I would look first at what is being announced and by whom. A peace is declared, yet the one who must consent says he has heard nothing of it, and the other has said nothing at all. I have written of weak republics that are irresolute and undecided, and that the course they may take depends more on necessity than choice. When you distrust the good faith of the one into whose hands your weakness obliges you to commit yourself, and you refuse the terms before you, waiting for better ones, you often find that the settlement is taken out of your hands altogether and concluded by another to his own satisfaction. So it is here: the terms of this peace are being settled by the party that holds the troops, while the party that needs them is left to learn of it from journalists.
As for the diesel, I would observe that when a quantity brought to market falls short of the effectual demand, a competition begins among buyers and the price rises above the natural price. This is why the price of necessaries is exorbitant during a blockade of a town. Your prices have stayed high since shipping through the strait was blocked. But the remedy of importing from the adversary is not a remedy of supply; it is a remedy of price, and it makes your market depend on the goodwill of the one you are fighting. I have seen a league of many strong powers broken by a single member making a separate treaty. The many who are united are strong only while they are united; the one who can divide them gains by peace what he lost by war.
I would caution you, finally, that prudent princes are content to have obtained a victory, for when they are not, their victory turns to defeat. False hopes, once they enter men's minds, cause them to overrun their goal and to miss the certain good on the chance of something better and uncertain. If you announce a peace you do not control, and buy your fuel from the enemy you are arming, you are not securing a good; you are staking what you have on a hope. And the hope is not yours to keep.
