You can win a war and lose the peace (Afghanistan) or lose a war and win the peace (Vietnam), making the question of how to consolidate military advantage into a durable peace settlement the central strategic problem rather than battlefield dominance

factualpending

Speaker

Stephen Kotkin

Evidence Quote

You can win the war and lose the peace. We just did this in Afghanistan. And you can also lose the war and win the peace. We did that in Vietnam.

Source

Stephen Kotkin: Russia’s Murky Future | Foreign Affairs InterviewForeign Affairs
Created: 8/12/2026, 10:22:55 PM

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