However, wars do come to an end, often with one side making concessions in exchange for peace. And over the course of the Ukraine war, influential voices in the West – be it those of the late Henry Kissinger, former President Donald Trump or high-ranking NATO official Stian Jenssen, to name a few – have raised the prospect of Ukraine having to cede land to Russia in exchange for peace.
As an expert on Western military interventions in transnational ethnic conflicts, I have seen how well-intentioned peace agreements offered to the perceived aggressor can inadvertently plant the seeds for renewed conflict. This is because such agreements can deliver in peace what the aggressor pursues in war: territory.
Rather than resolve the root cause of conflicts, this can reward revanchism – that is, a state’s policy to reclaim territory it once dominated – and embolden an aggressor to use war to achieve its aim. This is especially true when the West rewards aggression with generous peace agreements.
Take the former Yugoslavia.
It has been more than 20 years since the end of the Yugoslav wars, a series of conflicts that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia. During these wars, Serbia sought to unify large swaths of territories populated by Serbs and non-Serbs into a “Greater Serbia.”
However, wars do come to an end, often with one side making concessions in exchange for peace. And over the course of the Ukraine war, influential voices in the West – be it those of the late Henry Kissinger, former President Donald Trump or high-ranking NATO official Stian Jenssen, to name a few – have raised the prospect of Ukraine having to cede land to Russia in exchange for peace.
As an expert on Western military interventions in transnational ethnic conflicts, I have seen how well-intentioned peace agreements offered to the perceived aggressor can inadvertently plant the seeds for renewed conflict. This is because such agreements can deliver in peace what the aggressor pursues in war: territory.
Rather than resolve the root cause of conflicts, this can reward revanchism – that is, a state’s policy to reclaim territory it once dominated – and embolden an aggressor to use war to achieve its aim. This is especially true when the West rewards aggression with generous peace agreements.
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