{"id":569252,"date":"2023-10-02T15:14:57","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T19:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=569252"},"modified":"2024-02-18T11:45:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T16:45:32","slug":"interpretation-of-information-ukraine-war-russia-569252","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/interpretation-of-information-ukraine-war-russia-569252\/","title":{"rendered":"The interpretation of information will determine Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hein Goemans<\/strong><\/a>,<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0a professor of\u00a0political science<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a0University of Rochester<\/a>\u00a0and the director of the\u00a0Peter D. Watson Center for Conflict and Cooperation<\/a>, argues in a coauthored opinion piece in The Economist<\/em><\/a> that the war in Ukraine won\u2019t end until Russian and Ukrainian expectations intersect.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe war in Ukraine, like any other, cannot end while the two sides have wildly different expectations about the likely outcome if both stay in the fight,\u201d write Goemans, an expert on war termination, and his coauthor, Branislav Slantchev,<\/a> a professor of political science at the University of California San Diego.<\/a><\/p>\n

The duo argues that warring is a process of learning and reassessing information\u2014about both the opponent\u2019s and one\u2019s own military capabilities, organizational strength, political will to fight, and the reliability of one\u2019s allies. \u201cPeople pay too much attention to what politicians say and too little to the most important sources of credible new information: observed behaviour and the battlefield itself,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n

Addressing Western allies directly, they contend that signaling commitment on one hand, while trying to manage expectations on the other, can be difficult. \u201cYet that is what Western leaders should be doing,\u201d they write. \u201cInstead of fairy tales about Ukraine winning in mere months, they should explain to their people why aid should be sustained, or increased, even though the war will not end soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goemans is the author of\u00a0War and Punishment: The Causes of War Termination and the First World Wa<\/em>r<\/a> (Princeton University Press, 2000) and coauthor of\u00a0Leaders and International Conflict<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Cambridge University Press, 2011).<\/p>\n