The Bloody Awfulness of War

And the Awful Idea of Killing as “Winning”

BILL ASTORE

OCT 08, 2026

Today, I talked about the decline and fall of the citizen-soldier ideal in America with Judge Napolitano on “Judging Freedom.”

The judge asked me a powerful question about “Thou shalt not kill” and the pursuit of killing in war. Is killing ever truly justified by wartime imperatives? There are no easy answers to that question, nor should there be.

You can fall back on Just War theory, but I wasn’t mentally prepared to discuss that complex subject in detail. 

There are times, I believe, when killing in war is justifiable, such as a defensive war against implacable enemies bent on destruction. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan come to mind from World War II. Of course, war is always awful, always barbarous, and those caught up in war are degraded by it. Nevertheless, U.S. citizen-soldiers of World War II behaved less atrociously and generally stood for higher ideals than their counterparts in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Again, when you read combat accounts written by U.S. troops, such as E.B. Sledge’s “With the Old Breed” about his service in the Marine Corps fighting the Japanese, you quickly realize both sides fought viciously, both sides committed atrocities, because that is the nature of brutal combat. But the Japanese were more fanatical and more prone to barbarous actions than U.S. troops, though Americans learned quickly to return the favor. 

All war is awful, all war is murderous, therefore it should be avoided whenever possible. Still, no one need submit to a dictatorship like that of Nazi Germany or the militaristic rule of imperial Japan. There is nobility in defending kith and kin and for defending as well ideals that serve liberty, freedom, and justice.

High-minded displays of non-violent resistance are admirable, as are mindful appeals to compassion, but they would not have stopped the work of Hitler’s Panzers or his death camps.

The problem is that since World War II, America hasn’t waged defensive or just wars. Its wars, whether in Southeast Asia or the Middle East, have been undeclared wars driven by imperial designs and reasons that do not in any way justify deadly use of force, especially the wanton use of such force. The American people increasingly recognize this. So too do those in command, which is why they’re working so hard to recruit obedient “warriors” to the ranks today, instead of citizen-soldiers capable of thinking for themselves.

Today’s leaders, men like Pete Hegseth, want to turn war into a guiltless exercise in killing, as if victory always goes to the most ruthless and brutal side in war. History teaches us the opposite is often true. And, assuming that America “won” by being utterly ruthless and annihilatory, would we not have lost our humanity in the process? 

The bottom line is that we in America must work for peace while resisting our “leaders” who are so eager to embroil this nation in immoral, incessant, and murderous wars.