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SAIS Review 25.1 (2005) 193-197



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Stopping the Unstoppable Wars

Taming Intractable Conflicts: Mediation in the Hardest Cases, by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall. (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2004). 240 pages. $14.95 (paper), $35 (cloth).

From within the discipline of conflict resolution—especially as it sought to differentiate itself from the then-dominant perspectives of international relations in the late 1970s and early 1980s—the notion of "intractability" links to the work of John Burton and Edward Azar. The former, whose conception of intractability was contained in the notion of "deep-rooted conflicts," sought to disconnect certain kinds of social conflict from the simplifying calculus of rational choice and cost-benefit analysis to the foundational level of "basic human needs" (such as security, identity, or recognition). Individuals strove to fulfill these needs against all ("rational") odds; their suppression by institutions, including states, guaranteed forms of social conflict, including violence, that were not bargainable or negotiable by the usual means.1 Azar adapted the notion of basic needs to his analysis of "protracted social conflicts." These conflicts, seemingly unresolvable, occurred within multi-ethnic, multi-racial, or otherwise multi-communal societies, usually underdeveloped or economically stressed, where incompetent, corrupt, extractive, or otherwise incapable governing regimes actively denied the basic needs of its citizens. The deep-rooted and usually violent conflicts that ensued often spilled into the international arena, since the "identity groups" involved (Azar's cover term for ethnic, racial, religious, linguistic, or other communal entities) frequently sprawled over state borders and embroiled neighbors in larger conflicts. But Azar's point was clear: to see these larger conflicts—now "international"—in terms of nation-states as primary actors—the then-dominant international relations perspective—was to miss their etiology. The identity group, not the state, was at the root of these conflicts, and therefore should be the main unit of analysis.2

The authors of Taming Intractable Conflicts make clear that they are not primarily interested in analyzing the causes or sources of these conflicts but rather in what third-party mediators—from superpower states to middle power ones, and international or non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—should do when confronted with such a situation. As the authors put it, "When considering the causes of intractability, we are therefore looking to solutions."3 [End Page 193] They stick fairly close to the dictionary definition of intractability, "conflicts that are stubborn or difficult but not impossible to manage," and focus upon the contesting parties' susceptibility to turn to violence rather than other political options as the main diacritic (along with their long, often multi-generational, duration) separating intractable conflicts from other sorts. Still, almost all the conflicts they cite as examples of intractability (and there are many)—including Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Cyprus, East Timor, the former Yugoslavia, Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, and Sudan—bear the hallmarks of Burton and Azar's original analysis: social groups built around identity-based cores, struggling to the death against other identity groups or states that fail to satisfy or seek to repress them, where the "normal" and seemingly "rational" cost-benefit calculations that call forth negotiated settlements fail to apply. Crocker, Hampson and Aall, like Azar, also recognize that these conflicts have larger regional or even global linkages. It is the latter linkage that provides some opening for external parties to intervene toward resolution or settlement—and also provides some incentive to do so. For example, leaving Afghanistan to its own chaotic self-disembowelment after the Soviet pull-out and the end of the Cold War may have seemed the easiest (or least costly) course for the international community to take; in retrospect, it just opened the door to a Taliban regime that played host to al Qaeda. The costs for non-involvement were thus to be borne later, far beyond the borders of Afghanistan.4

One contributing cause of intractability is, in fact, the non-engagement of third parties (another is their mishandled engagement—see below), rendering the conflict "forgotten" in one way or...

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