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Comparison Essay: How Just Were the U.S.’s Small Wars?

The Just War Theory has two parts. Study the Just War handout and select the two most significant criteria for **//jus ad bellum//** and two most significant criteria for **//jus in bello//**. With these criteria in mind, select one war from each of your three tables that best meets these criteria. In the essay, you will analyze, compare and rank these three wars.

Write an essay that compares the three small wars and analyzes how well all three meet the four criteria that you believe are most important. Based on this comparison, select the __"most just"__ of the three wars and explain the reasons for the choice. Also, explain why your __second choice__ fell short and were not as just as your __first choice__ but is more just than your __third choice__.

RUBRIC: A quality essay will Explain why you selected **jus ad bellum** and **jus in bello** the criteria, Use the __four__ criteria to analyze why the three small wars are "just wars", Support your analysis of each war with evidence from the Small Wars Wiki, Rank the three small wars and explain why one war is more just than the other two, Explain why the __second__ choice fell short compared to the __first__ choice but is more just than the __third__ choice, Organize you writing in extended power paragraphs, Identify the source and establish its credibility with an appositive phrase, Cite evidence __internally__ and in a Works Cited.

Taylor Neely Sidor and Buchholtz Comparison Essay: How Just Were the U.S.’s Small Wars? American Studies: History 7 December 2011 Which War(s) Were the Most Just? War is something no one wants to see, war is a terrible thing, war can be fought many different ways and typically in history some wars have been rather one sided, with awful, ugly, and unnecessary killings. When a country goes to war it typically doesn’t care what it does as long as it is successful in the end, the question to ask is “What is a just war?” There are actually criteria for the determination of this, the first is Jus ad bellum or the reasons for going to war. Two criteria in this that are the most important are “Right intention” and “Last resort”. “Right intention” is what it says, you must have the right intention for going to war, you cant just go to war with a country because you want to, you typically go to war to correct a wrong, not for material and economic gain (Jus ad bellum). “Last resort” is also basically as is stated, after you’ve tried all alternatives to war and they clearly do not work, then you may go to war. Another criteria for determining a just war is “Jus in bello” which is the ways combatants should act during war, like their strategy and how they carry out operations. The first criteria within this criteria is “Distinction”, “Distinction” says that war should be directed toward the enemy and ONLY towards the enemy. What this means is that bombing, shooting and harming civilians in general is not aloud, all your military action should be towards the enemy combatants. The next criteria within “Jus in bello” is “Military necessity” which is meant to limit excessive and unnecessary death and destruction (Jus in bello). All of the military actions should be intended to do harm to the enemy, not their civilians, and damaged caused to civilians and their property should be proportional to that of the enemy military. I selected these four criteria because I feel these are the best approach to determining a just war. I chose three wars, which I thought best fit these criteria, the wars being: The Persian Gulf War, the Korean War and Somalia. I feel these small wars best depict the views of “Jus ad bellum” and “Jus in bello”.

In Korea we had the right intention of going in, Russia occupied the north while we occupied the south. We at the time wanted to stop the spread of communism and if Russia controlled the whole peninsula they could expand their army and spread more communism. We were simply just there to protect against communism but the Soviet Union wouldn’t back off, this falls under the last resort. We had the right intention in the Persian Gulf War because Iraq invaded Kuwait and gained control of many oil reserves and we could not let them advance to Saudi Arabia and gain control of a majority of the reserves. Kuwait was also an ally of ours. This also meets last resort because we set up in Saudi Arabia for operation Desert Shield, which was to protect Saudi Arabia, but we had to launch an attack on Iraq with operation Desert Storm. In Somalia we had the right intention and it was last resort to attack, the nation was controlled by drug lords and there was a large amount of chaos, when U.S. troops arrived they were met by no resistance but on October 3, 1993 a firefight broke out and we had no choice but to fight (Heuerman and Perry).

The “Jus in Bello” criteria are “Distinction” and “Military Necessity”. All of our actions in the Korean War were towards the enemy, we were trying to push the enemy back into North Korea and even into china to weaken communist rule. The military was indeed a necessity in this case because the Soviets would have taken over the whole peninsula. In the Persian Gulf War we were attacking the Iraqi army to get them from not taking over any other country because they had already taken over Kuwait. The military was needed in order to stop Iraq from going any further in their campaign. In Somalia we were just stopping the evil drug lords from continuing their horrible reign, they had also dragged the body of a dead U.S. soldier through the streets, without the U.S. intervening the atrocities would still be happening.

If I were to rank these I believe it would go the Persian Gulf War, Somalia and then the Korean War. The Persian Gulf War is first because Kuwait was our friend and this war had the most possibility of being a catastrophic event. Somalia was second because the things that were happening in Somalia were just awful and they had to stop. The Korean War was last because to me it seemed we went in their almost for our own gain and didn’t much care about who we were protecting.


 * RUBRIC: A quality essay will **
 * • **** Explain why you selected the two jus ad bellum and the two jus in bello the criteria, **** criteria identified and defined **
 * •Use the __four__ criteria to analyze why the three small wars are "just wars", **** criteria used to analyze the wars **
 * •Support your analysis of each war with evidence from the Small Wars Wiki, **** general claims made without supporting evidence, for example you say only "awful" were going on in Somalia. A sentence that explained the effects of the famine would clarify the U.S. intentions. **
 * •Rank the three small wars and explain why one war is more just than the other two, **** little evidence but your reasoning is focused **
 * •Explain why the __second__ choice fell short compared to the __first__ choice but is more just than the __third__ choice, **** listed, some general comparisons offered **
 * •Organize you writing in ** **extended power paragraphs****,** ** competently used, though evidence is rarely cited correctly **
 * •Identify the source and establish its ** **credibility** **with an appositive phrase,** ** rarely clearly **
 * •Cite evidence __internally__ and in a Works Cited. **** not done **