The difficulty is ... there are are many different definitions out there of "useful". Also of "war".
Don't get me wrong: I absolutely agree that there is no usefulness to war in the modern world (or any previous world, for that matter) ... but it will continue as long as others do.
What is "war"? Klauswitz's definition of it a "a continuation of diplomacy by other means" is true, for one thing. That's a start. But most diplomacy is either about avoiding war or about maintaining economic interests (or political interests- though most external political interests are, at root, economic). And maintaining economic interests, in most cases, means maintaining economic advantage.
Low prices of gasoline, sugar, unseasonal vegetables, manufacturing labour, are underpinned by an economic disparity between supplier and buyer. That economic disparity would quickly be eroded by the market unless artificially maintained - and the only way it is maintained is by force of one kind or another.
If all European and US coercive activity abroad (from bribery up through trade tariffs, maintenance of otherwise unviable client regimes and trade blockade to open military shooting war) ceased today, the price of gasoline in the US and Europe would sour by an order of magnitude within a year. That makes coercive activity very "useful" to US and European governments and, implicitly, to every one of us in the US or Europe even though we believe ourselves opposed to it.
Conversely, if a community at the other end of the economic disparity is unreasonable enough to think that rising above bare subsistence would be nice, but finds itself unable to raise prices because of demand side coercion, it may well find coercive activity of its own "useful" in gaining control over its own fate, asserting its protest or just expressing its despair.
Where coercive action becomes "war" is a matter of viewpoint and perception. We tend to think that we are at war only if enough regular troops to interest the mass media are in visible action and dying in quantity. But war can also be when somebody else's troops or other agents kill us in quantity - the US mainland (Hawaii excluded) hasn't experienced that since the civil war (Europe has, but not within the memory of most voters) but it has felt smaller manifestations of it. But that condition that "troops" should be involved is an artificial one. Terrorism is a form of warfare, and one widely used by national governments - most national governments, whether communist or capitalist, first world or third, at some time or another.
The attack on the WTC was an act of war; the Bali, London 7/7 ( not 21/7) and Madrid bombings were acts of war; that they were not conducted by uniformed soldiers of a regular national army doesn't alter that. Nor were they the first acts of the war; they were simply the first acts successfully delivered within the territories of what has in the past always been the winning side. The term "asymmetric warfare" describes something which has always existed but not been acknowledged.
Then there is that description "modern world". What is that? Does it mean the modern world which we enjoy on the economically powerful side of the economic disparity? Or does it mean the whole global world within which most members are disadvantaged, many oppressed, significant numbers in slavery?
If we genuinely believe warfare to be unuseful in the modern world (and I do), we have to desist not only from preëmptive attack of the open declared conventional types but also from any coercion (military or fiscal) except in proportional response to coercion already applied to us. We also have to allow modern society to spread beyond our narrow economic borders - and accept the drastic global economic rebalancing which will result.
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