ARTICLE

From Treaties to Tweets: The (In)Formality of

War Termination

Laurie R. Blank** & Daphne

´

Richemond-Barak*

“Tell me how this ends.” — General David Petraeus on Iraq, 2003.

1

Rick Atkinson, Iraq Will Be Petraeus’s Knot to Untie, W

ASH. POST (Jan. 7, 2007), https://perma.

logical

guity

from peace settlements to informal unilateral declarations announcing the end of

war—from treaties to tweets—has contributed to conflicts simmering with varying

degrees of intensity. Building on international relations literature and nascent, but

mostly law-of-war focused international legal scholarship, we analyze the

ingly

tion

partners and a U.S.-backed Afghan government and its forces. The troops

* Assistant Professor, Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy; Academic Head,

International Program in Government (RRIS); Senior Researcher, International Institute for Counter-

Terrorism, Reichman University; Adjunct Scholar, Modern War Institute (West Point); Senior Fellow,

Lieber Institute of Law and Land Warfare (West Point). The authors would like to thank the

International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and the participants of the Inaugural Meeting of the End of

War Project held during the 19th World Summit on Counter-Terrorism.

** Clinical Professor of Law and Director, International Humanitarian Law Clinic, Emory

Blank.

1.

went home amidst chaos, including a suicide bombing, tragic views of Kabul’s

airport, and the Taliban once again assuming power. U.S. President Biden

announced the end of the war but insisted on his country’s “over-the-horizon”

capabilities to strike al Qaeda or other non-state groups and militants even

with-

out

an end to conflict has not fully taken place: the retreat of international forces from

the theater of hostilities.

maintaining a foreign military (rather than an invited or U.N.-authorized

peace-

keeper

prolonged the state of war.

The circumstances of how the wars in Afghanistan and Syria have, might, or

have not come to an end, highlight a growing phenomenon: wars that wind down

but do not formally end, leaving behind a mixed bag of war and peace elements

for often lengthy periods of time, often punctuated by spats of violence. As a

peace have become blurred, setting the stage for never-ending wars (also known

as forever wars), as violence peters out, recurs, and wanes again, with no firm

con-

clusion

It took two decades to bring the post-9/11 conflict in Afghanistan

to an uncertain end. The United States is still fighting al Qaeda and its offshoots in

multiple locations, even if at a lower intensity. Low-level conflicts flare up and

simmer down again, such as the longstanding dispute between Armenia and

in February 2022.

International law and international relations scholars have sought to explain

why never-ending wars are so pervasive today. Theoretical explanations have

been scattered, ranging from the erosion of sovereignty, an expanding law of war,

technological advances, a strategic equilibrium that favors war over peace, and

of the traditional formality associated with war termination has contributed

to the indeterminacy regarding the end of war, suggesting that re-infusing some

formality into war termination could help to end prolonged, often low-threshold

conflicts that blur the boundaries between war and peace and weaken

tional

From a normative perspective, underscoring the importance of preserving the

exceptional character of war is essential, as is a level of predictability regarding

applicable legal frameworks and obligations. Norms, or the absence thereof,

greater formality may take a variety of forms, recognizing that neither the law of

war nor increased formality can be the magic elixir that ends wars and resolves

conflicts.

Adversaries will continue fighting as long as making peace does not appear

strategically more advantageous than waging war. For certain states, perhaps as a

function of their military and strategic culture, managing low-intensity warfare is

easier than managing peace. Still, re-introducing some formality in war

termina-

tion

International law, however, has been less forthcoming in its examination of

the end of conflict than international law and just war philosophers, making

this cross-fertilization especially welcome. International law provides little

guidance on how conflicts end; indeed, it is not even clear which branch of

ends up as the default for filling the gap. Further elucidation of the rules

gov-

erning

be helpful because “clarity and predictability require that the end of a conflict

In addition, the end of a state’s participation

in a conflict has significant legal implications.

Part I presents the growing need to bring wars to an end in the contemporary

context and the limited tools available to international law to do so. Part II

searches for the roots of formality in history and law and analyzes the reasons

behind its gradual erosion. Finally, Part III advocates for a return to formality and

Azerbaijan, have run alternately cold and hot for decades, interspersed with

ceasefires and negotiated settlements. These conflicts are marked by separate

periods of war and peace. For example, prior to the 2020 and 2023 rounds of

fighting – and end of the conflict – in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azeri-Armenian

conflict had been “frozen” for more than a decade,

and even periodic outbreaks

of violence since then manifested clear beginnings and endings.

The war in

In contrast, contemporary conflicts with non-state actors such as ISIS, al

Qaeda, and other similar

iden-

tifiable

end to the conflict.

prevent, or at least minimize the occurrence of, never-ending wars should be a

key concern of international law, not only to secure even the most tenuous peace

but also to enhance the protection of civilians.

Scholars in both international relations and international law have taken notice

follow the same patterns when it comes to termination. Yet the question of how

wars end – and the comparison between international armed conflicts and

non-

international

armed conflicts – has featured more prominently in international

relations scholarship than in international law. This imbalance is unsurprising

given the lack of attention international law devotes to determining the end of

conflict and to the

law applicable to it.

Explanations for the rise of

may tend to perpetuate conflict because negotiation would amount to betraying

the cause for which they fight.

Even when negotiation is attempted, the priority

often lies in ending the violence rather than in mending societal wounds, leaving

the seeds of future conflict in place.

Similarly, the security dilemma sometimes

fosters identity-based conflicts. For example, in newly independent states within

former empires, the presence of ethnic group members within the state of an

perception that certain uses of force do not constitute war per se.

These interpre-

tations

sue

unfettered military entanglements.

Third, in conflict with terrorist groups, which typically qualify as non-interna-

tional

and ephemeral.

Although in other types of conflicts, an opposing side’s unwill-

ingness

innate compulsion to act – for example, it may be driven to engage in terrorist

attacks to maintain support, to shore up its organizational integrity, or even to

ter

such that determining if, let alone when, they have been defeated is exceedingly

difficult:

the reluctance to negotiate with terrorists has made military victory once again

relevant,

as the unilateral nature of war termination today reinforces.

answering this question. One was the idea of a “tipping point” that would mark

the end of the conflict with al Qaeda, the time when “so many of the leaders and

group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United

States.”

The other tracks more closely with the notion of military victory, based

on the stated goal of “degrad[ing] and destroy[ing] the operational capacity and

supporting networks of terrorist organizations to the extent that they will have

been effectively destroyed and will no longer be able to attempt or launch a

stra-

tegic

his later tweets to the same effect, are emblematic of a growing and larger trend.

cause.

2024] FROM TREATIES TO TWEETS 347

better chances of preserving peace: although 31% of civil wars ending in stale-

mate

renewed violence.

Formal agreements also enable the parties to address justice and accountability as

the war comes to an end.

negotiated settlements offer the greatest hope for long-lasting peace when they

through legal means might have been temporal limitations for wars waged in

self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.

However, the

international law of self-defense does not include any guidance regarding the

temporal scope of the self-defense justification once triggered. A return to

ity,

to external actors, such as neutral parties or international bodies like the

World Bank, that the fighting has ceased.

Formal mechanisms have the advantage of clarifying the legal regime applica-

ble

at a given time, even if it may take time for reality to fully align. Thus,

national

organizations, states, tribunals, commissions of inquiry, and other

entities will look to legal and factual indicators regarding the end of conflict as

useful markers to determine the nature of the situation. As one important

Although the United States and coalition military presence continued for many

years, the occupation (and, as a result, the application of the law of belligerent

occupation) formally ended, and the continued U.S. military operations became

part of the non-international armed conflict that arose in its aftermath. Similarly,

nality

between war and peace,

the government and smaller armed groups.

enemy, deemed illegitimate and unworthy of such honors. Both of these results can