How does a war end?
When a local historian in the Spanish town of Huéscar went back in the archives of the town government in 1981, he discovered that the town was at war – and had been for 172 years.
The town had declared war on Denmark-Norway, which in 1809 sided with France during the Napoleonic Wars. But when the war ended, the city forgot to sign a peace treaty.
Fortunately, the city government put an end to the war. The Danish ambassador was invited, and a parade was held which, among other things, featured Vikings with horned helmets.
Wars can end in many ways, but unfortunately not all wars end peacefully.
Conflicts often end after great human and material losses, says Kenneth Øhlenschlæger Buhl, military researcher at the Norwegian Defense Academy.
In this article he gives examples of how wars have been ended in recent times.
The war can stop when the victor is found
– The simplest form of ending a war can have is that one party is completely defeated and the country collapses, says Buhl.
This form of victory actually has its own term: «debellatio». A Latin word that means something like «defeat».
– People like to associate debellatio with wars of conquest, he says.
– An example was when North Vietnam, after the withdrawal of the Americans in 1975, overthrew the government in South Vietnam, which thus disappeared.
Perhaps the most well-known example is probably the end of World War II, when Hitler’s Third Reich ceased to exist, adds Buhl.
Instead, new states emerged after a few years of occupation: West Germany and East Germany. These two countries were brought together after the Cold War by East Germany becoming part of West Germany.
A well-known example is also the American Civil War, when the Confederate States of America, which consisted of the so-called southern states, cease to exist.
– Another example is the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. There it was an inner power, as in all he says.
A concrete goal
But not all conflicts last until some collapse, Buhl continues.
Other wars have very specific goals, and then peace appears when the goal is reached.
– An example is the Falklands War in 1982, between Argentina and Great Britain, says the military researcher.
– Argentina annexed the Falkland Islands. After which Britain recaptured the eye and the Argentine troops capitulated. Since Britain had no interest in continuing, the war stopped.
Armistice
A truce is a peace where the parties are still in conflict, says Buhl.
This applies, among other things, to South Korea and North Korea and Israel and Syria. Here, a state of war still exists between the parties, but without hostilities. At least not officially. Sometimes there is a breach of the truce, as when North Korea sank a South Korean warship in 2010.
However, the best thing is an official peace agreement, says Buhl.
– From a legal point of view, there is a big difference between a ceasefire and a peace agreement, he says.
– Ceasefire violations are not usually judged by the international community in the same way as violations of a peace agreement. If a peace is to last, it is best with an agreement.
“Harmful stagnation”
These examples are, of course, simplified, and there are always unique sociological and political reasons why a conflict stops, Buhl points out.
– Basically, the well-known Prussian strategist Clausewitz formulated an often used doctrine – that war is a continuation of politics by other means. They start to achieve a political goal and are judged based on whether the goal is achieved. It doesn’t have to be a conquest. It can also be a political agreement or a change of regime.
A war can also end if it comes to a stadium where the fronts are locked and both parties feel they have no opportunity to get anything out of a lasting conflict.
This is what Ole Wæver, who is a professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, tells us.
He talks about the concept of «mutually damaging deadlock», i.e. «mutually harmful standstill». It is difficult to get the parties to the negotiating table as long as they believe they can win.
A situation must therefore arise in which neither party has success – nor the opportunity to do so – and at the same time must bear the enormous expense and often the conflict.
– As long as one of the parties feels it is advantageous to let the conflict continue, it will do so, says Wæver.
– The problem is that the fortunes of war can turn. But if a peace agreement is to be concluded, both sides must come to the point where they no longer feel they can gain more by letting the war continue. The war must stagnate if the parties are to have an incentive to stop, he says.
Kenneth Øhlenschlæger Buhl adds that when a state assesses that the costs of continuing the war exceed the expected political benefit, it will be inclined to end the war. This applies even if a state wants to win in the long term, because a victory can simply be too expensive.
But what does it say about the war in Ukraine and the possibility of peace there? Unfortunately, it does not look good, say the researchers. You can read more about that in this article on videnskab.dk.
© Videnskab.dk. Translated by Lars Nygaard for forskning.no. Read the original case on videnskab.dk here.
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