The essence of warfare is dying not killing. Wars are undertaken to cause people to die.

Wars testify to the priority of the state over individuals. Death (and injury) confirm the proposition that states are more significant than human beings. Memorials to honor the dead perform the same function.

A significant role of the state during the Twentieth Century was to compel human beings to die; to persuade human beings that dying for one's country was honorable and noble.

Each nation proclaimed it was the "greatest" and that the ideals it embraced were the truth. Verification took the form of sacrificial death: the proof of the pudding was in the dying. That for which we die is true.