It is easy to plan a war. It is far, far harder to plan a peace to follow.
This is not a moral observation, as some might imagine, but an entirely practical one.
This is not a moral observation, as some might imagine, but an entirely practical one.
One reason, I would suggest, is that the momentary circumstances of victory give a misleading impression of what has actually been achieved.
My point is that the immediate circumstances of victory are unlikely to be sustained for any lengthy period of time ...
So then the question becomes: what IS sustainable, yet consistent with the victor's primary objectives.
Even what we imagine to be history's "absolute" victories, on closer inspection, are anything but absolute.
