Most pointless wars in history

[Bored Young Man]

There’s the Byzantine- Sassanid war of 602–628, where after almost over two decades of fighting, with Heraclius invading Persia, all ending in… status quo ante bellum. All it did was weaken both empire for the Muslim Arabs

There’s also the Imjin Wars, where Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Joseon Korea, only for it halt due to guerrilla fighters and naval defeats, and then Chinese intervention, all ending in nothing. Again, all it did was weaken the Toyotomi Clan, and Ming China and Joseon for the Manchus

Those are failed wars, not pointless. Hideyoshi wanted all the armed men with little to do out of Japan and he got it. The Byzantines and Sassinids were rivals, the war would've just been another war between the two until the Arabs united for the first time in their history.

I would put the Japanese invasion of China in the 30s, simply as the Japanese government didn't want it, the Chinese didn't want it, Japan could've just invested in a warlord/China, but some junior officer saw a guy missing at role call and started a war against China with no actual war goals or method to hold onto China in the long term.

I'd say the same for the Ottomans in WW1, Envr Pasha was looking for "destruction and renewal" of the empire and went to war against vastly stronger empires; the goal was literally mythical.

 

[anotherlurker]

Byzantine-Sassanian war, WW1, Imjin War etc. were ultimately about imperial supremacy, the stakes are high but so is the payout.

Now pointless... all those wars with ridiculous names, nobody has mentioned the War of Jenkins Ear yet, unless i overread it.

 

[Lalli]

Byzantine-Sassanian war, WW1, Imjin War etc. were ultimately about imperial supremacy, the stakes are high but so is the payout.

Now pointless... all those wars with ridiculous names, nobody has mentioned the War of Jenkins Ear yet, unless i overread it.

And Football War.

 

[alpha]

2003 Iraq war

 

[CaptainCalvert]

The Emu war?
I don't know if that counts as 4 nickels for Crazy Boris, since it was actually against the emus.

 

[Wendell]

Soccer War
Nigeria/Cameroon War

 

[Domz]

Napoleon's invasion of Russia.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

The War of the Cow:

War of the Cow - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In late December 2011, several months after South Sudan gained its independence, The Upper Nile Times reported that the Nuer White Army had reformed and had issued a threat on Christmas Day 2011 to "wipe out the entire Murle tribe on the face of the earth as the only solution to guarantee long-term security of Nuer's cattle".

Nuer White Army - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Derek Pullem]

Anglo-Zanzibar war

 

[Crazy Boris]

I can’t believe this skipped my mind before, but the War of Jenkins’ Ear.

Granted, there was more to the cause of it than just the ear incident, but that was the casus belli Britain used