Ceasefires as a Part of War, Peace Process, or a “No Peace, No War” Format

Abstract

Ceasefires are increasingly relevant for contemporary conflicts and conflict management. During the first two decades of the 21st century, ceasefires also became the most widespread form of outcome for conflicts with any conclusive outcome. Half of all ceasefires, however, either had not yet been part of a political negotiated process to address key incompatibilities contested in an armed conflict, or had no relation to any peace process at all. A ceasefire in its traditional interpretation – as a technical stage on the way to peace – increasingly becomes a ceasefire in the absence of peace and a pragmatic alternative to a stalled peace process. What are the goals and functions of ceasefires at different conflict stages, including, but not limited to, a peace process? What are the main types of ceasefire based on its key function in conflict and on underlying goals and motivations of its parties? The article explores these questions at the theoretical/conceptual and empirical levels, on the basis of analysis of available statistical data and drawing upon concrete examples in various contexts, with special attention to conflicts in Syria and Donbass. It offers an original functional-motivational typology of ceasefires classified into three types: ceasefires as part of hostilities; ceasefires ‘for the sake of peace’ that aim at supporting and preparing conditions for peace negotiations; and ceasefires as a format of an intermediate state of ‘neither peace, nor war’, including as a means of structuring this semi-frozen state to achieve a degree of stabilization. In practical terms, this typology helps clarify (а) the issue of effectiveness – success of failure – of a ceasefire that should not be expected to advance or deliver one type of outcome if one or all of its parties deliberately seek to use it to achieve another type of outcome; (b) the role of the factor of armed violence at the stage of a ceasefire that may achieve its main, underlying goals even if it does not lead to lasting cessation of hostilities.