With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, World War II is probably the worst example you could have chosen.
The whole reason World War II happened in the first place was because World War I ended with a deeply flawed post-war settlement. If anything, it is a warning about what happens when you fail to properly resolve the causes of a conflict.
And when World War II did happen, how did it end? Not through negotiations. It ended with a decisive military victory. In Germany, Allied forces were literally within meters of Hitler’s bunker. In Japan, it took two nuclear bombs before the Imperial leadership finally accepted reality and surrendered unconditionally.
I don’t even need to go digging through distant history or obscure corners of the world to find examples. Let’s stay in your own backyard. How did the American Civil War end? It ended with a decisive Union victory, the surrender of the Confederacy, Reconstruction, and accountability for those who had taken up arms against the Union. It did not end with everyone sitting around a table and agreeing to disagree.
The lesson from history isn’t that wars should end through vague compromises that leave the underlying issues unresolved. Quite often, the lesson is the exact opposite: unresolved conflicts tend to come back, usually bigger and bloodier than before.
JD Vance:
If you go back to WW2 or every major conflict in human history, they all ended with some kind of negotiation.