War Is Not A Conservative's Option

A great essay.

[T]he military cannot rightfully be considered a proper tool for forging a world where liberty and democracy may flourish. Such notions are hideously liberal, for they are based on the most dangerous of utopian delusions: that men can be made at gunpoint to change; that nations can be built as easily as destroyed; that societies are artificial rather than organic and can be made to order. These ideas have none of the realism that distinguishes conservatism from dreamy liberal mush.

Furthermore, not merely militarism but war itself is repellent to any orthodox conservative. It is a great uprooter of men and material and a fine destroyer of tradition. The costs of conflict are monumental, the rewards too often minimal. With each falling bomb, international order is torn asunder – contrary to hawkish bombast, war is never fought to maintain or advance an existing order, but always to institute a new one. Bellicosity prompts a disregard for national and popular sovereignty, two important items on the conservative agenda. Randolph Bourne was correct: war is the health of the state, and true conservatism pictures the state as a necessary but terribly sour pill.