How can war be thought of in terms of a politically sustainable end? The aim of the project, funded by the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF) with €260,000, is to identify conditions for ending wars that could be significant for the prospects of the war in Ukraine. The project aims to constructively stimulate academic and public debates on ending wars.

The overarching key question of the project is: How do ideas of peace influence the path to ending the war? With the project, the participating researchers want to contribute to identifying conditions and options for action to de-escalate and contain violence, to work out potentials for conflict resolution and peacekeeping and also to contribute to shaping the future European peace and security order. The project systematizes relevant experiences of war termination, draws lessons from positive and negative examples and formulates requirements for sustainable peace.

The research project thinks war from the end, spells out the substance of agreements, overcomes the media antagonism of "just war" versus "populist pacifism" and expands the repertoire of options for action. The project thus builds a bridge between international law, political science, conflict research, security research and practitioners of international missions. The project is led by Prof. Dr. Andreas Heinemann-Grüder (CASSIS) in cooperation with the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI, Berlin). It will start in April 2024 and is scheduled to run for 30 months.