Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars

ImpossibleSolutions to Ethnic C i a Wms I Ethnic civil wars are burning in Bosnia, Croatia, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Sudan, Turkey,Azerbaijan , Georgia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Kashmir, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, and are threatening to break out in dozens of other places throughout the world.’ Many of these conflicts are are so violent, with so much violence directed against unarmed civilians, and are apparently intractable, that they have provoked calls for military intervention to stop them. As yet, however, the international community has done little and achieved less. Advocates of international action seek to redress the failuresof local political institutions and elites by brokering political power-sharing arrangements, by international conservatorship to rebuild a functioning state, or by reconstruction of exclusive ethnic identities into wider, inclusive civic identities.’ Pessimists doubt these remedies, arguing that ethnic wars express primordial hatreds which cannot be reduced by outside intervention because they have been ingrained by long histories of inter-communal ~onflict.~ Chaim Kaufmann is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University. The author’s thanks are owed to many people. Robert Pape’s extensive help made a decisive difference in the quality of the final product. Helpful criticism was provided by Henri Barkey, Richard Betts, Michael Desch, Matthew Evangelista, Charles Glaser, Emily Goldman, Robert Hayden , Ted Hopf, Stuart Kaufman, Rajan Menon, Bruce Moon, Roger Peterson, Jack Snyder, Stephen Van Evera, and the members of the PIPES Seminar at the University of Chicago. 1. Ted Robert Gun; “Peoples Against States: Ethnopolitical Conflict and the Changing World System,“ International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3 (September 1994), pp. 347-377, lists fifty current ethnic conflicts of which thirteen had each caused more than 100,000 deaths to date. 2. Gerald B. Helman and Steven R. Ratner, “Saving Failed States,” Foreign Policy, No. 89 (Winter 1992-93), pp. 3-20; William Pfaff,”Invitation to War,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Summer 1993), pp, 97-109; John Chipman, “Managing the Politics of Parochialism,” in Michael E. Brown, ed., Ethnic Conflict and International Security (Princeton,N.J.:Princeton University Press, 1993),pp. 237263 ; Flora Lewis, ”Reassembling Yugoslavia,” Foreign Policy, No. 98 (Spring 1995),pp. 132-144; I. William Zartman, ”Putting Things Back Together,” in Zartman, ed., Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995),pp. 267-273. 3. “Let no one think there is an easy or a simple solution to this tragedy,” which results from ”age-old animosities,” said George Bush, ”whatever pressure and means the international community brings to bear.” Quoted in Andrew Rosenthal, ”Bush Urges UN to Back Force to Get Aid to Bosnia,” N m York Times, August 7, 1992. For similar views see Colin L. Powell, ”Why Generals Get Nervous,” New York Times, October 8, 1992;Charles Krauthammer, ”Bosnian Analogies; Pick Your History, Pick Your Policy,” Washington Post, May 7, 1993; Conor Cruise OBrien, ”The Wrath of Ages: Nationalism‘s Primordial Roots,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 5 (November/December 1993),pp. 142-149. International Security, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Spring 1996),pp. 136-175 0 1996by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 136 Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars I 137 Both sides in the current debate are wrong, because solutions to ethnic wars do not depend on their causes. This paper offers a theory of how ethnic wars end, and proposes an intervention strategy based on i t ! The theory rests on two insights: First, in ethnic wars both hypernationalist mobilization rhetoric and real atrocities harden ethnic identities to the point that cross-ethnic political appeals are unlikely to be made and even less likely to be heard. Second, intermingled population settlement patterns create real security dilemmas that intensify violence, motivate ethnic ”cleansing,” and prevent de-escalation unless the groups are separated . As a result, restoring civil politics in multi-ethnicstates shattered by war is impossible because the war itself destroys the possibilities for ethnic cooperation . Stable resolutions of ethnic civil wars are possible, but only when the opposing groups are demographically separated into defensibleenclaves. Separation reduces both incentivesand opportunity for further combat, and largely eliminates both reasons and chances for ethnic cleansing of civilians...