Honestly, while I support the NCR's ideals... what kind of idiot government picks a fight with the Brotherhood of Steel? The NCR might have the land and numbers, but they're not exactly the Enclave yet...
Wasn't it, at least according to the original lore, the BOS who started the fight because they wanted to get their hands on the technology the NCR possesses, not wanting it to remain in the hands of "savages"?