Consistently winning wars that one has started is so rare an accomplishment - so unusual a bucking of the odds - that the few who managed it are famous worldwide and throughout history. We record their names and their victories, we write history from their perspectives. We could maybe rethink that custom. The history of Alexander the Conquerer could be recorded as major volcanic eruptions are - not from the volcano's point of view. At least then the various gambling fallacies involved - the failures to properly estimate one's odds of "winning" - would not be exacerbated by systematic omissions of accounts of loss.
Let the leaders of the battling countries fight it out , between themselves . No soldiers , armour , aircraft nor warships .
That's a point. But not losing is always a goal. The guys who start them never figure to lose, themselves.
Hell, historians can't even nail down that Sun Tzu wrote "the art of war" - it may well be likely that he existed and wrote the core of the treatise, but it is also determined that the text was modified or added to in later generations. You can purchase annotated books that have the text, a translation and history of the text. One such book is "Sun Tzu The Illustrated Art of War" by Samuel B. Griffith http://www.returnofkings.com/67824/what-is-the-best-english-translation-of-sun-tzus-art-of-war
The best way to win a war is to sucker some other dumb schmuck into fighting it for you. Byzantium lasted for about 100 years by getting some other dumb schmuck to fight their wars for them. and now: Netanyahu is trying to get the us to attack Iran on Israel's behalf. He seems to think that the USA is a nation of dumb schmucks ready to toady up and do our Israeli and Saudi master's bidding(most likely based on the actions of the previous 3 administrations?). Are our leaders really that stupid?
The previous eight administrations - maybe ten. The establishment of Israel as a borderless, expanding, religion based, heavily armed State firmly backed by the US was completed by 1967. And it's more Chevron's and Exxon's bidding than Saudi masters.
OOPs in #72 above................100 is wrong that should read: Byzantium lasted for about 1000 years by getting some other dumb schmuck to fight most of their wars for them.
Not necessarily. I'm sure the folks who got the US into the proxy battles of the Cold War were happy to win if they could - but the benefit was in keeping the contracts coming without losing.