a parent deploying (as cited in Link & Palinkas, p. 376, 2013). These statistics are staggering. About 2 million children have to cope with a parent being deployed, and about fifty percent of those parents are deployed more than once. Deployment can cause

The movie War Made Easy, illustrates how the government manipulates its citizens into repeatedly fighting wars. U.S authority figures excuse their involvement in many wars as “bringing democracy and peace”(Dokumentarci, 2012) and aiding the country for its own good. However, the underlying reason for many wars intervened by the U.S are for the valuable resources of the land. Since Syria has an abundance oil, the U.S had justified starting a war as the country has “weapons of mass destruction” and because Iraq held large amounts of Uranium, they had excused their troops as defending the world from “terrorism”(Dokumentarci, 2012). The U.S military constantly breaks others national sovereignty, defending the large casualty rates as defense against “hostile forces” and how the military is “of extreme reluctance to engage in wars” (Dokumentarci, 2012). The makes the public believe that the U.S is sacrificing its troops for the greater good of both the country and the

Reading Solider Girls opened my eyes to the struggles that many women, especially those that are mothers, face while serving in the military. Reading the story of Desma, who experienced two deployments as a single mother to three children, one of whom ended up in jail, made me question the impacts of deployment on families and more specifically, children. Since the War on Terror is relatively recent, beginning in 2001 after the September 11th attacks on New York City, there has not been a significant amount of research done on the children who have grown up with parents being deployed. Using the research that has been done however, this paper seeks to explore the impacts of deployment on families, especially children.

America's total debt is reaching an all time high at 19.9 trillion dollars. (National Debt) More than half of the budget goes straight to military. When comparing military spending with other countries there is no competition. For every dollar China spends on their military the U.S will have spent $2.77. (Military Spending) Money plays a major role, but is not the primary concern of many. With war comes death; , is it ever ok to be the hand that pulls the trigger? This could be the root of all the controversy. War is justifiable by protecting people’s , ideas, values, and foreign relations.

The Authorization for Use of Military Force was a quick band aid reaction to the attack on September 11th. It’s vague definitions of threats and allowance of any use of force deemed necessary has helped continue what seems like a never ending war. With such a devastating attack on our nation, of course there was emotional turmoil, but that should not have influenced such rash decisions to start a war. I agree with Johnsen that the AUMF is the “most dangerous” sentence in U.S history. As Johnsen mentions, this decision, like many others was “based on fear rather than foresight” (12). Over a decade after the authorization was passed, it still has been used to justify occupation and torture without being adjusted to the changing foreign policy circumstances.

The question of when military intervention is appropriate is a question that has been asked since after the Cold War U.S. security policy was created. The national consensus is that the military cannot and should not become a police force for the world. There is usually not a reason to intervene to save lives in most of the civil conflicts seen today. The rate and scale of the killings are usually too low to justify military intervention. This intervention is expensive and dangerous. In 1994, the U.S. intervened in Rwanda in forcible humanitarian intervention. In that situation it was possible to save hundreds of thousands of defenseless people using a modest sized international force.

Being one of the world's most influential and powerful military forces can have its downfalls and its advantages. Being regarded as sort of the world's caretaker by always assisting nations through humanitarian needs no matter if they are allies or not is categorized as one of the downfalls, while having the authoritative power to separate itself from other nations as a military superpower is a perk. When possessing the powerful military America has, countless situations arise where the opportunity for the United States to flex their figurative muscles are presented. The driving force behind the debate of when United States force is justified is should the military be used for self-defense and the safety of our strong allies? Or should the United States use their powerful military’s precious resources like money, firearms and American personnel to defend the human rights and safety of nations around the world no matter the correlation with the U.S? The United States

Carnahan’s article offers a systematic analysis about the concept of military necessity, showing that civilian interests must be taken into consideration with assessing military necessity. The use of force by states is controlled and restricted by both customary international law and treaty law. Although there is no legal restriction to war (just ad bellum), international law such as customary law and the Geneva Conventions provide certain international law restrictions on the right to use force against other state. Carnahan discusses the Lincoln Code, the Lieber law and the Laws of War in his article. The Lieber Code. Certain limitations are imposed on states as these restrictions tend to only apply to states that have recognized sovereignty (recall week 2 reading). The present “War on Terror” is refrained as the United Nations Charter

Although the military family unit comes with a great deal of pride it does not come at a small cost. Per Hall, “family readiness is essential to unit readiness (Hall, 2016, p.71)”. What is family readiness? Well this is the “family’s ability to adapt to and deal with the stressors associated with military danger and a military life style, such as frequent moves, deployments, unaccompanied tours, and overseas assignments (Adler-Baeder & Pittman, 2005, p.5) (Hall, 2016, p.71)”. All of these can cause a strain on anyone. As a result there are many support programs for families and spouses to help them better cope with things such as deployments, the secrecy, isolation, alienation is a tough thing for families to struggle through and the military obligation itself.

Some may think that this “War on Terrorism” has been a waste of time, however as the war drove on the American military, along with a coalition of other countries, helped drive out the Taliban and rebuild Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran (Tindall America A Narrative). Without America’s aid, the Taliban would still be plaguing the Middle East. Also the U.S. intervention helped keep the peace throughout the rebellious countries. The quote stated in the opening paragraph by President Obama means that U.S. intervention is the best option because it helps stop the threat of other revolutions in the neighboring countries (Scott). With the presence of a bigger more powering military looming in the distance then the rebellions and revolutions would be minimized because of the fear of facing the superior force with inferior power.

For the utmost part people believe war is necessary in our world. After 9/11, several people felt like war will prevent another tragedy from occurring. I have no doubt that combat is keeping the people of the United States free with all the rights they are entailed in the Constitution. Due to war, it is preventing the terrorist from taking more American lives. If no conflicts had ever happened, then the United States would still be under Britain’s authority. However, by having the battle, that is when the Thirteen Colonies began. The killing of innocent people will always be wrong, on the other hand for us to remain free it must be done. The United States cannot let us, the people, be walked all over by another country. There are a number of pros to fighting, such as, economic growth and technical advancements. There are also cons to warfare, such as, the obvious numerous amount of casualties, hatred and propaganda, and the environmental damage.