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‘The Question Not Being Discussed Is Whether the War Is Just or Necessary’

In a new book, a Yale historian argues that Washington is setting a dangerous international precedent for permanent war.

hirsh-michael-foreign-policy-columnist
hirsh-michael-foreign-policy-columnist
Michael Hirsh
By , a columnist for Foreign Policy.
The brother of Ezmarai Ahmadi, a civilian wrongly identified as an Islamic State militant and killed in a U.S. drone strike, stands next to the wreckage of a vehicle that was damaged in the strike in the Kwaja Burga neighborhood of Kabul on Sept. 18.
The brother of Ezmarai Ahmadi, a civilian wrongly identified as an Islamic State militant and killed in a U.S. drone strike, stands next to the wreckage of a vehicle that was damaged in the strike in the Kwaja Burga neighborhood of Kabul on Sept. 18.
The brother of Ezmarai Ahmadi, a civilian wrongly identified as an Islamic State militant and killed in a U.S. drone strike, stands next to the wreckage of a vehicle that was damaged in the strike in the Kwaja Burga neighborhood of Kabul on Sept. 18. HOSHANG HASHIMI/AFP via Getty Images

“War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it,” Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman wrote in 1864 in the midst of the U.S. Civil War. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee remarked two years earlier, “It is well that war is so terrible. Otherwise we should grow too fond of it.” Yet more than 150 years later, the United States has done both: refined war and even grown somewhat fond of it—or at least is not minding it as much. 

Michael Hirsh is a columnist for Foreign Policy. He is the author of two books: Capital Offense: How Washington’s Wise Men Turned America’s Future Over to Wall Street and At War With Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World. Twitter: @michaelphirsh

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