Wars are stupid and they can start stupidly.

In time of war all countries behave equally badly, because the power of action is handed over to stupid and obstinate men.

In wars, boy, fools kill other fools for foolish causes.

When a war breaks out, people say: "It's too stupid; it can't last long." But though the war may well be "too stupid," that doesn't prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.

To make a war, sometimes it is necessary that everyone guess wrong.

Military foolishness is ultimately suicidal. They believe that by risking death they pay the price of any violent behavior against enemies of their own choosing. They have the invader mentality, that false sense of freedom from responsibility for your own actions.

It’s as if I drifted into this situation. I didn’t ever think about fighting or doing anything risky at all, not until the war came along. I agreed it was necessary, but that seemed obvious; everybody thought so, everybody I knew, anyway. And volunteering, agreeing to take part; that too seemed... natural. I knew I might die, but I was prepared to risk that; it was almost romantic. Somehow it never occurred to me that it might entail privation and suffering. Am I as stupid as those throughout history—those I’ve always despised and pitied—who’ve marched off to war, heads full of noble notions and expectations of easy glory, only to die screaming and torn in the mud?

[It was] through the ineptitude and stupidity of Bethmann and Jagow [that Germany had] blundered into war [in den Krieg taumelten].

It's idiocy, but all war is idiotic, and the most whole-hearted idiot is apt to win.

Because they were idiots!

Nowhere are our calculations more frequently upset than in war.

Ordinary he was insane, But he had lucid moments when he was merely Stupid.

I must say, the Japanese soldiers were stupid. Many of their actions made no sense. They really believed, like Hitler's Nazis, that they were a superior race, and that it was their sacred duty to uplift the poor, colonized Asians and to liberate them!

War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. Though you follow the trade of the warrior, you do so in the spirit of Washington — not of Genghis Khan. For Americans, only threat to our way of life justifies resort to conflict.