If Syria was a preview, settle in. That started in 2011 and still hasn’t sorted itself out. Ukraine might take less time since it’s a bigger country in a simpler environment but with higher contagion risks. I’ll guess 5y minimum.
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At some level I think the rest of the world kinda treats the Middle East as a special case. You expect it to be a permanent mess as it has been for 3000 years. Wars elsewhere feel more exceptional and riskier for the world at large somehow.
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Afghanistan: 20 years, Iraq: 7y. Syria: 11y. Note that none of these is actually over. They’ve just reached endemic-but-contained-meltdown state. Wars these days take long to stabilize. Peace isn’t even the goal. Stable Hobbesian endgames are.
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Maybe this is how the Westphalian state ends. As a slow dissolution into stable conflict with half ass endless peace processes. Starting in margins, moving to civilizational cores.
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Everyone is hoping for this war to go just go away after 6 months. And I suspect that’s what will happen. It will recede from headlines. The period a conflict spends in western headlines is merely a phase with known dynamics.
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I think there has been exactly such a loss of willpower. Geriatric societies around the world just want to retire in prosperous peace, not fight wars of destitution.
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Replying to @vgr
If the breakdowns aren't contained, that seems plausible. I'm hopeful that there can be a resolution in Ukraine, and even in Syria, but I worry that you're right, and this is a symptom of a loss of willpower to maintain the international order, rather than a strategic retreat.
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“a permanent mess as it has been for 3000 years” don’t even know where to start explaining how wrong this sentence is.
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Are you going to believe for very long that middle east has been "a mess" for three thousand years if you stop to ask yourself if that is literally true? Are you going to remember wars in Africa now that I mention them?



