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Aims of War

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Grand Falcon Railroad (U3267675) on Friday, 4th September 2009

  
  
  It's not debate about Afghanistan or Iraq or Gordon Brown or George Bush but I feel I must include an example - this particualr war has IMHO had 3 different aims.
  
  World War 2 has simply 2 aims - to defeat Germany and its Allies and then to defeat Japan and her Allies. The means might have been disputed at times between "friends" but the aims were clear.
  
  World War 1 has one aim for the Entente and one aim from 1917 for the Soviets (how history changes the aims).
  
  Vietnam another war had more than one aim - and depending which Pres was in power that aim changed.
  
  The wars where we've been clear in our aim are the wars we've suceeded in e.g Falklands = get Argentina out.
  
  Does History teach us then with out a clear aim then there shouldnt be a war clearly?

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  Posted by Frank Parker (U7843825) on Friday, 4th September 2009

  Surely that thesis breaks down when you realise that Hitler and Hirohito each had only one aim - domination of Europe on the one hand and of the Pacific Rim on the other.
  I like the point made by Churchill - and widely quoted in recent days - that everything possible had been done to avoid war. Once Hitler invaded Poland war was inevitable and the whole population of the UK understood that and could unite behind their leaders.
  I hardly need to contrast that with the recent examples you've quoted.

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  Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Friday, 4th September 2009

  you have a good point there
  
  since ww2 - probably the only war - and it wasnt even a war - just a conflict - that had an aim and a start and finish - both clearly defined - was the falklands (hey wasnt that a feelgood factor)
  
  it seemd a good war after it was all over - something was achieved - mostly the argentine suddenly had a sort of democracy
  
  the rest of the wars/conflicts didnt do anything except prolong things
  
  vietnam korea yom kippur 6 days war bosnia kosovo somalia iraq afghanistan - all violent and bloody and all still going on with no end in sight
  
  st
  
  

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  Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Saturday, 5th September 2009

  World War 2 has simply 2 aims - to defeat Germany and its Allies and then to defeat Japan and her Allies. The means might have been disputed at times between "friends" but the aims were clear.Β 
  
  Not true, WWII, at least in Europe, started with very limited aims from the Allies' point of view and like many other wars, such as WWI and the US Civil War, the aims of the war became broader and more idealistic as the struggle continued (the US Civil War started, from the Union point of view, as a war to end secession not slavery which only became a war aim at the end of 1862).
  
  The original purpose of WWII for the Allies had been the removal of foreign troops from Polish soil. In this the war was a complete failure as this aim was not achieved, and that fortuitously, until 1990.
  
  After Poland surrendered and it became clear that the Allies had no effective means for making Germany disgorge its conquest public support for the war, both in Britain and, more particularly, in France, dropped dramatically during the so-called "Phoney War" period not only due to the relative allied inactivity but also due to the governments' failure to enunciate, or even agree upon, clear war aims.
  
  Chamberlain hoped that the naval blockade of Germany would damage the German economy so much that Hitler would be forced to the negotiating table. As a result he did not wish to antagonise German public opinion further by acts such as the bombing of German cities or industrial targets.
  
  Even when Churchill replaced Chamberlain there was no clearer articulation of what the war was about since Churchill could only answer in banalities:
  
  "You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word, it is victory..."
  
  he said in his first speech in the House of Commons as Prime Minister. That may have been true, but I cannot think of any instance in history where a state has entered upon war with defeat or a compromise peace in mind (except perhaps in the latter case that may have been true of Chamberlain in 1939). Whilst this may have been acceptable to the general public now that the enemy were at the gates it was not adequate for the other members of his War Cabinet in which there was a prolonged discussion, held over five days, at the end of May, led by Lord Halifax, as to whether a compromise peace should be offered to Hitler through the Italians although this proposal was eventually rejected after Churchill appealed to the wider circle of government ministers.
  
  No clear statement of war aims were presented until the meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in August 1941 and the drawing up of the Atlantic Charter, although the US was still a non-combatant power but nevertheless the principal supplier of war materials to Britain.
  
  Many of these aims, such as universal free trade, were far from what had been intended two years previously and would not have been agreed to by Chamberlain. Roosevelt's model for the Atlantic Charter had been Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points of 1918 yet the adhesion of the Soviet Union to the alliance made it difficult to see how concepts such as self-determination or democratic government could be agreed to let alone achieved.
  
  The one principal aim of the Allies (although you might also call it a strategy) was not agreed upon, and then only with much misgiving especially by Churchill who was not consulted about it beforehand, until the end of 1942 at the Casablanca Conference when Roosevelt announced that the unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers was to be the principal war aim.
  
  Many consider this step to have considerably prolonged the war and made the resistance of both Germany and Japan more, not less, determined. However even this was modified by circumstance. There were considerable negotiations before Italy surrendered in September 1943 and Marshal Badoglio, who had served Mussolini and who many think should have been prosecuted for war crimes committed during the Abyssinnian War, was allowed to remain in power, Mussolini alreadyu having been removed the previous July. Although the Italian surrender was effectively negatived by the immediate German occupation Italy was treated as a former occupied state, not a defeated enemy, after the war.
  
  Unconditional surrender was also an obstacle to ending the war with Japan as it implied the complete removal of the government, including the Emperor, and it was only when Truman modified this demand to exclude the Emperor that Japan surrendered.
  
  Also, the principal aim of the Falklands conflict from the British point of view was the removal of Argentine troops from the Falkland Islands not a change in the Argentine government. This in fact occurred in 1983 when democratic elections occurred largely as a result of US pressure and should be regarded as a welcome by-product of the conflict just as the fall of Milosevic in Serbia in 2000 following a failed attempt to rig the elections was a welcome by-product of the NATO action in Kosovo in 1999.
  
  It was the fact that a change in regime did not occur in Iraq following the Gulf War of 1991 despite the hopes of the Allied Powers and the fear that, following the eviction of Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan in 2001, Saddam might supply training facilities and weaponry to terrorists, that caused a renewal of conflict in 2003 with the much broader war aim of the removal of the regime that had not been the case 12 years previously.

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