make war

make war (on someone or something)

1. To instigate or initiate war against some other country or group of people. Under the rule of its new dictator, the country has begun making war on its neighbors in an attempt to consolidate power. A severe depletion of resources led several tribes in the region to make war for many years.
2. To attempt to eliminate, destroy, or overpower someone, something, or some group. The new president vowed to make war on corruption in Washington. The extremist wing of the political party has been making war on any and all groups that disagree with their opinion in any capacity.
See also: make, someone, war
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

make war

 (on someone or something)
1. Lit. to attack someone or something and start a war. The small country's generals made war on the United States, hoping for foreign aid when they lost the war.
2. Fig. to actively oppose someone or something. The police made war on violent street crime.
See also: make, war
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • make war (on someone or something)
  • wage war (on someone or something)
  • war against
  • war against (someone or something)
  • war on (someone or something)
  • war with
  • war with (someone or something)
  • deport (someone) from (some place) to (some place)
  • deport (someone) to (some place)
  • import
References in periodicals archive
In fact, Hemingway's desire to make war on the page not be something that exists only as realism nor as naturalism, but something different--a craft of making war so that it is all the more so personal yet so universal truly does shift the perspective.
MAKING WAR WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS: HEMINGWAY, MAILER, AND O'BRIEN
Even without reference to the case of a democracy that, finding self-defense insufficient justification and retaliation an insufficient end, makes war on a non-democracy so as to make the non-democracy a democracy that will not make war on the democracy that made war on it, the postulate upon which the president has in all good faith chosen to rely is contradicted by inconvenient fact.
The democratic peace
So on the general question of preventive war--whether to make war now in order to avoid a worse war later--my position is: It depends on the circumstances.
Should we invade Iraq? A reason online debate
These are groups organized into militia and 'survivalist' movements - which pull out of society and take to the hills to make war on the government, and who will support anyone else making war on the government."
Anthrax Attacks' are 'Work of Neo-Nazis'
If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another, possibly more effective, pretext after war is on.
The Right of the Citizen to Oppose War and the Right of Congress to Shape the War Policy
And as long as Hannah and Sula make love to men in the novel, the men are not making war; that is, as long as women are not having babies, there will be no men to make war.(22)
War and peace: transfigured categories and the politics of 'Sula.' (Women's Culture Issue)
From the sidelines cheering them on, I hear the voices of other men who have interests in oil plus some right-wingers for whom the desire to make war seems to be part of their emotional make-up.
Beware the urgings of men about war
The latter have to make war on independent institutions.
The Ladd Report
[paragraph] Have assemblies of citizens met and discussed the situation in the country on which we propose to make war?
In search of democracy