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Feb. 8, 2024
Future Security Senior Policy Analyst David Sterman's work on defining endless war was cited in an article in the Boston Globe arguing that the war in Ukraine should not be viewed as an endless war:
In 2021, David Sterman, a senior policy analyst at the think tank New America, examined the concept in a report entitled “Defining Endless Wars.” “Endlessness emerges,” Sterman wrote, “when a belligerent adopts objectives it lacks the capability to achieve and at the same time is not at risk of being defeated.” Two key aspects of a nation mired in endless war, he found, are “unclear or unstable objectives” and the understanding that any consequences for losing the war would be minimal. That doesn’t describe Ukraine’s war, which is for its very survival. Putin has repeatedly said that he doesn’t believe a Ukrainian state should exist. As for its aims, President Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders have compiled a 10-point peace plan that they’ve been citing for well over a year now. Ukraine fights, as the special-operations soldier in Kherson told me, in the pursuit of peace.
Read the full article here.