I once read a feature in an Israeli adolescents' magazine about the Navy SEALs, who are the chief commando unit of the United States Navy, and they said there that while many very muscular young men (which they called “a Rambo and a half”) approached them about joining, they didn’t survive for too long in their training, and that those who did were those with a “high IQ” and a great character. The United States has an unnatural obsession with IQ, which is not a good measurement for intelligence (for many reasons), but the point is that they are intelligent and competent.
And what is the recipe for such intelligence and competence? The answer is having a mostly happy childhood, being open-minded and knowledgeable about all sorts of small things, getting a lot of information, knowledge, understanding, and insights, and being a whole rounded person. The world’s greatest warriors such as Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee were not overly muscular, and Chuck Norris had a happy and supposedly uneventful childhood. He also was aware that he has to stand for himself, and take decisive action (“The Gods help them that help themselves”) instead of letting life lead him in its own way ("Go with the flow" or "Be a product of your environment"). So did most of the Navy SEALs.
A murderous villain can shoot to all directions and perform a lot of killing, but a good warrior requires precision, accuracy, intelligence and competence. This involves being a well-rounded, happy and benevolent person. Saladin was the greatest physical warrior of his time, and he was extremely noble, and during his liberation of Palestine from the Christian Crusaders rule, spared the lives of the Knights Templar (who were really crazy and violent people) and cared for them, to say nothing of that of innocent men, women and children who came in his way. Whenever I run into a moral dilemma, I think to myself “What would Saladin do?” and then do exactly that.
In my screenplay Selina Mandrake - The Slayer, the protagonist (Selina) runs into three vampire warriors (“The Three”) dressed as Klingons, who tell her that “Every mighty Klingon warrior has watched Sesame Street” to which she exclaims: “Mighty Klingon vampire warriors who have watched Sesame Street… this decade royally sucks!!”. However, most of the best American warriors of the relatively recent past (of all kinds) have watched Sesame Street, because they loved it as happy children (and later as adults).
And like I said, there are many other ways to wage war that do not involve bloodshed or even violence.