Academics have no greater claim on "truth" than anybody else. Some academics have done good and relevant work on issues of war and peace; others - far too many - have produced garbage. For example, a well regarded US academic specialist on national security issues suggested that a good doctoral dissertation question would be whether al Qaeda's attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon was timed so as to "minimize civilian casualties!"

That is, unfortunately, typical of too much academic work. Fortunately, nobody here is engaged in such fuzzy thinking, are they Marc, Sam....?

Cheers

JohnT