Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from wich dictators emerge; shoot one, and there’ll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland? In fifty years’, thirty years’ ten years’ time the world will be very nearly back on its old course. History always has a great weight of inertia.

Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies