George Orwell, in his novel1984, wrote, “the war is meant to be continuous; it is not meant to be won.” Though written in a work of a dystopian fiction, the quote represents the contemporary strategic environment. The current wars cannot be compared to the wars of the past, which would end in treaties, settlements of the territory or an evident victory of one side. Instead, they are stretched indefinitely and oscillate between violence and non-kinetic manoeuvres, which never lead to actual peace. These indefinite wars, termed as forever wars, are not about finding solutions to conflicts but about sustaining themselves, and structural antagonisms and political interests keep them alive.
Forever wars are not a hypothetical notion; they are being put into practice.
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