Verdun and the 30 years war are to me symbols of what happens if you follow people greedy people with an inflated ego. In each case, there's were lot of red li

Verdun and the 30 years war are to me symbols of what happens if you follow people greedy people with an inflated ego. In each case, there's were lot of red lines that threatened the "country's honour" (read: the governments credibility), quite a few powerful factions that were to gain of a war and somehow , partly with the help of those factions and those read lines, it all spiraled out of control. Not unlike what we see today with US (or NATO) vs Russia/Iran/Syria/NK and China to a somewhat lesser extent.