And the Clocks Were Striking Thirteen: The Termination of War

In: Policy sciences: integrating knowledge and practice to advance human dignity ; the journal of the Society of Policy Scientists, Band 7, Heft 2, S. 225-243

Abstract

While the causes & conduct of wars have attracted a great deal of attention, their termination has largely been ignored. War initiation often takes place without clear definition of war objectives, as a product of bureaucratic decision-making patterns. This allows military officers to conduct the war according to purely military criteria, seeking total defeat of the enemy. Peace planning in fact should begin at the start of a war or before. A key problem lies in the inapplicability of conventional warfare concepts to nuclear warfare, which takes place on a radically different time scale. Nuclear war might easily disrupt communications to the point where those leaders with authority to end war had no control over their own forces. Peace planning will require considerable research, especially into the motives & objectives of potential opponents. Modified HA.