yes and no.
not so simple. Japan illegally invaded both Manchuria and China - as did Germany France, Poland and Russia.
none fo thoe other countries started an illegal actions - China did not invade Japan, Poland nor France invadd Germany. etc....
so who starts it does matter - the act of rolling armies over another nations land is an act of war and illegal under international law - the response - a prober one (as the Poles and Russians and Chiines did - was to fight back! i.e. make war back to the illegal invader.
unlike France - who just rolled over and siad "thanks master may have have a few mor whippings - please install a puppet gov while your at it (petain and ww1 hero - WTF was in his mind when he agreed to be a puppet? - i wonder - the infinate sellout? about face from hero to lapdog?.
so no your not righthere. who starts it matters. - the started is the thug and illegal in action - the response is never illegal - just sometime pussified like in the case of France.
and ys i know wars have not been so clear cvut since ww2 - Korea was BTW - the NK invaded first - butthe principle remains.
thanks to the Bomb we will never have a ww3 - MAD works - might have a limited nuc - if so bet PAk and India - but even that wu0old be insane and i thnk reason will prevent any nuc war regional or global. mad works. for 75 yrs now..........
if not for MAD we would have had ww33 30 yrs ago.
and a buiild up to ww4 today.......