Peace, the most difficult option.
I feel like this is the best summation of the story: war is never worth it, but peace isn't easy, so lazy and cowardly people will fan the flames and gamble on being among the survivors on the winning side rather than try for a real solution.
The ancient Spartans are a great example of this. Their entire culture can be understood quite easily once you realize that they were basically
allergic to non-military manual labor. They were constantly invading their neighbors and taking slaves because they'd genuinely rather starve to death or bleed out from a spear wound rather than feed themselves. Their reputation as fierce warriors was almost entirely undeserved, especially considering how their anti-intellectual bent meant that their naval capabilities were dwarfed by their neighbor and rival Athens (who ruled pretty much the entire Mediterranean and were so prolific that "ancient Greece" is basically synonymous with "ancient Athens") while Sparta's territory never really extended beyond what you could reach on foot from Sparta.
We don't have any significant records from them at all; the only reason they didn't completely disappear into the dustbin of history is because they were mythologized by a handful of Athenian writers, such as Plato, who fetishized their sub-standard living conditions. (The word "Spartan" to this day means "marked by simplicity, frugality, or avoidance of luxury and comfort".)
