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We can think of war as a highly ritualized form of human sacrifice.
The justifications for war are, as often as not, as far-fetched and fanciful as those put forth by past cultures for the ritual killing of virgins or criminals, daughters or sons. Whereas human sacrifice used to be practiced to assure good harvests or keep volcanoes from erupting or otherwise appease the gods, modern warfare sacrifices humans, many of them perfectly innocent, for the sake of such abstractions as “justice” or “freedom” or even “communism” or “capitalism.” There is just as much scientific evidence that modern warfare achieves these ends as that the ancient rites achieved theirs.

In fact, by waging a “war against terror” in Iraq, the U.S. appears to be making the situation worse by creating more terrorists and more anger and hostility worldwide. In an attempt to explain the seeming lack of a connection between the wars we wage and the goals we seek, skeptics come up with more practical suggestions: we’re in Iraq to secure future oil reserves, or we fought in Vietnam to somehow colonize the region. These explanations, while seemingly good ones given historical precedent, fit neither the rhetoric nor the facts. As in Saudi Arabia, an alliance with a dictatorial power is actually quite a bit better for securing oil supplies than self-rule, which could bring to power officials who are not quite so enamored of American policy. Dictators, as a rule, can be bought or curried-favor to, as the U.S. did with Saddam Hussein himself while he waged war with Iran in the 1980s. Democracies are subject to the vagaries of public opinion.

Likewise, actually owning a backward and war torn nation in Southeast Asia would have merely been a burden. The Vietnam war has the distinction of being one of the only wars fought over a theory, even more than it was fought over an ideology. That the “domino theory” of the International Communist Conspiracy completely failed to materialize and Soviet-style communism more or less collapsed under its own weight is beside the point. We went to war in order to serve our faith in the theory. We “bomb[ed] them into the stone age” with equally outmoded notions of what needed to be sacrificed (people) for our theory to adhere.

Nazism is both the most clichéd and the most clear-cut of these cases. With few pretexts other than a nationalism pursued with a religious zeal, Nazi Germany proved that the most pure form of warfare, and the most systematic genocide yet attempted, fit neatly into the notion of ritualized brutality and murder. It may just be that ideologies themselves, and dogmas even more, require ritualized human sacrifice to prove their worth. This can come either in the form of martyrdom (Jesus being the archetype here, but many religions and political movements boast at least one or two) or those sacrificed fighting either for or against the cause. If the war is lost, those who died sanctify the cause with their blood. If the war is won, those enemies killed in its waging serve to prove the cause was blessed or spiritually justified to begin with – if god were not on our side, how could we have won? The story of Jericho from the Judeo-Christian tradition is a good example of the latter, in which god is depicted as reinforcing the chosen-ness of the nation of Israel by its victory and by the completeness with which the enemy allowed itself to be destroyed.

The ritualization of war as human sacrifice extends into its accouterments, with the traditions of parades and medals, uniforms and strict codes of behavior and rank. This is reflected back into the non-warrior classes through yellow ribbons or gold stars or, more recently, military fatigues as fashion statements. Even declarations of war are occasions for ceremony: although the modern presidency has virtually unlimited power to wage war, a blessing from Congress is sought to make war “official.” The ritual of civilian approval, even though technically no longer necessary, still serves to justify mass killing through proxy social approval. Poll numbers are far more important in a practical sense, however, and lately they have indicated a vast and deep desire for this particular form of human sacrifice. If we cannot for one reason or another actually die ourselves for our cause, we can certainly apotheosize those we choose to die for us.

Thought of this way, the most important question to ask about war is not whether or not it achieves any kind of military goal, but whether or not it meets its social and/or spiritual end. War practiced as ritual human sacrifice need not lead to victory, nor capture or defeat a foe, as long as the culture that wages it feels somehow cleansed by the blood spilled.