In Alma 48:1 it says that "as soon as Amalickiah had obtained the kingdom he began to inspire the hearts of the Lamanites against the people of Nephi; yea, he did appoint men to speak unto the Lamanites from their towers, against the Nephites." Karl von Clausewitz's great work Vom Kriege, or On War, has been the Bible of the military for 150 years. According to Hugh Nibley, the Book of Mormon reads as if it were written by a diligent student of this work. In this work, Clausewitz writes:
In the great combats which we call wars . . . there is usually no historical feeling of individual against individual. . . . National hatred . . . becomes a more or less powerful substitute for personal hostility of individuals. Where this is also absent, . . . a hostile feeling is kindled by the combat itself; an act of violence . . . will excite in us the desire to retaliate and be avenged." This is the circle. Amalickiah has to get the Lamanites to hate so they can go to war, so he has his people preach from towers--gets the propaganda machine going (see Alma 48:1-3). Such hatred is artificial. It has to be stirred up, but once the killing starts, there follows the idea of vengeance . . . The good guy sees his friends bullied; so he seeks vengeance -- the theme of almost all TV shows, so many on World War I and II. . . . Revenge is the whole thing.
[Hugh Nibley, "Warfare in the Book of Mormon," in Warfare in the Book of Mormon, p. 143]