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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 2/99
Cutting Losses: Reflections On Appropriate Timing *
ICAR Working Paper 9
January 1996
Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution
at George Mason University
Introduction
by Kevin P. Clements, Ph.D., Director, ICAR
The field of conflict resolution has reached a point in its evolution where hunches and intuitive guesses are being transformed into testable theoretical propositions. Nowhere is this more important than in the debate about when conflicts are “ripe for resolution.”
The conventional wisdom is that early intervention is preferable to late intervention since conflicts are more tractable when there is cognitive flexibility, when the structural conditions are conducive to settlement and the issues are clear and unclouded, and when the protagonists have not lapsed into a malignant spiral of violent hostility. If this wisdom is correct, and there is much evidence that it is so, then conflict resolutionaries should direct most attention to the prevention of violent conflicts.
If conflict resolvers fail to prevent violence occurring, however, the question of when it is timely and appropriate for third parties (or the antagonists themselves) to initiate peace processes remains. This is a vital issue, since premature or tardy interventions may impede rather than advance positive peace processes.
Most recent work on this issue has focussed on the question of “conflict ripeness” or the perception of “ripe moments” for intervention. This concept refers to both moments in time and a convergence of a variety of personal, structural, substantive, and circumstantial factors. The challenge facing conflict analysis is what structural and personal factors are most likely to motivate antagonists (in particular, the leadership of hostile groups) to halt adversarial relationships and begin exploring negotiated solutions to their problems.
Most of the literature in this area suggests that antagonists in “normal” circumstances have an intuitive sense of what conflicts may yield positive results and what conflicts will generate high levels of risk, insecurity, and vulnerability. Once parties have made a decision for violence and coercion, however, these intuitive regulators disappear and they lose their ability to cost conflicts within common and agreed frameworks.
This paper is an important contribution to the debate about the circumstances likely to result in a restoration of realistic costing and a movement from antagonistic to conciliatory behavior. Mitchell provides a detailed analysis of Zartman’s and others’ pioneering work in this area and evaluates the Hurting Stalemate, Imminent Mutual Catastrophe, and Entrapment models as inducements to negotiated problem solving. He counterposes an Enticing Opportunity model to these “exhaustion” models and suggests that positive inducements to change may be as effective or more effective than anticipated costs as a motivator in changing violent behavior.
Mitchell is too astute to suggest that the Enticing Opportunity model is an alternative to the others so he suggests that each be used in combination with the other. He raises some fundamental questions about conflict dynamics and suggests that, having ascertained a ripe moment or moments for intervention, we are still left with the issue of determining what sort of intervention is the most likely to result in the restoration of just, collaborative relationships. This is a critical issue facing conflict intervenors: is our task to ameliorate, manage, resolve, or transform conflicts or is it a combination of all four? The Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution is pleased to publish this paper as an important step towards understanding the nature of impasse in violent conflicts and what might constitute an appropriate and useful response.
Fairfax, Virginia
January, 1996
Cutting Losses: Reflections on Appropriate Timing
This working paper is an effort to contribute to the debate about when conflicts are “ripe for resolution.” It explores some current efforts to explain when a peace process is likely to begin, starting from the frequent observation that parties in conflict are often reluctant to cut their losses and quit — or at least seek a negotiated settlement — even when the costs of the conflict are mounting and the parties’ goals seem more and more unattainable. How do such observations fit in with existing theories of ripeness and with questions about appropriate circumstances for bilateral or third party peace efforts?
At the present moment, it seems that the literature of international conflict resolution offers four basic answers to the question of what are appropriate conditions for de-escalation and commencing (or re-starting) a peace process. All of these, I would argue, share a number of basic features, even if the first noticeable factor they have in common is their ostensible diversity. Unfortunately, some of the suggested alternative views about a conflict’s “ripeness” present awkward conceptual problems. Hence, in this paper I want to sketch some ideas that might help to deal with some of the gaps and disjunctions in the four models of ripeness currently advanced as the framework for understanding when parties in conflict begin to consider seriously the possibility of a negotiated settlement — when, in William Zartmann’s terms, their leaders move from a “winning mentality to a conciliating mentality.” 1
Four Models of “Ripeness”
Over the last decade, the linked issues of when a peace process is likely to begin and when conflict resolution or amelioration processes are most likely to have a significant impact on the course of a protracted, deep rooted conflict seem to have produced a consensus around the utility of the concept of “ripeness.” Conflicts are held to be “ripe for resolution” only when the appropriate moment — or, more accurately, the appropriate set of circumstances — arrives. 2 A popularized version of this thesis is that, particularly in violent and protracted conflicts, this ripe moment occurs only when the adversaries jointly confront a costly impasse.
In actual fact, current literature seems to have produced four different versions (or models) of the “ripe moment” thesis, two of which arise from Zartman’s pioneering work and two from elsewhere. The four models might be characterized as:
- The Hurting Stalemate [HS] or “plateau” model, initially suggested by Zartman 3 and later developed by Stedman 4 and by Haass. 5
- The Imminent Mutual Catastrophe [IMC] or “precipice” model, again originating with Zartman.
- The Entrapment [ENT] model, pioneered by Edmead, 6 Teger 7 and others.
- The Enticing Opportunity [ENO] or “planets in conjunction” model, two versions of which are to be found originally in Mitchell 8 and in Crocker. 9
Full analyses of these four models can be found in the works referenced above, but a brief description of each is necessary in order to illuminate their differences and commonalities.
The “Hurting Stalemate” Model
It could justifiably be argued that separating the concept of a hurting stalemate (deadlock) from its associated idea of an imminent catastrophe (deadline) is unfairly distorting Zartmann’s original theory, in which the two ideas are intimately linked in producing circumstances making a conflict “ripe for resolution.” Clearly the two factors can work together to reinforce one another during any protracted conflict, and Zartman’s initial argument was that adversaries will be most likely to consider a negotiated solution to their conflict when they anticipate a long period of continually costly action, together with a low perceived probability of achieving their goals and a looming disaster that abruptly threatens to increase still further the costs of continuing present coercive strategies.
However, for the sake of clear understanding, it seems reasonable to treat the two models separately. This does enable us to raise the question of whether each set of circumstances can separately produce a ripe moment. Clearly, both circumstances will reinforce each other’s effects, but is the presence of both a long stalemate and an imminent disaster a necessary condition before adversaries consider negotiation? Whatever the answer to that question, I will present the models separately, at least for analytical purposes.
The core argument of the HS model is that the most likely circumstances in which adversaries will seek a negotiated solution or a resolution of their conflict are those in which no party can envision a successful outcome through continuing current strategies, nor an end to increasingly painful costs. In Zartman’s words, the mutual plateau must be “...perceived by both [parties] not as a momentary resting ground but...as a flat, unpleasant terrain stretching into the future, providing no later possibilities for decisive escalation or for graceful escape...”. 10
Two preliminary comments can be made about the original HS model and some of the later modifications offered by other writers. The first is that the model strongly suggests that extended pain is the only thing (or, at least, the most effective thing) that will make people learn about future costs, alternatives, face saving options, etc. It implies that leaders and their supporters learn and change their minds only through experiencing the pain of loss (fruitlessly expended resources) and damage. Perhaps the leaders of parties in conflict can go through no other learning experience that will make them change their minds and their policies, but, if so, this surely makes them unique. Most of what we know about how people in general learn indicates that there are other more effective means of teaching apart from inflicting pain on them. That is why we have (mostly) stopped beating school children. It may be the case that leaders learn through being in a stalemate that hurts, but this probably does not mean this is the only way, or even the best way, that they can learn about alternative ways of achieving their goals.
The second question raised by the HS model, given that it does accurately characterize some “ripe” moments, is whether it is the continuing cost or the absence of likely success that is the most persuasive element in affecting leaders’ decisions about continuing or quitting. In an early discussion of this conundrum, 11 I suggested that it might on occasion be the absence of the potential benefits of victory that had most effect, while at other times it might simply be the continuing costs (particularly opportunity costs.) Put slightly differently, it seems more than possible for very different types of stalemate to exist and to hurt differently. Contrast: (1) a stalemate of desperation, where both sides are exhausted and no victory is in sight; (2) a stalemate of attrition, where neither side is being significantly hurt but neither can destroy or neutralize the other so no “successful” end is in prospect; and (3) a stalemate of frustration, where adversaries have come to recognize that they cannot achieve a clear cut victory which gains all their goals, whatever their expenditure of effort and resources. Will all or none of these situations produce ripe moments?
The Imminent Mutual Catastrophe Model
If the HS model represents the “plateau” aspect of Zartman’s original scheme, the IMC model offers the reinforcement or the alternative of the “precipice” — a disaster that shortly threatens to overwhelm stalemated adversaries, or even adversaries that are not particularly stalemated. The implications of the IMC model tend to have been somewhat neglected in favor of the HS model, which fits in rather better with the dominant coercive paradigm of international conflict studies, but the IMC model does have some very interesting implications of its own.
Briefly, the argument underlying IMC is that parties in conflict will consider conditions ripe for de-escalation and conflict resolution only when they face an imminent major catastrophe of some sort. Note that successful de-escalation in this model depends on both parties facing undeniable disaster, a huge increase in costs, and/or a major drop in the perceived probability of success and victory through continuing the struggle. If only one side faces such a catastrophe, then the other will have no incentive to look for a settlement but can simply sit back, wait for its adversary to plunge over the precipice, and then move in to pick up the pieces.
One interesting question raised by the IMC model is what sorts of circumstances are likely to present imminent mutual catastrophes to parties in conflict. Presumably, one example would be the situation facing the Allied and Japanese leaders in 1945, prior to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. For the Allies, the prospect of invading Japan with its attendant losses must have appeared likely to produce a major catastrophe even if the result of the invasion produced final victory. For at least some of the Japanese leaders, the same Allied invasion might also have represented a similar catastrophe to be avoided and may thus have prompted the peace feelers put out from Tokyo even before August 1945.
In many other cases, a more likely set of circumstances will involve parties approaching different but roughly simultaneous disasters which present both sides with deadlines after which particular costs will increase geometrically. In the case of the Rhodesian peace process, for example, the advent of a Thatcher-led government in the U.K., willing to recognize a Muzerewa regime in Salisbury, presented a new and potentially costly set of circumstances to the Zimbabwean leaders, while the general African rejection of Muzerewa and the successful escalation of the guerrilla war at the same time presented a similar precipice to the white-dominated regime in Salisbury. Facing different but interlinked potential catastrophes, both sides began to consider a negotiated settlement.
This IMC model raises at least one implication also raised by its HS partner. Clearly, a key aspect of both models is that for circumstances to be ripe for a shift to a “conciliatory mentality,” decision makers on each side need to perceive independently that their own side is approaching some unavoidable catastrophe or that they are stuck in a costly situation with a low probability of success, even in the long term. Do the models, however, also imply that the circumstances will be even more propitious if both sets of decision makers also perceive the mutuality of their predicament? In other words, if both sets of decision makers perceive that not only they but their adversaries are facing an approaching disaster (or are stuck in a costly stalemate), this could increase the probability of a shift away from a “winning mentality.” Are the decision makers involved likely to anticipate that their rivals will now be in a more “reasonable” frame of mind through the latters’ consciousness of an approaching deadline or existing deadlock? Do approaching mutual disasters cancel out each others’ effects? Whatever the precise effects of such a perception of the mutuality of their problems, this point does emphasize the importance of perceptual variables in both HS and IMC models, a factor that becomes even more salient in the third “Entrapment” model.
The Entrapment Model
In many of its aspects, the entrapment model (ENT) can be seen as a direct rival to the HS model; the approaches seem initially to be mutually contradictory. The HS approach is very much in the “rational actor” tradition of formal decision making analysis which assumes that increasing costs and decreasing potential benefits from “victory” are factors which will help shift decision makers from continuing one set of strategies to considering another. By contrast, the ENT model argues that leaders become trapped into a continued pursuit of “victory,” even after costs seem (to an outsider) to have become unbearable. Underlying this model is an apparently irrational process by which “costs” become transformed into “investments” in a victory that cannot be given up for less than complete triumph. Hence, the more costs are incurred the more reasons exist for carrying on. In the ENT model the hurt itself, paradoxically, becomes a reason for continuing; the greater the hurt, the more the need to continue towards “victory” in order to justify both the psychological and political sacrifices already made. 12
In many ways, an entrapment approach is less irrational than it might seem. At one level, leaders often make, and themselves fall victim to, the argument that the extent of past sacrifices makes any alternative to complete victory unthinkable, as the sacrifices will then have been for nothing or for some worthless or unworthy compromise. At another level, parties in conflict often face the problem that the benefits of success are only garnered at the very end of the process, once “final victory” has been achieved. In one sense, engaging in a conflict is rather like building a bridge; the major costs are incurred well before any benefits accrue, and the latter only begin to be achieved once the whole edifice is constructed and complete. Finally, there often exists a complex relationship between future anticipated costs (the “hurt” in the HS model) and the costs already borne. In very costly conflicts, comparison between “What we have already suffered,” (past hurt) and “What we might have to suffer in future,” (marginal hurt) can make the latter appear relatively trivial and certainly bearable. In other words, the anticipated marginal costs of continuing might not be enough to turn leaders’ minds towards conciliating so long as their vision remains fixed on achieving the benefits which alone will justify the sunk costs. As Kenneth Boulding once remarked, “Rats and men come to love the things for which they have suffered!”
If an ENT model suggests that hurts and costs can become reasons for continuing rather than abandoning a coercive strategy, when in such a model does a ripe moment occur? I have argued elsewhere 13 that an entrapment approach suggests that leaders involved in a protracted conflict do, indeed, go through a number of decision making stages: the first is characterized by concentration on the achievement of potential rewards; the second by justification of expended resources via further commitments; the third by the increasing salience of the goals of damaging the adversary and minimizing overall losses; and the last by exhaustion of resources and search for a way out. In this particular framework, a key turning point is that between the third and fourth stages when some salient event or another trigger forces decision makers to make a major re-assessment of their situation so that their major objective changes from justifying past sacrifices or damaging the recalcitrant adversary to salvaging what can be salvaged of remaining resources by a significant reversal of policy. Psychologically, the turning point occurs when past losses are no longer regarded as investments in success, but become “bygones” in the classical economist’s sense, to be reluctantly abandoned; and when leaders’ thinking becomes dominated by the need to cut losses and minimize further costs, even if this means abandoning the promised, off-setting, but increasingly unlikely benefits of “victory.” Parties need to become “resource salvagers” rather than “reward seekers,” saving the most they can as rapidly as they can from a clearly failed policy which offers little hope of achieving the original benefits for which it was originally launched.
Two comments emphasizing some of the contrasts between this model and those discussed earlier are in order here. The first is that, unlike the HS and IMC models, an entrapment model leaves open the questions of:
- How leaders learn (perhaps by pain, or perhaps by rational thought and anticipation, or even by applying theories);
- What factors are likely to circumscribe leaders’ capacity to explore alternatives to continued coercion; and
- What is the possibility that conflict resolution processes are appropriate even at the height of the crisis or in the midst of the violent stage of a conflict cycle?
At present, all that those using the model will say is that some triggering event or happening will bring about a major re-evaluation of policy; that this may occur in circumstances other than those involving impasse or impending disaster; and that the latter conditions may serve to reinforce commitment to an existing policy.
It is clearly the case that in the Entrapment model outsiders can play a much more active role in bringing about “ripe” circumstances rather than simply waiting for them to occur. This is a point made very strongly by Jeff Rubin in his discussion of appropriate timing for de-escalation strategies in which he argues that both third parties and adversaries can and should create appropriate conditions and, hence, “ripe” moments. Rubin insists that the challenge “...is to create these favorable conditions, rather than wait for them to appear.” 14 Similarly, Chester Crocker has written, “The absence of ‘ripeness’ does not tell us to walk away and do nothing.” 15
At the very least, third parties can begin to assist by asking themselves such questions as:
- How might we (or others) best help the adversaries to anticipate likely future costs? 16
- How might we best help leaders to develop viable options?
- How might we best help to free leaders from constraints on their ability to search for alternative solutions? 17
- How might we (or others) best design a non-threatening and non-coercive process that will assist leaders in developing a conciliatory mentality and in moving towards a solution?
Whether or not third parties assist, “ripeness” in an ENT model seems to involve moving parties from a mentality in which hurts and sacrifices become reasons for continuing rather than quitting to one in which anticipated costs and diminishing resources dominate decision making and viable, less costly alternatives present themselves. In this last feature, an ENT model begins to resemble the last model currently available in the literature on conflict termination.
The Enticing Opportunity Model
In contrast to the three models discussed so far, the “Enticing Opportunity” model takes a more optimistic view of leaders in conflict, suggesting that a ripe moment can occur when leaders see a much better alternative way of achieving their goals than “slogging on” with the continuing and costly struggle. New options open up or are created which cost less and offer more gains more certainly than continued violence and mutual coercion. The emphasis is on new benefits rather than existing or anticipated costs, on rewards for adopting alternatives rather than on sacrifices that have to be compensated. 18
In many ways, the ENO model is probably the most diverse of the four, as it brings into consideration a wide variety of possible factors than can contribute to the creation of such an opportunity. Chester Crocker has referred verbally to this kind of propitious situation as being one of “the planets in conjunction,” and the idea of a number of key variables attaining the “right” condition or level is echoed in another frequent metaphor of a railway track, with all the points switched to an appropriate setting to enable a train to roar through to its destination.
Among factors mentioned by Crocker are the availability and increasing acceptability of some new sets of basic ideas, principles and concepts; the gradual blocking or disappearance of parties’ unilateral options; the existence of useful (perhaps even “indispensable”) channels through which adversaries can communicate; the existence of some arenas in which “informality can thrive” and, ultimately, new principles can be converted into precise agreements. Crocker emphasizes that third party peacemakers can play major roles in the creation of such propitious circumstances and ripe moments. 19 Others have echoed Crocker, suggesting that this combination of the right “set of circumstances” includes the advent of new leadership not as committed to the goals or methods of their predecessors; a change of goals or level of commitment on the part of the adversaries’ patrons; the availability of new resources from which to construct an innovative solution (“resources” ranging from material goods to creative ideas); and a change of priorities within elites in one or both adversaries.
In my own analysis of the ending of the first Sudanese Civil War, I proposed a number of factors that seemed in that case to have contributed to an appropriate set of circumstances that encouraged a settlement. These fell into three major categories — inter-party, intra-party, and extra-system — and included such factors as the relevant terms “on offer” from the adversaries, the level of cohesion within each party, and the vulnerability of external patrons to pressure either from one of the adversaries or from third parties. 20
For an opportunity to be enticing enough to persuade adversaries to think of moving towards a negotiated settlement, however, the prime determining condition appears to be that leaders and followers on both sides should be able to see major rewards on offer through the pursuit of some negotiated solution. For leaders, one of these rewards must usually be an anticipation that they will continue to play some future leadership role, and what seems to have enticed a number of adversaries into a negotiated peace process in a variety of conflicts is a shared (if mutually contradictory) belief that, through a process involving negotiations followed by elections, they would win more cheaply the political power they were unable to obtain by coercive means. In the case of Zimbabwe, for example, the Lancaster House settlement was clearly facilitated by the belief of all three African leaders, Muzerewa, Mugabe, and Nkomo, that they would win the proposed elections that were part of the settlement. In that case, the two actual losers were prepared to accept the election results rather than return to a “winning” and coercive mentality. In the case of Angola, however, the dashing of Jonas Savimbi’s expectations of a victory over the MPLA through elections led to the former’s abandonment of a negotiation process and a damaging return to the battlefield.
In other cases, enticement has taken the form of an expectation of a share in the political power that was the source of the original coercion and conflict. In South Africa, for example, a pre-election understanding for sharing national political influence and office between ANC, Inkatha, and the Nationalist Party was enticing enough to ensure that the peace process in that country continued through to (tempered) majority rule. In other cases, such as in the Basque country in Spain, the sharing of political power has been the result of negotiations establishing a devolved or decentralized political system, in which there can be a variety of “winners,” all achieving some rewards for abandoning means of coercion and goals of “winning.” At the very start of both types of process, a key factor seems to be that all parties can perceive new possibilities of gain for themselves, a factor of particular importance for those who might lose, and lose all, through any settlement process.
Clearly, the ENO model is the most optimistic of the four presented here in that it implies a belief that leaders can “change their minds” and think creatively in the midst of a conflict about alternatives to continued coercion. The problem is that all three previous models, and especially the ENT model, suggest that creative thinking and innovative actions are never easy at any stage of a conflict and are particularly difficult at the height of a protracted and costly confrontation. The ENT model, particularly, suggests that the psychological and political burdens of past damage sustained, commitments made, sacrifices endured and hostilities engendered will make it difficult, if not impossible, for leaders and especially followers to make the mental adjustments necessary to begin de-escalation. However, enough cases of negotiated settlements exist to indicate that obstacles are overcome on a fairly regular basis; it may therefore be worthwhile to continue our examination of appropriate circumstances.
Four Models, Two Levels of Analysis
At first sight, it is diversity rather than commonality which characterizes the four models presented above. However, in this section I will argue that we confront a difference of emphasis rather than four completely diverse approaches. The first important point to recognize about the four models under review is that all of them, either explicitly as in the case of the ENO model or implicitly in the case of the other three, operate simultaneously at two linked levels of analysis.
Thus it is necessary to analyze the start of any de-escalation process from two these perspectives, systemic and decision making:
A. Systemic Perspectives
Systemic explanations of “ripeness” and the start of de-escalation or conflict resolution processes are those which examine the overall conflict system (parties, their condition, and relationship) and seek to answer the question of whether “structural conditions” are appropriate for a successful de-escalatory initiative, and, more broadly, what such appropriate conditions might be.
Generally speaking, the arguments about appropriate systemic conditions themselves fall into two classes. First are those which assume that conflicts proceed somewhat automatically through “stages” or “cycles,” and that no successful de-escalatory initiative is possible during certain stages, e.g., in the period immediately following a conflict’s emergence and its escalation into violent coercion, but that the probability of success increases at later stages in the pattern of inter-action. Zartman, for example, 21 has applied such an approach to a number of crises in African conflicts. Second are those which seek to analyze the appropriate mix of conditions that may occur at any stage during a conflict, particularly a protracted and cyclical one like a civil war, and which arise from the changing relationships between the adversaries and external conditions in the environment in which their conflict is embedded.
Theories tying ripeness to the stages of conflict implicitly limit the parties’ (and third party intervenors’) freedom of action. Some analysts have gone so far as to imply that there really are only two stages in a conflict where mutual de-escalation can occur, or where third parties can intervene with any chance of success: (1) at a stage before the conflict has reached the point of mutual violence and coercion so that parties have not yet fully committed themselves to such an option; and (2) when both parties come to recognize that they face a costly and potentially long drawn out stalemate. Until this latter stage is reached, mutual coercion (hence the conflict) will continue, because the marginal costs of continuing are bearable and the hope of victory remains alive.
In this framework, a typical model of conflict dynamics assumes a progression through a number of stages, which either present or do not present opportunities for conflict management (CM) or for conflict resolution (CR):
Leaving aside for the moment the whole vexed issue of whether it is ever possible to represent the complex dynamics of protracted conflicts in such a simple manner, Figure 1 illustrates the core argument of the HS model, namely that the most likely circumstances in which adversaries will seek a negotiated solution or a resolution of their conflict are those in which no party can envision a successful outcome through continuing current strategies, nor an end to increasingly unbearable costs.
On the other hand, while there might be some benefit in applying such a framework to brief cycles within protracted conflicts, I have the feeling that conflict processes are more complex and “messy” than a simple, stage by stage approach implies. Hence, such a “meta-model” might not be at all helpful for protracted conflicts that run and re-run through periods of escalation, dormancy, suppression, revival, failed negotiation, re-emergence of prolonged mutual coercion, etc. This implies that the second approach, which does not tie ripeness to particular stages of conflict, may be more appropriate.
The main tasks remain of identifying the conditions that make for probable success in beginning a peace process and determining whether certain conditions are necessary or sufficient or, more awkwardly, whether there might be a whole range of differing “sufficient” conditions. In the case of the HS and IMC models, these systemic conditions are clearly, if broadly, spelled out. The argument about “appropriateness” is couched in terms of the costs being experienced by the adversaries and their observable failure to gain any significant military or political advantages from existing strategies. In the case of the ENT model, the systemic conditions are implied, and the model focuses on such factors as sudden increases in the levels of damage being sustained or the defection of allies — events that act as triggers for a reconsideration of existing strategies by decision makers.
This again points up differences among the models. While the HS model suggests that escalation is linked to a steady drain of resources for no apparent advantage, both IMC and ENT models point to sudden and significant changes in costs being borne. In the IMC case an approaching and anticipated catastrophe acts as a trigger. In some ENT cases the triggering event can be an already-experienced catastrophe that causes a major re-evaluation of costs, benefits, and likelihoods. For the ENO model, structural conditions can involve the relative balance of advantage between the adversaries, the level of support for the current leadership within the adversaries, and changes in the level of external support around the adversaries.
However, while all four models emphasize slightly different systemic conditions as producing “ripeness”, all insist equally that, for such structural variables to have any effect on behavior, they first have to bring about a change in the “mentality” of the decision makers themselves. This constitutes the second analytical level implied in all four cases.
B. Decision Making Perspectives
At this second analytical level, explanations about “ripeness” and starting de-escalation processes are sought among the decision makers themselves, rather than in the structure of the overall conflict system. Observers seek to understand the “why” of de-escalation by looking at the situation from the viewpoint of the leaders of parties in conflict and either asking why they decided to quit or, more broadly, what phenomena caused them to contemplate a major change of strategy from pursuing “victory” to seeking a negotiated or mediated settlement. I have suggested in another paper 22 that “normal” decision making within parties in conflict can be understood by an incrementalist model with major goals and assumptions about appropriate policies unquestioned. It takes a major “jolt” of some description to force decision makers to rethink both goals and strategies. 23
It is noteworthy that writers using all four of the models outlined above acknowledge that whatever the apparent imperatives of the structural conditions facing leaders in conflict it is ultimately the interpretation of these conditions by those leaders that determines whether the time is, indeed, ripe. In the ENT model, for example, it is clear that perceptions and evaluations of the changing nature of costs and damage — from “sacrifices to be redeemed” to “irrecoverable losses” — determine the point at which leaders will contemplate cutting losses and seeking a negotiated settlement. In the ENO model, it is the appearance of an opportunity perceived as sufficiently enticing that provides, in the eyes of key decision makers, the ripe moment. In both HS and IMC models, the perceived probability of continued deadlock and continuing heavy costs brings to leaders’ minds the possibility of a less damaging course of future action.
In all of these cases, key elements involve both the leaders’ perceptions of structural conditions and the decision making processes that determine whether a structurally ripe moment will be seized. These processes introduce uncertain elements into the conception of a “ripe moment,” so that a simple enumeration of structural conditions alone cannot be taken as sufficient indication of a ripe moment. Structural conditions, perceptions and decisions all interact in complex and non-linear ways; otherwise, some of the early analytical work linking such variables as casualty levels and the ending of wars might have produced more reliable results. 24
It seems clear that such thinking underlies Marieke Kleibor’s suggestions that more attention should be paid to “the subjective dimensions of ripeness,” and that it might be better to talk about the willingness of the main parties, internal factions and leaders themselves to search for a peaceful solution. 25 Kleibor’s approach neatly deals with the two levels implied in our four models by suggesting that the key question might be what structural or systemic conditions influence willingness and, more practically, what might be done by third parties and the adversaries themselves to bring about conditions of what she calls “complete willingness” to seek a solution (if such a happy condition could ever occur.)
This seems an eminently reasonable way of investigating and eventually testing alternative hypotheses implied by the four models. For example, it should in principle be possible to test the HS proposition that a steady accretion of damages and costs by both parties will produce a general willingness to de-escalate among both sets of leaders and to compare it with the IMC proposition that a similar level of willingness is produced by a sudden, large increase in damage, either experienced or anticipated. Similarly, the effects of small or large increments of cost relative to already expended resources could be compared for the ENT model, while analysis of the impact of the defection of patrons on leaders’ willingness to de-escalate could illuminate the relevance of the ENO approach.
While it seems useful to distinguish leaders’ “willingness” to consider de-escalation and ultimate resolution from the conflict system’s structural “ripeness,” it also seems likely that, unless a probably unique state of “complete willingness” is actually attained, other obstacles might prevent the ripe moment being successfully exploited to initiate a resolution process. Although this is somewhat a matter of emphasis, there is a clear tendency among all four models of ripeness to concentrate upon ripeness as an inter-party phenomenon and willingness as a leadership phenomenon while neglecting the implications that there are also intra-party dimensions to ripeness and that these need to be included in any comprehensive view about “the right moment.”
“Internal” and “External” Ripeness
Our four models differ most in the attention they devote to the idea of “internal ripeness”: that set of conditions within the adversaries that affects the likelihood of external, structural conditions being translated into a willingness to seek a peaceful resolution, and that willingness, in turn, being translated into a move towards conflict resolution. All share what might be termed an external or an inter-party orientation in their consideration of conditions that equate with ripeness, produce willingness, and lead to de-escalation. Even in those aspects of the models which concentrate upon leaders’ changing perceptions or evaluations that help produce a “conciliatory mentality,” the emphasis tends to be on structural factors connected with the relationship between the adversaries — balance of advantage, imposed costs, anticipated benefits and dis-benefits from external events, defecting allies, and so forth. The whole orientation of the HS model is outward-looking, concentrating on the continuation of externally imposed costs and the tendency of externally gained benefits to recede. In the IMC model the catastrophes that threaten have to do with factors that affect the changing balance of advantage vis-à-vis the adversary or with other military or political disasters such as the general recognition of a previously non-legitimate opponent.
To a lesser degree, the same external emphasis characterizes both the ENT and the ENO models. In the former, entrapping factors develop through psychological and political commitments made with regard to the external struggle or through the resources expended in pursuit of a strategy of coercion directed towards the adversary. The “too much invested to quit” phenomenon involves investment in outside success, even though the potential political costs of abandoning a chosen (and sanctified) strategy can arise internally and constitute a major deterrent to any easy abandonment of that strategy. Similarly, the ENO model tends to rest primary weight on relationships between the adversaries, although it does recognize some intra-party factors, such as levels of existing support for the current leaders, the existence of major divisions within each party, and the coincidence of the long term, domestic interests of the leadership and their interests in continuing the external struggle.
This general neglect of internal factors seems to be a major weakness of the all four of the dominant ripeness models. Any useful extension of the ideas they contain needs to acknowledge that it is likely to be just as important to take into account internal ripeness — a set of intra-party conditions that are conducive, or, at least, do not present major obstacles, to changing strategies in the external conflict — as it is to pay attention to external ripeness.
Adopting Kleibor’s terms, the willingness of leaders to contemplate a process of peaceful resolution is as likely to depend crucially on conditions being appropriate within both parties as between them, a point made many years ago by Fred Ikle in his discussion of the ending of wars. 26 Indeed, one could invert the traditional view that leaders often seek to divert attention from domestic failures by external adventures and ask under what circumstances cutting one’s losses in an external adventure can help one domestically. When does ending a war or a protracted conflict produce unambiguous domestic gains that are powerful enough to persuade leaders to run the risks and bear the burdens of embarking on a perilous peacemaking process?
Some work has already started to address this issue of intra-party ripeness as a part of the overarching conception of “appropriate conditions.” Stephen Stedman, for example, in his study of the ending of the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean struggle, 27 has suggested a number of modifications to the classical HS model, some of which add intra-party variables that have an important effect on the overall “ripeness” of a conflict. Stedman’s conclusion is that “ripeness comes in part from processes internal to groups in conflict.” 28 He mentions the effects of internal divisions within both leadership and rank and file supporters as important obstacles to completing any successful conflict resolution process. Another important internal factor, suggests Stedman, is the level of intra-party support enjoyed by existing leaders while the simple fact of there being a new leadership tends, in itself, to add fluidity to a deadlocked situation.
This and other recent work suggests that we are not faced with a need to choose among the four models of “ripeness” currently dominating the debate about appropriate conditions for conflict resolution. Rather, all four models present interesting aspects of a complex and problematic process, and all can be extended and improved. This may lead us to the point that convergences suggest one overarching model which will undoubtedly be of considerable complexity, or further research may suggest that the processes of ending different types of conflict are characterized by such diverse circumstances that they can be described only by quite different models.
At the moment, evidence about types of conflict, ripe moments, and resolution processes could support either possibility. We simply do not know enough about how various types of conflict begin to terminate. Ripe conditions may be different for secessionist conflicts compared with replacement struggles and both types of civil strife may, again, be very different from conflicts between firmly established governments over territory. We need more evidence before anyone can provide a unified theory that explains the timing of conflict resolution processes.
Ripe...For What?
This brings me to my last point, which is to raise the question of “Ripe for what?,” although answering this question fully would take another paper. The assumption up to now has been, “Ripe for resolution,” but resolution processes are as complex as the conflicts with which they seek to deal and can involve many tasks and functions carried out by a variety of third parties over a long period of time. 29 There exists a whole range of what we might call “conflict coping” and “conflict resolving” strategies, each of which might be quite appropriate at different stages of any protracted conflict, depending upon the conditions existing at a particular point in time.
A conflict that might not present conditions making it “ripe for resolution” might still be appropriate for efforts to reduce or ameliorate the conflict or to initiate local resolution processes. Efforts to manage or to institutionalize a conflict might be quite appropriate in conditions when initiating a search for a full and lasting resolution may have no chance of success. Moreover, given the vast range of tasks and activities involved in any conflict resolution process who is to say that some of these might not be appropriate and successful even if others may have to wait for a change of circumstances?
Before parties reach a “hurting stalemate” or are rapidly approaching a catastrophe, ideas about optional processes or hypothetical solutions can be generated even in discussions with parties whose main activity remains bludgeoning one another into submission. Perhaps we should start by making an initial distinction between “ripe for a final resolution” and “ripe for a resolution process to be initiated.” It is frequently the case, for example, that the parties are prepared to enter into negotiations to deal with important political dimensions of their conflict, even though they have not yet reached the point that the socioeconomic changes required for full conflict resolution can be put on their joint agenda. This may be one of several situations that could be described, analytically, as embodying “ripeness for initiation” conditions.
Our next theoretical task, therefore, will be to delineate the conditions for various types of ripeness more precisely. On this basis, antagonists and third party intervenors might undertake the practical tasks of coping with the conflict, whether their aim be to ameliorate, manage, resolve, or transform it. By answering the question, “Ripeness for what?,” we may be able to convert the ripeness doctrine from a theory of limitations on action to a framework for proactive peacemaking.
Endnotes
*: A shorter version of this paper appeared in Paradigms: The Kent Journal of International Relations 9 [2] Winter 1995. Back.
Note 1: See I. William Zartman, Ripe for Resolution: Conflict and Intervention in Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 232. Back.
Note 2: Conflicts can be seen as moving from a latent stage to one in which parties try to impose a unilateral solution, which results, metaphorically speaking, in a situation where both try to go through the same door at the same time; while conflict resolution searches for the substitute of a mutually satisfactory solution. One necessary condition for getting parties to engage in such a search might well be for something — or someone — to show the parties that “we cannot impose our own way via coercion.” Both rising costs and arrival at an impasse can be ways of indicating that there is no hope of a “victory” for either. On the other hand, parties do “go through doors” for a purpose, and not simply for the sake of going through doors, so that if alternatives can be envisaged to achieve what forcing one’s way through the door achieves, then this might prove a form of conflict resolution that might be appropriate at any stage of the conflict without having to wait for a ripe moment brought about by failure and impasse. The key question might turn out to be: “What lies on the other side of the door, and what alternative routes could be envisaged or created?” Back.
Note 3: Zartman, above cit. Back.
Note 4: Stephen J.Stedman, Peacemaking in Civil War; International Mediation in Zimbabwe, 1974–1980. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1991. Back.
Note 5: Richard N. Haass, Conflicts Unending; The United States and Regional Disputes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Back.
Note 6: F. Edmead, Analysis and Prediction in International Mediation. New York: UNITAR, 1971. Back.
Note 7: Allan I. Teger, Too Much Invested to Quit. New York: Pergamon Press, 1980. Back.
Note 8: Christopher R. Mitchell, “Conflict Resolution and Civil War; Reflections on the Sudanese Settlement of 1972.” Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University. Working Paper No. 3, August 1989. Back.
Note 9: Chester A. Crocker, High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighborhood. New York: W.W.Norton, 1992. Back.
Note 10: Zartman, above cit. p. 232. Back.
Note 11: C.R. Mitchell, The Structure of International Conflict. London: Macmillan, 1981, Chapter 8. Back.
Note 12: A major argument underlying the Entrapment Model is that parties in conflict fall victim to the “TINA” phenomenon. Literally, they can envisage no alternative to what many of them continue to see as a very poor choice of means which they only take up in the absence of some better course of action. In this model, then, essential parts of a conflict resolution process involve: (a) sharpening parties’ awareness of likely longer term outcomes and consequences; and (b) envisaging and creating alternative options for the parties to include in their decision making processes. Back.
Note 13: Christopher R. Mitchell, “Ending Conflict and Wars; Judgement, Rationality and Entrapment.” International Social Science Journal, XLIII:1, February 1991, pp. 35–55. Back.
Note 14: Jeffrey Z. Rubin, “The Timing of Ripeness and the Ripeness of Timing,” in Louis Kriesberg & Stuart J. Thorson, eds., Timing the De-escalation of International Conflicts. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1991, p. 240. Back.
Note 15: Crocker, above cit., p. 471. Back.
Note 16: A central feature of the Entrapment Model implies that essential aspects of starting any conflict resolution processes are anticipation and learning. Overt conflict does, indeed, arise because parties try to impose unilateral solutions via coercion but this option is likely to be chosen because it was perceived as the least undesirable course of action. Parties and leaders became entrapped in coercion and counter coercion because there seem to be no alternatives to this means of getting what they want. Back.
Note 17: One example might be the white Rhodesian minority in 1964, who saw themselves facing unacceptable options of either accepting majority rule or declaring UDI. Even if they could have foreseen the results of UDI — guerilla war, ruin, death, struggle, and ultimately defeat — they might still have chosen it as the benefits were immediate and the costs discountable and in the future. The conflict might have been avoided had there been a third or fourth less unacceptable option, such as was discovered in the late 1970’s, where the white Rhodesians kept their economic position and the black Zimbabweans achieved political dominance. Back.
Note 18: The difficulty with this model is that, given both entrapment processes and the negative psychological effects of engaging in protracted and costly conflict, it becomes increasingly difficult for adversaries to recognize such opportunities unaided, or to take them seriously as a genuine alternative. However, the model does allow for the possibility that leaders learn through means other than having costs and pain imposed on them, although such a learning process might be a difficult one to implement at a practical level. Back.
Note 19: Chester A. Crocker, above cit., pp. 468–482. Back.
Note 20: Christopher R. Mitchell, “Conflict Resolution and Civil War,” above cit. pp. 10–17. Back.
Note 21: I. William Zartman, above cit. Back.
Note 22: Christopher R. Mitchell, “Ending Conflicts and Wars,” above cit., especially pp. 36–39. Back.
Note 23: Some of the very thin literature of “triggers and thresholds” suggests ideas in this direction, but not many! See, for example, Lewis A. Coser, “The Termination of Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, V:4, 1961, pp. 347–363; Janice G. Stein, “Getting to the Table; The Triggers, Stages, Functions and Consequences of Pre-Negotiation,” in J. G. Stein, ed., Getting to the Table. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1989; Daniel F. Druckman, “Stages, Turning Points and Crises.” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 30:2, 1986, pp. 327–360. Back.
Note 24: See, for example, F. Klingberg, “Predicting the Termination of War; Battle Casualties and Population Losses.” Journal of Conflict Resolution, X:2, 1966, pp. 327–360. Back.
Note 25: Marieke Kleibor, “Ripeness of Conflict; A Fruitful Notion?” Journal of Peace Research, 31:1, 1994, p. 115. Back.
Note 26: Fred C.Ikle, Every War Must End, 2nd edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Back.
Note 27: Stedman, above cit. Back.
Note 29: See Crocker, above cit., for a historical example of such a complex, long drawn out peace process; and Christopher R. Mitchell, “The Process and Stages of Mediation,” in David Smock, ed., Making War and Waging Peace; Foreign Intervention in Africa. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1993, for one conceptual framework that describes some of the functions involved in the process of conflict resolution. Back.
