Ideological crusades cannot decisively win because ideas resist extermination

Evidence

It seems more likely, however, that even had the Spaniards snatched a victory at sea the final picture of Europe, when peace came, would not have been much different. … By its very nature the war between Spain and England was likely to be indecisive, and men being what they are even its object lesson proved to be in vain. Most of Europe had to fight another war, thirty years long, before deciding that crusades were a poor way of settling differences of opinion, and that two or more systems of ideas could live side by side without mortal danger to either. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 896

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the Thirty Years’ War ending and the modern Westphalian settlement — the same lesson the reader’s narrative may dramatize. — connects to: Defeating a great evil can merely disperse it into many smaller persistent ones — , A Year of World Stories, 10132; Intelligence and philosophy have justified extermination as well as equality — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 107; Ideological commitment requires willed moral blindness to human suffering (+3 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 896

Broader Connections

• Ideology disrupts predicted historical processes and enables revolutions #corroborates (0.55)