"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster"
About this Quote
Sherman’s line is a cold splash of water on the perennial fantasy that war can be engineered into something clean: a manageable project with guardrails, minimal pain, and predictable outcomes. Coming from the general who marched through Georgia and made “hard war” a deliberate strategy, it isn’t moral handwringing; it’s a warning aimed at policymakers and publics who want the benefits of victory without the costs of violence.
The intent is blunt deterrence. If leaders sell war as “easy and safe,” they invite two disasters at once: tactical overreach and political self-deception. The phrase “every attempt” makes it categorical, like a law of physics. Sherman isn’t arguing that war is sometimes messy; he’s saying that the very effort to domesticate it is what produces failure. Humiliation comes first: the loss of credibility, the public shock when reality breaks through the marketing. Disaster follows: the operational consequences of planning under fantasy conditions, where underestimation becomes doctrine.
The subtext is also a swipe at sentimental humanitarianism when it’s used as a substitute for strategy. Sherman understood that limiting visible suffering can paradoxically prolong conflict, multiplying suffering over time. His own campaigns were justified, in his view, by the belief that brutality directed at infrastructure and morale could shorten the war and force a political settlement.
Context matters: post-Civil War America, where the memory of carnage competed with the desire to mythologize victory as righteous and orderly. Sherman refuses the myth. He insists that war’s true danger lies not only in the enemy, but in the comforting stories we tell ourselves before we march.
The intent is blunt deterrence. If leaders sell war as “easy and safe,” they invite two disasters at once: tactical overreach and political self-deception. The phrase “every attempt” makes it categorical, like a law of physics. Sherman isn’t arguing that war is sometimes messy; he’s saying that the very effort to domesticate it is what produces failure. Humiliation comes first: the loss of credibility, the public shock when reality breaks through the marketing. Disaster follows: the operational consequences of planning under fantasy conditions, where underestimation becomes doctrine.
The subtext is also a swipe at sentimental humanitarianism when it’s used as a substitute for strategy. Sherman understood that limiting visible suffering can paradoxically prolong conflict, multiplying suffering over time. His own campaigns were justified, in his view, by the belief that brutality directed at infrastructure and morale could shorten the war and force a political settlement.
Context matters: post-Civil War America, where the memory of carnage competed with the desire to mythologize victory as righteous and orderly. Sherman refuses the myth. He insists that war’s true danger lies not only in the enemy, but in the comforting stories we tell ourselves before we march.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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