Can The War Be Justified History Essay

Can The War Be Justified History Essay The Cambodia-Vietnamese War was a series of conflicts involving various nations such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Hanoi, China and the United States of America. It was a conflict that flourished from border disputes between Cambodia and Vietnam. Minute aspects that contributed to this controversy stretched as far back as the 14th Century, when the Khmer Empire declined and when Khmers and Vietnamese dealt with an uneasy integration in an atmosphere of suppressed mistrust. The formlessness of the conflicts has made it difficult to identify the time frame unerringly but has been gauged that it occurred between 1975 and 1989. However, the war’s foremost conflict was the Cambodian Incursion by the Vietnamese in 1978. It is debatable to affirm if this controversy can be justified accordingly. By examining the manifold of causes and effects of the conflict with close study to the Just War Theory to substantiate my view, I will elaborate on why I think that a form of equilibrium has been e stablished of the war in terms of being unjust or otherwise. Vietnam possessed no precise or pertinent reason to invade Cambodia. Emory Swank, the U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia came to a conclusion that â€Å"The war is losing more and more of its point and has less and less meaning for any of the parties concerned.† (Schanberg and Pran 11). This is relative to the border disputes because of the U.S. involvement in providing military assistance for General Marshal Lon Nol, who overthrew Sihanouk in 1970, in Cambodia during the war. However, the Just War theory criteria, Jus ad bellum, states that a party must possess the right intention to go to war, and in turn will be granted the right to go to war (Just War Theory,  The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Cambodia and Vietnam’s feeble relationship fortified in 1965 when Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, despite mistrusting the Vietnamese, allowed North Vietnamese Communists to â€Å"establish ‘sanctuarie s† inside the borders of Cambodia (Schanberg and Pran 11). After North and South Vietnam signed an agreement in Paris on January 27th 1973, Cambodian communists were left to stand alone. This being the basis of the international relationship provoked many controversies, but never provided Vietnam with a commensurable rationale to invade Cambodia. The invasion into Cambodia by the Vietnamese was a disproportionate response to the 2-year long border dispute between the two countries. According to Jus ad bellum, the â€Å"goal attained should be in proportion to the offence† (Just War Theory,  The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). However, over two million lives were at the expense of â€Å"settling disputes† between two countries. It is impossible for Vietnam’s eventual goal to measure up and find equilibrium with the execution of over two million inhabitants. The invasion failed to ameliorate, furthermore prevent more evil than it caused. According to statistics, a larger amount of people were directly affected by the invasion and massacre rather than the series of border conflicts. Thus, the invasion failed to prevent more human suffering than it caused. According to the theory, â€Å"the means used to fight must be in proportion to the wrong to be righted†. (Just War Theory,  The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) However, the lives of a massive number of people were at the expense of the Vietnamese invasion, therefore, with humanity at stake, the goal cannot be compared to the evil committed in this incursion.