How Long's A War?

On January 11, 2026, it was reported that the full-scale war in Ukraine had now lasted 1,418 days - matching the duration of the German-Soviet war on the eastern front that began with Hitler's invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941. It's worth adding that in less than 150 days time, therefore, the Ukrainian conflict will have lasted as long as the First World War (1,569 days). None of this will be any comfort to the long-suffering victims of this seemingly intractable struggle: why should they care about such a comparison, they just want the misery and destruction to stop? There is, however, an interesting point to be made in this respect, which is that the dates of wars tend to owe rather more to a neat convenience than real historical accuracy. For if we put big wars in their proper historical context, it seems clear that they have always been very difficult to end once begun (much harder than stopping them starting), and the difficulty grows the longer the fighting goes on. This has certainly been true in the modern era as the technology of warfare has become ever more destructive. In the case of the two world wars of the 20th century, both lasted well over 4 years (WW2 went on for over 6 years) and saw fighting in all parts of the globe. It's not very surprising, then, that both took a long time to stop, for the violence continued to unravel long after the armies had laid down their arms and the major battle fronts had gone silent. That's because long international wars are often complicated by other factors, such as simmering local grievances and bitter civil wars within combatant states, which simultaneously feed off and drive the wider conflict. Thus the German Freikorps (right-wing nationalist paramilitaries) went on fighting against their Communist opponents inside Germany after the country's defeat in 1918, even attempting a coup in 1920 against the government in Berlin (the Kapp putsch); they then took that fight to Latvia and Estonia to help the ethnic German population there resist the advances of the Soviet Red Army. Equally, in the Middle East the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in WW1 led to a brutal conflict between the Greeks and the Turks in the years 1919-1922 that featured vicious bouts of ethnic cleansing. The violence after WW2 was even more widespread, ranging from Communist and nationalist insurgencies in the Far East (essentially, anti-colonial struggles given new impetus by Japanese occupation during the war), to Ukrainian partisan warfare against the Soviets (which lasted into the 1950s), to extreme attacks on millions of displaced Chinese and European refugees, notably expelled minorities such as the despised German populations (Volksdeutsche) of post-war eastern Europe. As I say, none of this gives much comfort to those wanting an end to the Ukrainian war where, because so much blood has now been spent on both sides, attitudes inevitably have hardened. Defeat now could be existential for both regimes involved - certainly, the destruction of Ukraine's national and cultural identity if the Russians win, probably the fall of Putin and dramatic social unrest should Russia lose (having now tanked its economy and lost well over 1.5m soldiers for very little real gain [read my blog of October 17, 2025]). But wars, even long ones (maybe long ones in particular) can also end suddenly and unexpectedly. Who among the Allies in the spring of 1918, as the Germans mounted yet another massive offensive across the Western Front, could have predicted that by November the German forces would have totally collapsed. Likewise, no one at the end of 1944 would have believed that the war in Europe would end decisively just 4 months later, while in the Far East the Allied top brass gloomily expected the war against Japan to drag on into 1947. The bigger picture here, often hidden from the actors on the ground dealing with their daily challenges, is that national war machines, once they become overburdened and vulnerable, can very quickly collapse. Let's hope such an abrupt peace breaks out in Ukraine this year. Even if the fighting officially stops, though, even if some kind of compromise agreement is patched together, I'm afraid there's no guarantee that the violence will end there too.

Greek infantry advance during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22

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