War Isn't Precise or Predictable — It's Barbaric, Chaotic, and Ugly
By Mark Gilchrist
August 24, 2017
War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war on our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out…You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm as against these terrible hardships of war.[1]
—General William T. Sherman
I fear that policy-makers do not talk enough about the inherent ugliness of war. War is state sanctioned brutality, the outcome of which is death, destruction and suffering in order to achieve a political objective unobtainable through diplomatic means. It is a contest of wills settled through extreme violence where devastation is the rule, not the exception.[2] War is also based on a crude and cruel calculus where success usually relies upon the ability to both inflict and sustain greater casualties than the opposition. Its enduring features are friction, chaos, and chance; all of which lead to uncertainty, and none of which are natural allies of the delivery of precise violence or predictable outcomes, which seem increasingly to be what society, and in turn, policy-makers expect.
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/08/24/war_isnt_precise_or_predictable__its_barbaric_chaotic_and_ugly_112135.html
