I think, Ryan, that your debate with the other guy got hung up on the question of how one defines war. You seemed to be arguing with him that a war is only a war if the two sides are shooting at each other, and your argument seems based on the premise that an invader will only start shooting if the country being invaded resists the invasion.
I think your analysis was inspired by the fact that Hitler managed to acquire a number of territoires “without firing a shot” prior to the invasion of Poland. Technically, it’s correct that the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia were not “wars” – but I think that’s an overly simple way of looking at it. For one thing, those annexations were preceded by political violence by Nazi-affiliated street thugs aimed at destabilizing those countries and/or at giving Germany an excuse to invade. The violence wasn’t a case of shots being fired by an army, but it was still violence.
I would further argue that what we’re discussing here is not so much war as the broader concept of armed aggression. Sending military forces across a country’s border to indimidate it into surrendering, without either side shooting at each other, may not be a shooting war, but it’s still armed aggression, in the same way that armed robbery is still armed robbery even if the robber doesn’t pull the trigger of his gun. I dont think its at all a situation in which the attack only becomes seen as something “worse” if the country (or person) being attacked resists, and I would oppose taking that line of reasoning to its next logical step, which would be to put the blame for the war on the victim rather than on the aggressor.
I would also point out that, when countries are invaded (especially without a declaration of war), the aggressor doesn`t always just walk in peacefully and refrain from firing unless the victim resists. The aggressor often goes in shooting – look at Pearl Harbor – and thereby makes it a shooting war unilaterally.
The concept of defeating an enemy without firing a shot is an old one, dating back at least to the Chinese military theorist Sun Tze, who stated that the supreme skill of generalship was to ensure that the enemy was beaten before the fighting even started. Its certainly the ideal way to defeat an enemy whose territory you want to conquer -- but ultimately, its still aggression backed by the threat of military force, even if no actual fighting is involved.
