[jeffersondem]

“There is always a political objective in war.”

And economic reasons too.

Perhaps someone can cite an example where a nation were to war to deliberately damage their own long-term economic situation.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Perhaps someone can cite an example where a nation were to war to deliberately damage their own long-term economic situation."

LOL!
Well... I'd suggest that Democrats would love to push President Trump into some war somewhere for just that reason -- damage the economy, elect more Democrats, what's not to like for them?
Except of course if he won the war, that would not be good.

Seriously, consider WWII -- the US did not go to war for economic reasons, we didn't even go to war, much as FDR wanted to, for geo-political reasons, in 1940 Americans were having none of that.
So Nazis marched over our friends in Europe, Japanese sailed into many Asian harbors -- Americans didn't care, it wasn't our business, we weren't going to get sucked into it.

We went to war in 1941 for the same reason we went to war in other years (ahem... 1861) because we were attacked, that's it.
And if you dispute this -- if you think it was some other reason -- then tell us all how, absent Pearl Harbor, FDR was going to reverse the poll numbers in summer 1941 from 80% opposed to war to even majority support, much less the overwhelming majority support needed to seriously win WWII.