Assignment 9 - Grace Payne

I believe there is a time for war. Look at the many reasons countries declare war. Sometimes, those reasons are trivial, however, sometimes, they're more than that. You don't see as many legitimate excuses for war anymore. Besides wars for independence, most wars that are currently happening or have happened recently are due to inability to accept other's religions, or the belief certain religions or types of people are better than others.
However, just because there is a time for war, doesn't mean that war is right. Wars are violent - that's the point. The sheer amount of bloodshed that a war brings grabs the attention of those in charge - is what your fighting for worth the amount of citizens that will die?
That leads to the moral question of war. And quite frankly, very few wars reap rewards that were actually worth the amount of bloodshed. So many wars could be solved by non-violent solutions, making war a blatant opposition for morality.
There are plenty of alternatives for war. The largest and probably most effective is economic solutions. In this day and age, countries live and die by their GDP. If one country is upset with another country, cutting off economic relations with that country is almost as effective as going to war, if not more. Now, of course, it's always more complicated than just cutting off trade, but the general idea remains.
Situations exist where countries can declare war, or they are entitled to declaring war. However, that doesn't mean that such a violent solution is an effective way to go about addressing those grievances.