Idiots

Only idiots want war.

Only bigger idiots fail to prepare for war. Our side does not have a monopoly on idiots.

The trap
We get trapped by our analogies.

Golfers start thinking of "war" as a cerebral challenge.  It becomes an isolated task in marksmanship and "gaming" the terrain and the rest of the foursome.  Their preconception of war is sanitary, without distractions and bloodless.  There is no body contact in golf.  Golf would be more warlike if the random golfers were encouraged to use the golf cart to ram the other player while they are trying to drive the ball down the fairway.

Soccer moms somehow assume there will be rules, referees and a whistle at the end of the game.  Then bananas, orange wedges and juice boxes.

Rioters who have had interactions with the legal system assume that war will involve non-lethal restraint, body cams, Miranda rights.  It is incredible that they organized in massed formations.  That went out of style in the Civil War.  Later the Russians proved that you will never have more serfs than the other side has bullets.

War, at best is very ugly.

War, at its worst, is an extinction level event.