Daily Inspiration Quote by Colman McCarthy

Warmaking doesn't stop warmaking. It reproduces itself, like a bad habit dressed up as necessity. Colman McCarthy, a lifelong peace activist, compresses a sprawling critique of militarism into a near-tautology that’s meant to sting: if violence actually solved the problem it claims to solve, history would look radically different. The line works because it refuses the comforting story that war is a regrettable but effective tool. Instead, it frames war as a self-justifying system with its own momentum, one that manufactures the very conditions it then cites as proof of its indispensability.

The subtext is an indictment of the rhetorical loop politicians rely on: we must fight to secure peace; we must bomb to end terror; we must escalate to prevent escalation. McCarthy flips that logic by pointing to the only metric that matters over time: repeat occurrence. Millennia of conflict become evidence not of tragic human nature, but of institutional incentives that keep the cycle profitable and politically convenient. Armies need enemies, defense budgets need threats, leaders need crises that can be managed with spectacle and command. “Warmaking” is a deliberately clunky word, emphasizing war as an industry and a craft, something produced, maintained, normalized.

Contextually, McCarthy’s pacifist stance sits in the long American argument over whether force is a last resort or a default language. His provocation isn’t naive idealism; it’s a challenge to results-based thinking. If the promised endpoint never arrives, maybe the method isn’t hard but necessary. Maybe it’s simply the wrong tool, kept alive by tradition, fear, and the benefits it reliably delivers to the people directing it.