{"id":50308,"date":"2019-09-04T11:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T01:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=50308"},"modified":"2019-09-04T10:50:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T00:50:27","slug":"from-the-bookshelf-the-costs-of-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/from-the-bookshelf-the-costs-of-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"From the bookshelf: \u2018The costs of conversation\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Oriana Skylar Mastro\u2019s recently published book, The costs of conversation: obstacles to peace talks in wartime<\/em><\/a>, is a tight, densely written piece of prose. Mastro is an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University in Washington and an officer in the US Air Force Reserve. In 141 pages\u2014supplemented by another 45 pages of notes\u2014she explores directly one of the key puzzles confronting intra-conflict bargaining: how to initiate peace talks without signalling weakness to an adversary.<\/p>\n

Although we\u2019re inclined to gloss over it\u2014more readily fascinated by geopolitical transition, shiny bits of metal, and the mystique of the cyber world\u2014ours is an age when the capping and termination of conflict has special importance. Since World War II, there have been strong incentives to contain modern warfare\u2014by keeping conflict between great powers \u2018cold\u2019, and between smaller powers limited. In those circumstances, intra-conflict bargaining constitutes an important tool in the modern strategic toolkit, its importance increasing the further up the ladder of conflict one cares to look.<\/p>\n

Over the years, academics have produced a range of detailed studies of specific negotiations. But Mastro\u2019s research ploughs a largely unturned field: how adversaries get to the negotiating table in the first place. She explores four case studies\u2014North Vietnamese diplomatic decisions during the Vietnam War; Chinese diplomatic decisions during the Korean War and the Sino-Indian War; and Indian diplomatic decisions, also during the Sino-Indian War\u2014and concludes that negotiations will be acceptable to a combatant only when the costs of embarking on such a course are low. Agreeing to negotiations is always the first concession\u2014one made before talks even begin. And it\u2019s all too easy for adversaries to interpret an opponent\u2019s sudden willingness to talk as a waning of resolve.<\/p>\n

True, Mastro\u2019s research is indicative rather than definitive: her findings are tied to four specific case studies, covering just three of the 38 instances of conflict identified in the Correlates of War<\/a> database. Not being expert in the minute details of her case studies, I can say only that her argument\u2014which turns upon the test of diplomatic openness\u2014is both considered and intuitively appealing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m more hesitant about the policy implications she unpacks in her final few pages. For her own country, and looking towards a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, Mastro urges a simple policy shift\u2014that the \u2018involved parties\u2019 announce an openness to wartime talks as official policy before a conflict erupts. Assuming the parties include the US, China and Taiwan, that\u2019s probably easier said than done.<\/p>\n

She then considers the broader option of the US publicly announcing a new policy of offering talks from the first day of any conflict. But would that be credible? Would Americans have supported it on 12 September 2001? This year will be the 18th anniversary of 9\/11, so some readers might have forgotten the political temper in the US at the time. For those who have, a quick dip<\/a> into the musical repertoire of Toby Keith offers a salutary correction. Mastro might well argue that her research applies rather more to state than non-state actors. But Pearl Harbor ranks up there with 9\/11.<\/p>\n

I accept Mastro\u2019s argument that the stronger party is typically more willing to negotiate than the weaker. But it\u2019s difficult to believe that even superpowers are always<\/em> willing to negotiate. Such a policy shift is even less available to countries concerned about being on the wrong side of power imbalances\u2014look at India\u2019s behaviour in the Sino-Indian war, for example. As Mastro observes, the Indians never<\/em> reached a position of diplomatic openness. China reached that position four days into the conflict\u2014after both demonstrating initial military dominance on the battlefield and concluding that India had only limited scope to escalate even if it did interpret the Chinese offer as weakness.<\/p>\n

Mastro\u2019s complementary recommendation\u2014that the UN offer its good offices to both parties from the first day of a conflict\u2014suffers from a similar problem. Closed diplomatic postures aren\u2019t principally the product of a lack of good offices, but of countries\u2019 strategic assessments that bargaining is inappropriate to begin with. Ironically, Mastro\u2019s difficulty in those concluding pages results from her attempting to identify policy solutions that swim against the current of her own research findings: combatants aren\u2019t open to \u2018costly conversations\u2019.<\/p>\n

None of Mastro\u2019s four case studies involves diplomatic decision-making by a nuclear-armed state. But her general thesis\u2014don\u2019t agree to talks if doing so signals weakness\u2014probably applies as well there as it does to conventional conflicts. Her final recommendation\u2014\u2018that strong countries should reevaluate their tendency to rely primarily on coercion \u2026 to get an adversary to the negotiating table\u2019\u2014sounds like sage advice for nuclear-armed states confronting steep escalation ladders.<\/p>\n

Perhaps official declaratory statements might have value in hard\u2014nuclear\u2014cases. But even there, likely adversaries should invest in actions as well as words, building arrangements\u2014like hotlines\u2014that facilitate top-level communication. And nuclear-armed powers should be encouraged to practise restraint in more demonstrable ways\u2014rehearsing intra-conflict bargaining and war termination as part of their strategic exercises, and being seen to do so by likely adversaries.<\/p>\n

Mastro has written a book of depth and nuance. It\u2019s short, but can\u2019t be read at a single sitting. It forces the reader to think about intra-conflict bargaining in a new light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oriana Skylar Mastro\u2019s recently published book, The costs of conversation: obstacles to peace talks in wartime, is a tight, densely written piece of prose. Mastro is an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":50314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[769,937,806,239],"class_list":["post-50308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-conflict","tag-negotiations","tag-peace","tag-warfare"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the bookshelf: \u2018The costs of conversation\u2019 | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/from-the-bookshelf-the-costs-of-conversation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From the bookshelf: \u2018The costs of conversation\u2019 | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Oriana Skylar Mastro\u2019s recently published book, The costs of conversation: obstacles to peace talks in wartime, is a tight, densely written piece of prose. 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