Choosing War

This chapter uses two examples (Alexander the Great at the Hyphasis River and the “Debate at Sparta”) to explore several ways that the rhetorical framing of a conflict can obscure policy options and distract from reasonable policy deliberation when faced with the question of whether we should choose war. The questions we should consider are: whether war is our only or best choice, or there are non-martial methods of resolving the conflict; if we choose war, what kind of war will it be, and what are our goals for it (that is, under what conditions would we decide we can end it).