Richard Iron CMG OBE is the president of the Victorian Branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. He has served in the British Army, was Defence Fellow at the University of Oxford and has worked for the UK's Chief of Defence Staff on strategic planning.

Damien Kingsbury is an emeritus professor with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University, Melbourne. He was the principle adviser to the Free Aceh Movement in the 2005 Helsinki Peace Talks and has advised a number of other armed non-state groups in conflict resolution. His is author or editor of more than two dozen books, most recently including Separatism and the State.

Introduction Section I: Why War? 1.The Causes of War-and their Consequences 2. A Typology of Wars and How They End 3. How You Fight a War Matters to How It Ends: A Real-World Contemporary Case Study-Iraq 2016 Section II: Case Studies 4. Libya's Mercenaries Crisis: 'I am here to protect the King of Kings' 5. Indonesia's war against East Timor: How it Ended 6. Ending the Sierra Leone War 7. Peace Processes in Aceh and Sri Lanka: A Comparative Assessment 8. How Wars End: The Case of Afghanistan 9. Some Reflections on the Pursuit of 'Peace' in Afghanistan: 'Never Send to Know for Whom the Wars End' Section III: Alternatives 10. Reflections on the Australian Experience: How Wars End 11. How Major-Power Wars End Section IX: Ways Forward 12.Negotiations to End all Wars 13. Negotiating Peace 14. Endless Wars, Perpetual Peacekeeping? 15. Conclusion