You may debate whether any particular historical war worked out well for its agitators. But there should be no debate that many of America’s recent wars have ended in misery for all. Our politicians talk of war as a last resort, but that is only to keep up appearances, because the truth is too terrible to admit: that our ever-more-expensive war machine (a cost of nearly $740 billion in 2020) can buy us little peace. Rather than a last resort, war now offers no resort. War can no longer be defended as the thing to do after everything else has failed. War must instead be seen as failure itself.