War's (n.) redeeming feature is that it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social systems that have outlived their vitality.
War (n.) develops before peace: wage-labor and machinery appeared in armies before they appeared in bourgeois society.
War (n.) proves, for all it is old society's highest heroic effort, a governmental humbug to defer class struggle — thrown aside the moment class war breaks out, when conquering and conquered armies fraternize to massacre the proletariat.
War (n.) served the Roman patricians twice: it ruined the plebeians and filled their own vaults with plundered copper, which they lent back at usurious interest, making the plebeians debt slaves.
War (n.) for a conquering barbarian people is itself a regular form of intercourse, exploited all the more eagerly as population and a crude mode of production give rise to the need for new means of production.