Michael Byron's Occasional Musings

  Ukraine's Fight is Right! On Giving Meaning to the Death of a Young Soldier. By Michael P Byron Today, I read an article in a Ukrainian newspaper about the death in combat of a young soldier near the destroyed, now Russian occupied, Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. What caught my attention was that I had recently corresponded online with a Ukrainian soldier of that name fighting in that location. I hadn’t heard from this person for about two weeks and was not able to reach them today. So, I don’t know if it was the same person. However, this started me thinking about the nature of the world in which we live. Why is there war? When is fighting in a war “just” and when is it not? Why? Why did this young soldier die? What follows is my answer to these related questions. I taught International Relations courses for many years at various Colleges and Universities. At the beginning of each class I would (usually) startle my students by informing them that the world they lived in was in a sta...