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War does horrible things to human beings, to societies. It brings out the best, but most often the worst, in our human nature.

War is, in fact, an extension of politics, and in any war, military operations have to be conducted in such a way that they contribute to sustainable political outcomes consistent with vital interests that are at stake in that war.

War is an arena for the display of courage and virtue. Or war is politics by other means. War is a quasi-mystical experience where you get in touch with the real. There are millions of narratives we impose to try to make sense of war.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

War is usually fought over diminishing resources, particulary those that we perceive to be extremely valuable.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

It is simply not true that war is solely a means to an end, nor do people necessarily fight in order to obtain this objective or that. In fact, the opposite is true: people very often take up one objective or another precisely in order that they may fight.

Going to war is a rare experience in American culture, so it's easy for simple notions to gain a lot of weight. The reality is always more complex.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

In war, people find themselves in extraordinary circumstances, and in those circumstances, they act in extraordinary ways. In war, you see people at their very best and their very worst, acting in ways you could never imagine. War is human drama at its most epic and most intense.