By Dennis J. Woods, Small Wars Journal: “World media attention immediately focused on the historic Citadel city. At the same time, Captain Anderson, an intelligence officer in the Coalition Operations Center, noticed that neither side currently occupied the Citadel. In a snap decision, he determined that the Citadel had just became a political objective up for grabs. It will fall to whomever arrives first with the most, he thought grimly, as he pushed the authorization release button on his battle display map to dispatch the area reserve. This will be an armed race for the political high ground. Eighteen months into the First Trans-Pacific War, Megacities had become the new battlefield. Once avoided by armies, it was now the new normal.”
By Robert Cassidy, The Globalist: “A key aspect of this lies in the axiom that the purpose of war is to serve a political end, but the nature of war is to serve itself. War serves itself when it is unguided or unconstrained by reason and policy, or if the political end is not viable within the means that states are willing to commit based on the perceived value of attaining that end.”