War Reforms: We Need 'Em

For starters, I think we should war only on uninhabited countries. We could just go in there, blow everything to hell in a really high-precision cataclysm style. We could stretch it in a careful campaign over a series of months, or just go balls-out "disproportionate response." Wage the hell out of it, with everything we've got in a massive saturation strike (conventional weapons only, of course! Hold the nukes in reserve, like we usually do). Bomb and shell the hell out of the place with full air support and long-long-range artillery, then send in the ground-pounders, to secure the area and take out any lingering resistance. From like, rocks, or the local fauna or flora or whatever.

Get it out of our system that way! No casualties. At least - no human casualties. I know, I know, this is not going to sit well with the animal rights activists and rock-formation preservationists, but come on people. War is hell. We all know it's a necessary evil, let's try to manage it as the lesser of the two. Not sure what the other evil is, in that scenario. Let's say famine or pestilence? Let's try to make war the lesser of the available evils. It's doable! As long as we have the will, and a good plan like this one, next thing you know: reform is a-bornin'!

This proposal, if enacted, would serve all the usual purposes of war, without actually killing anybody. It would deplete our munitions stockpile, to keep the war-based manufacturers churning out product and the economy in business (and it would keep the stockpile on hand fresh and new, since of course we would practice sound inventory management! First-in-first-out on all bombs and ammo). It would allow us to go in with a clear plan for victory, execute it, and then achieve and declare that unambiguous victory. I can't overemphasize how important that is, to morale! Not just for the troops: for the nation at large as well. But perhaps most important, it would show off our horrific, warlike prowess and puissance, in case there's any doubters out there too dumb to realize. They'd soon say "Whoa - we don't don't want to mess with these guys. Did you see what they did last month to South Central Antarctica?"

We have to be a bit practical here, a bit pragmatic. Yes war is bad. Yes war is wrong. If history can teach us any lesson at all, it's taught us that one in spades. Yet the dilemma is: sometimes, when it comes to peace, you need to prime the pump a little. The only proven deterrent to war is more war. So let's look at ways to change how we go about it. As long as we're going to make war, we need to make war better. Let's try to maximize what we don't get out of it, in terms of the downsides.