This film is supposedly based on a real event, and that makes it all the more frightening - that commanders are willing to sacrifice and jeopardize their men for their own selfish ambitions. The court-martial itself was also extremely troubling, because it was so clearly unfair and did not represent the appeals of the men at all. The judge was clearly biased or influenced, and the men were doomed from the start, something that seemed impossible in real life, but could be all too true. The entire situation was frightening because it seemed so real, and it was not at all difficult to believe a situation like this could occur. It made me think about the men and women fighting in Iraq today, and how many of them could be facing the same issues of poor commanders and situation that are not all on the up-and-up. If our people are facing situations like that because of poor leadership, I think it is wrong. I think we have not learned lessons from war, and so, people still die because of stupidity, ignorance, and power...

All the players do not have the best ideas and orders at heart, and they do not have the security of the men under them in mind all the time. In fact, there are selfish and self-serving leaders in powerful positions, and this seems to always be the case. The men who died in this film did not have to die, and I think that is another reality of war. The men pay the price for their leaders' follies, and that is a sad testament to war and warfare. So, this was clearly an anti-war film with a message, and the message is that war is hell, and it can be hell because of ineptitude and power struggles, just as it can be hell because of combat.
References

Paths of Glory. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, and George Macready. United Artists, 1957.