It's perfectly valid to make that statement without a requirement for relativism. War is bad, absolutely. Our enemies may be worse than war, but that doesn't change the fact.
Lol this Warlord trying to impart their Martian philosophy.
Respectfully, you can't "but" a statement as an effective rebuttal when the statement addresses the exact "but" that you claim.
I can make that statement because while all decision making is relative, characteristics of those decisions still have an absolute nature. War (intense pain, psychological destruction, mass violent death, generational effects, the freedom to commit evil acts only for the sake of them) is bad, period. Whether or not the decision to wage it is for a relative good (except when it isn't).
The only escape from this moral reasoning is nihilism. That is, giving up one's human nature.
You can make the case that everything you do in life is bad for something else, the point is that all choices must be ranked so stating that something is BAD is useless because arguably everything is BAD. That is not nihilism and I'm certainly not an advocate for war, I am an advocate for seriously considering choices. I said "compared to what", stating that "war is bad" again does not address the question.
It is nihilism, as explained. I did address the question.
One can't make the case that "everything arguably is bad", unless you are relativistic and reductionist to the point that any "arguable" negative consequence to anything is morally tantamount to the negative consequences of war. This is the type of moral absurdity that nihilists deal in.
Considering choices has nothing to do with the absolute characteristics of those choices.
Only nihilists feel the moral freedom to re-label absolute bad as not, if it is for their relative benefit.
I didn't say that you weren't free to do bad (I'm purposefully not using the word "evil" in order to maintain a tight reign on adjective use) in the service of what you feel is good. That might be an aspect of inescapable human nature (see factory farming).
What I imply is that human action isn't completely morally relativistic. Only nihilists or zealots with occluded moral reasoning think otherwise. No offense.
Maybe taoism is for you. It would allow you to resolve moral absurdity that you are otherwise trying to escape with nihilism. Personally, I'm not as atheistic as that. But at least it would be more consistent.
So you have some absolute line in the sand which exists for you to measure whether something is bad or not. Still it does not help you choose between two bad choices so how useful is that for you?
Traditionally: slaves and loot. Or new land to settle.
Today it is somewhat more complicated, but there are still winners in war. It usually just ain't those, who are fighting in it. And obviously not those, who just get bombed to death.
Compared to what?