People say "war solves nothing", and in a sense, they are right. Wars have never prevented new wars and cannot prevent terrorism. Taking too long a historical perspective dampens solutions because current measures have very little impact on remote events. The war on the Taliban won't affect German terrorists a hundred years from now. Nothing would. In the long run, there are no solutions.

War has failed to produce lasting peace, but so has any peace treaty ever signed. France and Germany fought some time after signing a peace treaty, and signed a peace treaty after fighting. War solves nothing, and peace also solves nothing. In the long run, nothing solves anything.

But, within reasonably short time frames, wars are remarkably effective. Germany and Japan were stopped by war, and so were the Arabs on multiple occasions. The Israeli war on Palestinian terrorism stopped the two Intifadas.

Peace, on other hand, changes nothing but only formalizes the facts established by war. After the Germans were utterly defeated, peace ensued regardless of whether a peace treaty had been signed. After Israel defeated Syria, there was peace even without a peace treaty.

War changes facts, and "peace" is really only a name for the resulting change.