According to Brant Gardner, Mesoamerican warfare is not European warfare. The ends, methods, purposes, and results are very different. Where European warfare is typically a struggle for territory, Mesoamerican warfare is a conflict between the gods, with the outcome directly linked to their concept of the universe. The motivations of Classic Maya warfare are so distinct from the European territorial struggles that one author notes:
"The aim of warfare, in part, was to capture prominent individuals from an enemy state, put them to torture and finally to sacrifice them normally by beheading. . ."
The sacrificial letting of blood becomes both the food for the Gods, and the substitute sacrifice that renews creation. This principle of creation through sacrifice appears to have great antiquity in the Mesoamerican region.
These were people who had grown up with a worldview that saw the waging of war or the capture of sacrificial victims as essential to continued existence. Men, women, and children all supported this worldview, whether or not they participated in the actual warfare, capture, or torture. [Brant Gardner, Book of Mormon Commentary, [http://www.highfiber.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/Alma/Alma24.htm], pp. 7-8]