My observation is that killing people and smashing things is a method, not the objective.
The main objective in warfare is to impose your nation's will upon its enemy and to frustrate said enemy's desire to impose its will upon your nation.
Kill people and smash things if need be but not necessarily kill people and smash things.
Read Chapter 3 of Sun Tzu, preferably the Huang translation or the treatment by Gen Tao Hanzhang (PLA) as translated by Yuan Shibing, but the Griffith translation and the Cleary translation also make my point sufficiently well for this discussion and they are easier to find.
We agree it is not the objective but physically using the military for anything else is like using a Skillsaw to trim your fingernails. Now, to threaten the use of it to someone who refuses to tidy themselves up is fully within reason to enlighten the willfully beligerant slob.