This is what Clausewitz meant by subordinating “war” to “policy,” for what freedom could come from total violence? It’s what Augustine sought by seeking to make wars “just.” And it’s what Sun Tzu, with uncharacteristic gentleness, acknowledged: that “while an angered man may again be happy, and a resentful man again be pleased, a state that has perished cannot be restored, nor can the dead be brought back to life.”
