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2 July 2024

The myth of negotiated peace

Lawrence Freedman

Those that demand Ukraine and its Western supporters work out what concessions will be offered to Russia to cut a deal to end the war, often claim that this will have to be done at some point because “wars always end with a negotiation”. Despite its regular repetition, and however the Russo-Ukraine War concludes, this claim is simply not true. Not all wars end with negotiations.

Some end with surrenders, as was the case with both Germany and Japan in 1945; regime change, as with Italy in 1943; or cease-fires, which might require some negotiation but leave the underlying dispute unresolved, as with Korea in 1953. Even when there are negotiations intended to end a war, they often fail.

The idea that war is essentially transactional and that there is a deal always there to be struck (a view which seems to infuse Donald Trump’s approach to international conflict) ignores the high stakes for which they are fought, which become even higher when lives have been lost in their pursuit. Compromises are best found before the fighting starts. Once a war has begun, compromises become much harder to identify let alone agree and confirm in treaty form. This will require intense bargaining over specific language in the full knowledge that any ambiguity will later be exploited.

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