The Decisions Leaders Have to Make

Leaders have to make detrimental choices in times of war. The issue of defense is a tough problem that leaders have to grapple with. At one end, they need to do what is in the best interest for the country and the other viewpoint is to do what is best for humanity. War is always a problem in terms of ethics. Leaders often have a hard time separating their interests from what is best for the country. Specific international policies are created for the purpose of war, so that the leader's interests don't spiral out of hand, and there doesn't evolve a full out world war. It is often hard to find a happy medium solution between countries as we have seen during the Cuban Missile Crisis and during the Cold War. Also, it is very hard to fathom how much money our government puts into the military budget. We are always trying to develop new weapons and out do other countries. War is not necessarily a good thing, so to see that our government is extremely concerned about weapons and war, is very disheartening to an individual.
There is always a possibility that the other side will attack, and then it comes down to who has the bigger weapons. Leaders have to try and predict what the other side is going to do and sometimes have to make rash decisions. They have to grapple with trying to figure out what is best for the country, and their citizens. Sometimes people forget that weapons have other side effects aside from killing a population; they can also destroy homes and land which make it impossible for a country to rebuild after disaster. Survivability is an important topic that leaders have to consider; is my population going to survive after a nuclear attack? In the Nuclear Age Reader article, it said that when people heard of a possible attack they did not run out and get bottled water and supplies. If this situation occurred today, people would be running to the stores and loading up on supplies. In the case of 9/11, when we had high terrorism warnings, duck tape was flying off the shelves and people were stocking up on bottled water and canned soup. It was comical looking back at this instance, and it depicts how easily society believes authority. The government was making requests to get duck tape and wood, and people didn't question it, but rather ran out and got the supplies. As a citizen, I would feel better if the government funded some of these safety precautions instead of pumping all of the money into the military. In a way, wartime is a huge propaganda stunt for the government because society is so vulnerable and fearful, they will believe anything. People will waste money on superfluous things; no wonder there is always an economic bomb during wartime. In the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis the government made society worried about the effects of an attack and spurred the fallout shelter campaign. If the government was so worried about building shelters, then they should have contributed to the cause and given money to build them instead of putting all of it toward military spending.

The game of war is one of risk and predictions. You have to always be on your toes and guess when and how the enemy is going to strike. Should we do a first strike launch or wait until the enemy does something to us and then retaliate? The problem with first strike initiative is that the second strike could be worse and once you strike there is not going back. Leaders have to always be quick on their feet and try to do what is in the best interest for themselves as well as the country. Once a war starts, it is hard to stop it and one might think the enemy doesn't have the capability to destroy them, when in actuality they do, then what happens? You can't rewind time, and for some of history, including the current war that we are in, I feel that leaders wish they had a remote control so that they could undo their mistakes.