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I don’t think your second paragraph is quite right. Rational actors wouldn’t deliberately start such a war. But each act involved in starting it might be ration

I don’t think your second paragraph is quite right. Rational actors wouldn’t deliberately start such a war. But each act involved in starting it might be rational, while producing a profoundly irrational result. I think WWI illustrates this well. Nobody set out to start a continent-wide war that would last for years. Nobody in charge of things was particularly crazy. Each act and response as the war kicked off was the sensible thing to do. WWII is definitely showing off the opposite. Crazy person decides to conquer everything in sight, is eventually stopped.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Once the first step was taken, it wasn't long before WW1 became inevitable, as the huge chain of treaties and alliances kicked in, one by one. WW2 might have been a much smaller affair had the world, or Versailles signatories been willing to enforce Versailles, German rearmament etc, and reacted after Germany started rearming (34), brought in conscription or re-militarised the Rhineland (36), by Anschluss (annexing Austria) in 38 it wouldn't have helped much. Ignoring everything, and the democracies being highly unwilling to rearm in step rather made WW2 inevitable too. League of Nations ignoring Italian invasion of Ethiopia didn't help either.