Downright axiomatic for pure moralists or merely demonstrable for utilitarians, assertions such as “war means defeat even for the victors”, “war is the health of the state”, “peace between nations is inconceivable without limiting the power of states over their own nations”, “lasting order cannot be maintained by the sword”, “in a world of free trade and democracy there are fewer temptations to war and conquest” do not exclude the need for an answer to a resigned question like: “if we cannot avoid wars, how can we fight them rationally from an economic point of view?”. War is, in essence, the supreme immorality – indisputably true when it is one of aggression, but also when it represents a hasty retaliation –; still, as one may wonder, isn’t it a sort of second-rate immorality to choose, in fighting it, those economic means which prevent or delay winning it in the most efficient way possible for your peoples?!