No. A war has to be started. If a war starts there is a reason. If this reason is legitimate, then the side defending probably isn't right (many civil wars, stuff like that). If the reason is not legitimate, the attacker is wrong (third reich germany, lots of others).

Another thing to consider is the subjectivity of *right*, good and all these terms. From one person's subjective view, unless they view war as a fundamentally good thing, it is impossible for both sides to be right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

Uhh, genocide does not count as a war justified on all sides.

an animal cull is not genocide

If we're thinking very hypothetical, I suppose it's possible if war is simply better than the alternative for everyone.

It's an emucide btw.

Right according to whom? There may be many wars where one side legitimately feels it is right to go to war and perhaps that its very existence is threatened if it doesn't, when in fact they are wrong but could not know that.

Since we are delving into pure theory here, and not trying to cite real world examples...

Country A has a recent shortage of resource A and has stopped exporting it to country B. No other country has surplus to offer country B, and country B cannot continue functioning without it. The only way for them to avoid a massive humanitarian crisis in their country is to invade country A.

A is not in the wrong, they need the resource as well and cannot share it. I would argue B would not be in the wrong for invading A, since they need to in order to serve their people. This is a simplistic case of both countries needing the same resource.

If you don;t like that scanario, we could make it even more neutral. A and B are both running low on a resource, and the only new source is island C. Both want to claim island C, cannot continue without it, and island C does not have enough of the resource to share, so both sides are willing to fight for it, as doing so is their only avenue for serving their people.

If we take a global view of what is best for humanity as a whole, A and B should share in these scenarios. It will hurt both of them a great deal to do so, and cause a massive humanitarian crisis in both countries, and be the end of the governments.

If we take a nationalistic view though, both A and B are best served by war. Their people WILL suffer if they don;t Their people MIGHT suffer if they do, as whoever wins the war gets to avert the crisis in their country.

Easily. Have you no pathos at all?

I say again: to understand all is to forgive all.

Let's use Israel and Palestine. Do you blame the brainwashed IDF soldiers for following orders? Do you blame the Gazan people, with nowhere to turn, for doubling down in support of Hamas? Do you blame the Hamas leaders, completely jaded by their treatment by Israel, for not taking any prospect of peace seriously? Do you blame the Israeli leaders, convinced their most important duty is to guard Israel from harm at any cost, for trying to do so?

Perhaps none of these people are "right" to do what they are doing. But they are doing it anyway, and we can see ourselves doing the same in their shoes. If I, as a third party, which they would stop, taking sides is not going to accomplish that.

Wish they would stop*

You want a war where both sides are right to go to war? Israel and Palestine. It's really simple - Palestine is right to feel miffed that Israel is currently sitting in areas that they consider is their country, and Israel is right to fight for their own economic and territorial expansion, as any long-surviving nation has in the history of the world. They have to fight for themselves because everyone in their region of the world hates them and some parties still refuse to recognize them. So there you go, both sides are right to go to war. Unfortunately, the way this war is being fought puts both sides in the wrong, and that's where all the debate is at.

X with Thucy, obviously

Look at most religious wars where each side is convinced that their version of religion is right and God is on their side.

Or in more recent times the Vietnam Conflict where dem godless commies from the North attacked the capitalists of the South. Each side convinced their ideology was right and backed by super power countries.

I have figured it out. Thanks Randomizer, your example was useful. The south and the north were at war. Why? Because of conflicts that started under the French! I am perfectly willing to blame the Vietnam conflict partially on the French, and from there it is not far to a hypothetical conflict where neither party is at fault, someone else is! In Israel/Palestine I would put it at, originally Britain/Arabs, later Israel/US/Arabs. France, again, deserves mention for selling a frightened state nuclear weapons. Yay!

Yeah, let's blame France for all the West's fuck ups...

No.

Well Vietnam was very much a legacy of the French. The North Vietnamese weren't fighting to expand communism. Hell, a lot of them didn't really know the difference between it and capitalism. They were fighting to unify their country which had been constantly invaded and occupied by foreign powers for near thirty years

Yeah, Vietnam was, but not Israel/Palestine.

I don't blame France for Israel/Palestine. Not entirely, at least. I just find it funny that they have had an impact, or have been a direct cause of many horrible things of the modern era. I do appreciate the fact that France is now actively trying to help in most cases, like Mali, Libya, pushing for action in a lot of other places. Except for selling arms to the russians, and various shady african deals. What is it with the French and irresponsible arms sales?

Israel/Palestine was a joke. I blame mostly the Israelis for that. Not entirely, but mostly, yeah. Either way, my point was that you can have a war in which both sides could be doing the right thing, while a side uninvolved in the war is at fault.

i heard somewhere the major exporters of weapons are the five members of the Security Council of the United Nations.

Yep.

There are always wars where both sides have legitimate non-divisible interests at stake.

@Putin
Can any interest be non-divisible and legitimate? I can't think of a situation handled with no faults whatsoever resulting in a conflict. We can get close: Israel/Palestine, but there always seems to be someone at fault.

Sure. India and Pakistan's conflict over Kashmir. They both have legitimate interests in gaining control of Kashmir for their own security. Kashmir is located all along the most populated cities of Pakistan. Whereas for India keeping Kashmir makes it much more difficult for China and Pakistan to coordinate joint attacks against it, while giving India access to central Asia.

And you can't really blame the British for the Kashmir conflict. The princely states were given the discretion to choose to accede to India or Pakistan and for the most part these decisions were made without incident, considering there were hundreds of princely states.

The fact there are conflicts between India and Pakistan is not their fault, and I agree they both have reasons for going to war that are not wrong. I believe someone is at fault, though. Lord Mountbatten and his idiotic commission. There was no good way to divide up India and Pakistan, and keeping them together would be even more of a disaster. Mountbatten and the rest of the India administration contributed to the volatile situation and chose one of the worse ways to draw the border. Kashmir specifically was almost certainly Britains fault.

"There was no good way to divide up India and Pakistan, and keeping them together would be even more of a disaster."

How is it their fault if there was no good way to handle the problem?

" Mountbatten and the rest of the India administration contributed to the volatile situation and chose one of the worse ways to draw the border."

The only questionable decision on the border commission which may have contributed to the Kashmir problem that the border commission made was awarding Muslim majority tehsils in Gurdaspur to India. But, India did not use any overland roads in the 1947 war, so it is hard to see why that decision contributed to the conflict.

I see say it is 'questionable' because it did not follow the communal majority principle (some tehsils were Muslim), and the reasoning behind it, to ensure the irrigation system of was undivided, didn't quite work out.