Certainly, if one side soundly defeats another, you can get at least a few years or decades of peace or at least cease-fire. However, you must then build figurative bridges (a la the Marshall Plan) to avoid reesurgence of hostilities as soon as the losing side thinks it has a better shot (e.g., WW II following the sound defeat of Germany in WW I).

Further, a sound defeat isn't always needed. For example, the War of 1812 ended in a draw and we're no longer at war with England and haven't been for a while.

Even trying to come up with such a depressing generalization as what you propose is often frustrated by how unpredictable we humans can be...