Heres what Code Pink and Pope Leo get wrong about war

Countless protest signs have informed us over the years that “war is not the answer.”We hear this message, with varying levels of sophistication and differing underlying worldviews, from institutions and people ranging from Code Pink to Pope Leo. “War does not solve problems,” the pontiff said in an Angelus address last year.“On the contrary, it amplifies them and causes deep wounds in the history of peoples — wounds that take generations to heal.”Now, there are many things that can be said about the tragedy of warfare without crediting the blatantly ahistorical cliche that it is never the answer.Or that it doesn’t solve disputed questions, often with a terrible finality. Warfare can determine international boundaries and the nature of governments.It can decide who will rule and who will not.The relative power of states, the extent of religious faiths, and the status of a culture can depend on it. Wars might be pointless, or fought for prestige, revenge or territorial aggrandizement.That’s all true, but doesn’t change the fact that military conflict is, at times, necessary and highly consequential; it can achieve beneficent ends, as well as awful ones. It mattered for the spread of Christianity, for instance, that Constantine, who would become the first Christian emperor of Rome, won the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312.Later, Christendom benefited from Ferdinand and Isabella taking back Granada from its Muslim rulers in 1492, and from the Holy Roman Emperor defeating the Ottoman besiegers of Vienna in 1683. Certainly, it would have been better if all this could have been amiably worked out among the relevant parties, but that’s not how the world usually works. In the early 19th century, Europe had a Napoleon problem — a world-historical military genius determined to bend the continent to his will through force of arms.After serial failures, the Allies finally solved this problem in the War of the Seventh Coalition.The ensuing diplomati...