'Hundreds of thousands of more people will die' - theorist on how war in Ukraine might end

Record ID: 1693025

  • Title: 'Hundreds of thousands of more people will die' - theorist on how war in Ukraine might end
  • Date: 13th October 2022
  • Summary: ATLANTA, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 13, 2022) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) EMORY UNIVERSITY, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, “HOW WARS END” AUTHOR, DR. DAN REITER, SAYING: “The main reason democracies win the wars that they fight is that they only start wars when they are very confident that they will win. So Ukraine did not start this war. They were forced to fight, which means that they aren’t benefiting from this primary advantage. However, the reverse side I found is that dictatorships sometimes fight wars they go on to lose. And that is certainly, we see those dynamics with Russia, that elements of the dictatorship, of the regime, have probably caused Putin to exaggerate his likelihood of victory, because he was surrounded by political 'yes' men and toadies rather than reliable professionals.” MOSCOW, RUSSIA (SEPTEMBER 30, 2022) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MOSCOW ATLANTA, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 13, 2022) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) EMORY UNIVERSITY, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, “HOW WARS END” AUTHOR, DR. DAN REITER, SAYING: “My view is that sometimes losing countries do engage in desperate measures to try to turn things around. That's the bad news. However, when they do so, it's usually wrapped around a plan to achieve victory, like they're doing it and there's some sort of rationale as to why this desperate move, why might help them win.” KYIV, UKRAINE (OCTOBER 11, 2022) (REUTERS) BUILDING WITH SHATTERED WINDOWS MAN FIXING WINDOW SHATTERED WINDOWS ATLANTA, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 13, 2022) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) EMORY UNIVERSITY, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, AUTHOR OF “HOW WARS END,” DR. DAN REITER, SAYING: “What is also clear is that the use of nuclear weapons would cause a tremendous international backlash against Putin. Now, there are some people who say that Putin doesn't care, but it is important to recognize that in the past, nuclear-armed dictators who were losing wars did decide not to use their nuclear weapons. So, the Soviet Union and Afghanistan in the 1980s, China against, in its wars against Vietnam in the late 1970s and early 1980s. So, Putin does care, at least to some degree. This is our speculation about possible backlash.” LYMAN, UKRAINE (OCTOBER 11, 2022) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF CROSSES AND PLAQUES WITH NAMES
  • Embargoed: 27th October 2022 17:33
  • Keywords: Russia Ukraine nuclear peace termination war
  • Location: VARIOUS
  • City: VARIOUS
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,United States
  • Reuters ID: LVA004205313102022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: CONTAINS GRAPHIC FOOTAGE
    Nearly 8 months have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year on February 24th. While Russian forces have failed to capture much of the country, fighting persists, and the death toll continues to mount.
    This week Russia launched more than 112 missile strikes against Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s top prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, killing 17 and injuring 93.
    Reuters spoke with two war theorists about how and when this war might end.
    “There are some other wars that last a long time, because for particular kind of regimes, losing a war or even a moderate settlement is as well as bad as a total defeat. And in those cases, and those kinds of wars, leaders and regimes fight on as long as they can to pull some miracle out of the head, um, the hat, and score a victory sufficient to keep them in office and protect them," explained Hein Goemans, a political scientist professor at the University of Rochester.
    Goemans believes peace will not come soon: “People have asked me, what about this war then? And they expect me to come with some magical solution and say this is the thing that needs to be solved. But there isn’t one. In this case, there are commitment problems from Putin. There are commitment problems on the West’s side. There's domestic politics which leads [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin to gamble for resurrection, all of which point in the direction of this war will go on for another year or two years. And what I'm telling you and it's, it's terrible, is that hundreds of thousands of more people will die.”
    Dan Reiters, political science professor at Emory University and author of “How Wars End”, has conducted research showing that while democracies more often than not win the wars they fight, “dictatorships sometimes fight wars they go on to lose.”
    “We see those dynamics with Russia, that elements of the dictatorship, of the regime, have probably caused Putin to exaggerate his likelihood of victory, because he was surrounded by political yes men and toadies rather than reliable professionals,” he said, adding, "sometimes losing countries do engage in desperate measures to try to turn things around.”
    A nuclear attack could be one such desperate measure. However, Reiters believes this is unlikely.
    “What is also clear is that the use of nuclear weapons would cause a tremendous international backlash against Putin. Now, there are some people who say that Putin doesn't care, but it is important to recognize that in the past, nuclear armed dictators who were losing wars did decide not to use their nuclear weapons. So, the Soviet Union and Afghanistan in the 1980s, China against, in its wars against Vietnam in the late 1970s and early 1980s. So, Putin does care, at least to some degree.”
    (Production: Christine Kiernan)
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