https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20121/war-isnt-what-it-used-to-be
[T]his strange war [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] is morphing into a pointless struggle that ignores the first rule of war, which is the setting of a final objective, in other words, a clear-cut victory.
Wars do not end with one protagonist declaring victory; they end when one protagonist admits defeat. In our postmodern era, however, a loser is not always allowed to accept his loss.
What Israel wanted from Hamas was for it not to launch an attack, something that Hamas could have easily offered. But what Hamas wanted, the elimination of Israel as a nation-state, was and remains impossible for Israel to contemplate let alone deliver.
Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rhetorical outbursts, the current struggle, presented as a war, may end up as a trompe l’oeil version of war. Even if possible, a return to the status quo that was shattered by the Hamas attack is undesirable, if only because of its conceptual fragility. A new status quo based on full reoccupation of the enclave is equally undesirable because, tested for decades, it provided no security for Israel.
Throughout history, at least until our post-modernist times, war was regarded as the highest of human pursuits, one that enlisted other pursuits such as politics, industry and even literature in its service. Aristotle gave war a thumbs-up because it was “the key to peace.” Neo-Platonics regarded war as the ultimate organizer and guardian of hierarchies within the polis (city-state) and among various states.
Over time, however, war, like some other human pursuits, has lost part of what the French would call its “authenticity”, leaving us with ersatz wars motivated by folie de grandeur, racial and religious hatred, and mercenary interests.
