You'd think that wouldn't be so. Looking at the meat grinder of history, you'd think that there's nothing harder. Seasons of calm are almost nonexistent for our combative species. Feuds and skirmishes lead to death and destruction, and it's been a mess. It seems, at times, like there's no way out.
Diplomats and teams of negotiators have wrestled mightily with that challenge, and still, we seem trapped by it.
For a particular type of galaxy-brain genius, though, it's as easy as pie. War and conflict are self-solving conundrums. Their resolution requires just one simple trick.
It's a trick that often eludes us, because we are not geniuses. Lesser diplomats and negotiators have wrangled and struggled to find the path for millennia. But for the consummate dealmaker who rests at the pinnacle of his game, for the peacemaker who can end wars by simply saying they're over, there's a secret sauce.
Here it is:
Give the more powerful side everything they want.
Simple as that. Conflict resolved.
Look to the conflict in Gaza, for example. Hamas is weak, and Israel is strong. Just give Israel everything it wants, and there you go. Conflict solved. Or the Ukraine war. Russia is larger and stronger than Ukraine, so the solution to that war is simple: give Russia everything it wants.
Or look to conflicts inside of nations. If a corporation wants to take something that belongs to a person or group of people, just ask yourself: which is more powerful? The corporation, of course, because it has more money. Why bother with courts and laws to keep the peace, when you can simply give the more powerful whatever they want?
But that's not just, you might complain. Perhaps. But justice is a fantasy, an unobtainable ideal. And law exists not to protect the useless, feeble and incompetent, but to enforce the will of the mighty.
It's the way of the world, as the stronger and more aggressive win, and the weaker and meeker submit or are destroyed. It's the survival of the fittest, a Darwinism of nations, pure and simple and real.
The Lion takes the Lion's Share, which as Aesop reminds us, is whatever the lion wants. If the lion wants all of it, the lion gets all of it.
For what could be more peaceful than a Big Cat asleep with a full belly?
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