If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left.

如果不成功，你就彻底败了，因为如果和解不成，还有武力；可如果武力不成，就不可能再做和解了。

youdao

Failing that, doing it by force is nothing but piracy.

ECONOMIST: Finally, a new management team

But the new-found unity would crack if, diplomacy failing, the Americans turned to force.

ECONOMIST: Saddam defies the UN, again

But McCain wrote, it's a terrible failing for a president to call on military force and then not use enough to achieve the objective.

NPR: McCain's Foreign Policy Has Disparate Tones