We tell ourselves that the purpose of war is to kill the enemy. But what makes us feel unified is not the sacrifice of the enemy, but the sacrifice of our own—the supreme ritual of war.

Sacrifice to the totem god, the nation, implies the existence of a religious community of devotees who execute the sacrificial mission. This community is the military, though it strains conventional wisdom to think of soldiers as a religious class.

Sacrificial designates go willingly, becoming murderers so we can kill them more easily. The totem sends them to die but it is not their visible executioner. The enemy executes members of the sacrificial class.