History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

My take:  This is one of the reasons I favor veterans when it comes to voting.  Someone who has never had to do funeral detail has no idea the human cost of going to war, even if it’s justified.  They also sometimes don’t see the military as a group of human beings, but as more of a monolithic “other”.  Not saying that there are no good non-veteran politicians or that all politicians who are veterans are good leaders, but I just have a recognized bias towards someone who has that experience.

Update – OK, that was a mangling.  I’ve corrected my horrendous paragraph a bit.