war and reading the quotes from several thinkers in "On War," make your own statement on the subject

War: The illegitimacy of warfare

According to the philosopher Voltaire on the subject of warfare: "It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets." Novels such as Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms suggest that war is fundamentally anathema to the human character. Simply because there are trumpets and an endorsement of the murder of the 'enemy' the leaders of the land, suggests Voltaire, does not make war any less scarring to human nature and dignity. Although the wars chronicled in the novels may be presented as glorious enterprises at first, the characters are initially repelled by the experience of war, and only after growing coarsened does the experience become more bearable....
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