It is easier to make war than peace.

The line contrasts the relative simplicity of initiating conflict with the far greater difficulty of ending it well. Declaring war can be a single political decision backed by mobilization and rhetoric; making peace requires reconciling interests, addressing grievances, rebuilding trust, and creating enforceable arrangements that prevent renewed violence. Attributed to Georges Clemenceau—France’s hard‑driving wartime premier and a central figure at the Paris Peace Conference—the sentiment fits the post–World War I reality that negotiating settlements and stabilizing Europe proved more complex than waging the war itself. The aphorism also warns that leaders may underestimate the long, intricate work of peacebuilding compared with the dramatic, decisive act of going to war.