27
Why don't ceasefires seem to work?
(hexbear.net)
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
Posts must ask a question.
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
A ceasefire has a historical meaning, generally they were considered to be a durable agreement, often as a precursor to negotiations or some other attempt to resolve the conflict at hand.
Leaders in the conflicts you're following actually have no intention of ending hostilities, the underlying contradictions that brought them to conflict are unresolved. However, saying you're granting or negotiating a ceasefire makes you look like you're trying to deescalate or be the responsible party.
So they're agreeing to them for optics, or for limited relief from some of the effects of the war. But since both sides have different agendas they're not lasting past the point of most expedience. The scary thing is that in the process they are degrading the tools and norms of diplomacy which will impair efforts to actually wind things down when the time comes.
Ceasefire and peace agreements also follow a 19th and 20th century logic of war really being politics and diplomacy by different means. It used to go something like this: you fight a war, you get a winning position where it's more costly and dangerous to the enemy to keep fighting than to relent somewhat, you declare a ceasefire, extract concessions, and things go back to a tense but peaceful "normal". Notice how this mostly happened in wars between peer nation states; colonial wars and invasions didn't really sign treaties until the colonial power decided their position was absolute and they needed to get on with the extraction part ASAP.
Most wars in the 21st century have been wars of anhilation/survival and imperialist expansion, where each part sees the other as a crucial threat to their continued survival, and this logic doesn't work as well. The tools and doctrine are still the same, because most leaders and institutions still use those norms from the last century, so they're stuck using the same tools that don't really work now.
Thank you, that's was a very helpful explanation