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Ceasefires don't work... (by these measures we chose). I'm sure the civilians appreciate a good cease fire as a time to rebuild their lives, even if just a lit

by brador 10y ago

Ceasefires don't work... (by these measures we chose). I'm sure the civilians appreciate a good cease fire as a time to rebuild their lives, even if just a little. The alternative of just killing each other until all but one side runs out of bodies is not exactly proving better.

Tempest1981 10y ago
Right -- maybe they reduce the intensity of the ongoing fighting.
JulianMorrison 10y ago
Looking at the graphs, what they do is allow people to rebuild their lives for a moment - and then send an offensive to trash them harder. That appreciation was misplaced. Not that stopping war is bad, but that ceasefires don't stop a war.
- brador 10y ago
  The goal of a ceasefire isn't to stop a war, it's to provide breathing room for diplomacy and the possibility of a peaceful solution focused on compromise. In that, it then makes sense that it fails so often to end a war given the parties inherent hatred required to go to war in the modern age.
  - lisivka 10y ago
    All is fair in love and war. Ceasefire can be used for any kind of goal, including to gain tactical advantage.
    - brador 10y ago
      True, ceasefires can be used for many goals, but the goal of the third party who instigates a ceasefire is usually to bring the warring factions to a negotiating table. At least "officially".
      - lisivka 10y ago
        Bring to table and then kill them. Youngest example I know: mass killing of Ukrainian soldiers in Illovaysk by Russian army after promising of fire cease. They break lot of laws, rules and memorandums before that, so one more/one less does not matter. Wars begins where diplomacy ends. To return to diplomacy, defending party must demonstrate power first, to be considered as equal, to talk with. Few thousands of dead Russian soldiers forced Russia to Minks and diplomacy.
klenwell 10y ago
That was my conclusion looking at the article, too. So we have drops and spikes instead of a smooth curve. The word "alternatives" doesn't even come up in the article. I guess by these lights, the Rwandan Genocide was a model of diplomacy. Free markets and unchecked hostilities for a better society.
alex_anglin 10y ago
Or to get the hell out.
afterburner 10y ago
There is probably civilian pressure to provide pauses in the fighting (the armies are fighting amongst and often populated from the people they hope to rule). Interesting that this is an aspect of civil wars that we don't fully see.
- Pica_soO 10y ago
  All those bodys piling up, they certainly excert pressure on the ground. The war feeding the war can go on for quite a while (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War) the idea that it is reason that finally extinguishes the flame is delusional. What extinguishes the war, is that the resources of those spending for it, are rerouted to other theaters of the great game. So if you want to end the war in Syria, create internal strife in iran/russia/saudi arabia/ theWest or friction among blocks consisting of allies.
  - hga 10y ago
    What extinguishes the war, is that the resources of those spending for it, are rerouted to other theaters of the great game. Doesn't always have to be that, they can end by enough men of military age being killed or disabled on one side. The US Civil War (as much as a 1/3 of the South; we don't have good figures for it), WWI very possibly, certainly neither resulted in a rerouting to "other theaters of the great game." In WWII the main combatants on one side were decisively defeated, occupied, and pacified, at least for a while for the Germans, and the following "great game" strife didn't consume a fraction of the human resources of the US and USSR that WWII did. Then there's Carthaginian peaces, although of course in that case Rome always had some other frontier to make war on.
vidarh 10y ago
> I'm sure the civilians appreciate a good cease fire as a time to rebuild their lives, even if just a little. Note the quote towards the end of the article, which expresses the opposite: Fear that worse will come at the end of it, because that's what happened last time. > The alternative of just killing each other until all but one side runs out of bodies is not exactly proving better. I wouldn't say this article proves that your claim is wrong - it's not providing enough data for that. But if& the offensives following the cease fires are sufficiently deadly to make up for the reduction during the cease fires, it's certainly possible* that it is better to just keep going.
- notahacker 10y ago
  Even if the post-ceasefire offensive raw casualty numbers are higher it also matters who is dying and why. Often the stated purpose of the ceasefire is to allow the civilians to leave, or to allow the weaker party to surrender or relinquish their positions if they choose to do so.

by brador 10y ago

Tempest1981 10y ago

Right -- maybe they reduce the intensity of the ongoing fighting.

JulianMorrison 10y ago

Looking at the graphs, what they do is allow people to rebuild their lives for a moment - and then send an offensive to trash them harder. That appreciation was misplaced. Not that stopping war is bad, but that ceasefires don't stop a war.

brador 10y ago
The goal of a ceasefire isn't to stop a war, it's to provide breathing room for diplomacy and the possibility of a peaceful solution focused on compromise. In that, it then makes sense that it fails so often to end a war given the parties inherent hatred required to go to war in the modern age.
- lisivka 10y ago
  All is fair in love and war. Ceasefire can be used for any kind of goal, including to gain tactical advantage.
  - brador 10y ago
    True, ceasefires can be used for many goals, but the goal of the third party who instigates a ceasefire is usually to bring the warring factions to a negotiating table. At least "officially".
    - lisivka 10y ago
      Bring to table and then kill them. Youngest example I know: mass killing of Ukrainian soldiers in Illovaysk by Russian army after promising of fire cease. They break lot of laws, rules and memorandums before that, so one more/one less does not matter. Wars begins where diplomacy ends. To return to diplomacy, defending party must demonstrate power first, to be considered as equal, to talk with. Few thousands of dead Russian soldiers forced Russia to Minks and diplomacy.

klenwell 10y ago

That was my conclusion looking at the article, too. So we have drops and spikes instead of a smooth curve. The word "alternatives" doesn't even come up in the article. I guess by these lights, the Rwandan Genocide was a model of diplomacy. Free markets and unchecked hostilities for a better society.

alex_anglin 10y ago

Or to get the hell out.

afterburner 10y ago

There is probably civilian pressure to provide pauses in the fighting (the armies are fighting amongst and often populated from the people they hope to rule). Interesting that this is an aspect of civil wars that we don't fully see.

Pica_soO 10y ago
All those bodys piling up, they certainly excert pressure on the ground. The war feeding the war can go on for quite a while (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War) the idea that it is reason that finally extinguishes the flame is delusional. What extinguishes the war, is that the resources of those spending for it, are rerouted to other theaters of the great game. So if you want to end the war in Syria, create internal strife in iran/russia/saudi arabia/ theWest or friction among blocks consisting of allies.
- hga 10y ago
  What extinguishes the war, is that the resources of those spending for it, are rerouted to other theaters of the great game. Doesn't always have to be that, they can end by enough men of military age being killed or disabled on one side. The US Civil War (as much as a 1/3 of the South; we don't have good figures for it), WWI very possibly, certainly neither resulted in a rerouting to "other theaters of the great game." In WWII the main combatants on one side were decisively defeated, occupied, and pacified, at least for a while for the Germans, and the following "great game" strife didn't consume a fraction of the human resources of the US and USSR that WWII did. Then there's Carthaginian peaces, although of course in that case Rome always had some other frontier to make war on.

vidarh 10y ago

> I'm sure the civilians appreciate a good cease fire as a time to rebuild their lives, even if just a little. Note the quote towards the end of the article, which expresses the opposite: Fear that worse will come at the end of it, because that's what happened last time. > The alternative of just killing each other until all but one side runs out of bodies is not exactly proving better. I wouldn't say this article proves that your claim is wrong - it's not providing enough data for that. But if& the offensives following the cease fires are sufficiently deadly to make up for the reduction during the cease fires, it's certainly possible* that it is better to just keep going.

notahacker 10y ago
Even if the post-ceasefire offensive raw casualty numbers are higher it also matters who is dying and why. Often the stated purpose of the ceasefire is to allow the civilians to leave, or to allow the weaker party to surrender or relinquish their positions if they choose to do so.