War is often seen as only a physical act of violence committed by nations against one another. This is not a very insightful way of looking at war. Rather, war is primarily a metaphysical event, the struggle of abstract ideas, beliefs and moral principles played out in the incarnate world of physical things. Because war, properly undertaken, always involves moral consequence, war is not just violence, but has the purpose of restoring moral order. Once we accept this notion, war imposes duties on the combatants and the victor.

But because we live in an imperfect world, we must also understand that wars cannot create or push forward into existence utopia or a final resolution to human ills or injustice. There are no final absolute solutions to human folly or wickedness other than a Messianic age. Until such time, wars are events that buy mankind a little more time to work out his moral character, they are rear-guard actions that provide us opportunities to strengthen our institutions, to reclaim and advance the justice of our laws, and give us hope for the future for a limited time. Despite the accusations that all war is futile, war can and has often temporarily removed great human wickedness, but its purpose cannot be and never will be to rid the world of evil or restore mankind to a condition of moral rectitude. War is always and only a temporary solution. Our problems is: we must not expect too much of war- or too little.