A campfire can keep you warm and a wildfire can kill you. In a similar way, smaller conflicts are often manipulated by interested greater powers - within which is still great suffering - but broader changes and the exposure of the general population to those conflicts may be able to be staved off and insulated and even directed, whereas great wars are globally transformative phenomena that draw everyone in at once and transform everything simultaneously and rapidly. Their historical record affords clearer contrasts and changes, affording in turn further analysis and insight, despite all of the horror of their nature.
