Ah yes, the "I have to do evil things because if I didn't, someone else would" argument...
Just think about what you wrote: "our enemies". Why do you (whichever country you are from) have enemies in the first place? What did your country do to make others hate it? A lot of people seem to focus on how to defend against "those who hate us" without spending a passing thought on the why of it.
Solving "why" also solves the "how", but those who profit from conflict have no interest in the former, as their livelihood depends on the latter.
War is not primarily about hatred. It's about irreconcilable differences, where the calculated risk and cost of war is preferred to losing some perceived national interest. Your sweet sentiment that we should all just act nicely and get along does not survive serious contemplation of the incentive structures that drive nations (or individuals, for that matter), or the thousands of years of human history marked by pervasive warfare.
Philosophically, it is strange to make agreeableness the standard for the behavior of nations. Being good is much more than being nice, and any thoughtful conception of moral goodness will sometimes require actions that upset others.
And finally, you seem to be assuming that my country is the only possible bad actor. But of course, that’s not true. My country could do everything “right”, only for someone else to start a war.
>Why do you (whichever country you are from) have enemies in the first place? What did your country do to make others hate it? A lot of people seem to focus on how to defend against "those who hate us" without spending a passing thought on the why of it.
Are you really arguing that it's Poland's fault for having a country in the same place that Hitler wanted lebensraum?
> What did your country do to make others hate it?
You have a very simplistic view of geopolitics.
What did Poland do to Germany in 1939 to make Germany hate it? What did the Jews do to the Nazis to make them hate them so much?
Wars get started for all kinds of reasons, some predictable, others not. It's a simple matter of survival to equip yourself as best you can to defend yourself.
How is that a strawman? You said "it's a matter of survival" to "defend yourself" and I'm saying that's not really a valid argument for the country in the article.
> Hegemonic stability theory (HST) is a theory of international relations, rooted in research from the fields of political science, economics, and history. HST indicates that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single nation-state is the dominant world power, or hegemon.
Not that I explicitly agree, but there is some theory.
I like your idealism. But there's often not a why. And if there is, it's not necessarily 'what they did' but rather 'what they have', like water or land or whatever.
