Failure of the peace faction

[russilwvong]

Belligerency was now a fact. United States soldiers were killing and being killed, United States pilots were diving through anti-aircraft fire and, when crashing, were being captured to become prisoners of war. War is a procedure from which there can be no turning back without acknowledging defeat. This was the self-laid trap into which America had walked. Only with the greatest difficulty and rarest success, as belligerents mired in futility have often discovered, can combat be terminated in favor of compromise.

--Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly (1984), on the Vietnam War in 1965

It's easy to start a war; it's far more difficult to stop. It's inherently irrational and uncontrollable, like a forest fire.

Re-reading the first four books, I was struck by two examples of someone making a strong case for a compromise peace: Catelyn Stark at the end of "A Game of Thrones", and Asha Greyjoy in "A Feast for Crows." In both cases, they fail.

I haven't seen the HBO series, but I understand Catelyn takes a different position: "First we get your sisters back. Then we kill them all."