Is that a useful metric? How often is the general sentiment similar, without leading to a war? How often has there been a war, without such a general sentiment prior to it? It doesn't seem like being aware of this piece of data is very useful.
It is quite useful in the following sense: correctly predicting a war at the moment is not really possible. So I agree with you here.
What is certain is that the (nationalistic) political class will use this situation to its advantage. Viewed through historical lenses, this is not exactly good news. But that does not lead de facto to war.
