“...the consequences of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival....

What is concerned here is not the morale of the masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at war, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party members are expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limit, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph. In other words, it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war.

DOUBLESPEAK "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security." TOM RIDGE Secretary of Homeland Security

It does not matter whether the state of war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly.
All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.

...be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones. Meaning ... no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously....”

- George Orwell, "1984"