If that was the argument, we should check whether war actually got reduced and whether that was because war became too messy to fight. For nuclear weapons at least that strategy ended up working, but perhaps it also worked on a smaller scale too, for instance the Pax Britannica after napoleon saw many of the advancements in war discussed in the post, how much of that was caused by war becoming too destructive to fight?
If that was the argument, we should check whether war actually got reduced and whether that was because war became too messy to fight. For nuclear weapons at least that strategy ended up working, but perhaps it also worked on a smaller scale too, for instance the Pax Britannica after napoleon saw many of the advancements in war discussed in the post, how much of that was caused by war becoming too destructive to fight?