I think you want to find too much complexity when there is few of it.
Let's take a look at complex wars, where no specific nation was explicitly looking for war:
- WW1: every country was ready for war, a spark set it all up, there is no obvious guilty country
- French Revolution Wars: the French people wanted to remove the monarchy, the other countries panicked and wanted to invade, but patriots are much more eager to fight than royalist soldiers.
Then, let's take a look at obvious wars:
- Louis XIV wars of conquest: it was always obvious, it had a big ego, and he wanted to make France grand, he kept on attacking his neighbours for no other reason than glory and territory
- France-Germany in 1870: France was brilliantly played by Bismarck and deserved to be defeated as it was.
Then, about WW2, let's take the major players at the start of the war:
- Russia: Stalin was more into Socialism in One Country and had just butchered the army, he didn't want a major war.
- Poland: just willing to survive between two giants
- Balkans: arguably more stable than in 1914, this was not a major boiling region
- Spain: civil war ending, no interest at all in a major conflict
- Scandinavia/Benelux: small countries mostly peaceful
- France/UK: traumatised by WW1, they kept delaying stopping Hitler by force, they didn't want more trenches
Which leaves us with:
- Japan: imperial country wanting to expand, at war with China who wanted to stay independent. But it was a local conflict at the time, not really part of a World War.
- Germany: Hitler made few efforts to hide his hatred of Slavic people and his wish to expand the third German Empire, he kept expanding until France and Britain finally woke up.
So yes, it's not unreasonable to say that Germany started WW2 alone (not WW1 though).