When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.

Yeoman's Fifth Law of History.  When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.

When nations start a war, they have a "war aim."  But that aim rarely determines when a war ends.  Wars are over when the party that is attacked decides that the war is over.

The Germans, during World War Two, thought that the war in the West was over when they knocked France out of the war, but the British did not believe that, so it did not end. In the East, the Germans thought advancing to the Volga meant victory over the USSR.  The Soviets, however, had no such concept so the war went on.  Conversely, the Imperial Russians in World War One gave up long before they were really defeated.  They just gave up.  Wars end when the party that was attacked decides that they are over.

This is about to be played out in spades.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and followed with the invasion of France in 1940, the war was supposed to end. The British, however, didn't agree, and by 1945 Germany was finished as a fascist power.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 Japan figured on. . .well figured on something. They didn't figure that by 1945 the Allies would end the Japanese Empire for eternity and two cities would lay in nuclear ruins.

When the South attempted to depart from the Union in 1860 and laid siege to Ft. Sumter, it didn't figure on Sherman marching across the South in 1865.

And when Hamas invaded Israel earlier this week, it didn't figure on an Israeli invasion of Gaza that would end Gaza as a Palestinian entity.

But that is likely to happen, replete with all the human tragedy that will accompany it.

Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, and the thousands resorting to invasion on the theory it achieves something are the blistering ignoramuses of history.  Later this week, the news will feature wailing Palestinian women lamenting the deaths of their loved ones, many of whom intellectually sided with the entity which committed horrors on their neighbors and who have no better solution than to follow the sword.  Many outside their support, and some who had not given it, and indeed most fit into this category, will be innocent victims of the death their political leaders invited to rain down upon them.

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Human beings seem incapable of learning this lesson. 

Some seem less capable of learning it than others.

Any ignoramus can start a war.  Wars end, when those who were hit first, decide to quit hitting back.  Almost as often as not, that last blow is struck by those hit first.