All Wars are Follies, very expensive, and very mischievous ones. When will Mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their Differences by Arbitration? Were they to do it, even by the Cast of a Dye, it would be better than by Fighting and destroying each other.
-- Benjamin Franklin
-- Edward Luttwak, “Give War a Chance”
war, n.: a challenge to a contest that cannot be refused.
A good reason to accept such challenges, but not a good reason to issue them...