Of all interstate conflicts across the last two centuries, two-thirds have ended through negotiated agreement. Wartime diplomacy is thus commonly seen as a costless and mechanical process solely designed to end fighting. But as Dr. Eric Min argues in Words of War: Negotiation as a Tool of Conflict (Cornell University Press, 2025), that wartime negotiations are not just peacemaking tools. They are in fact a highly strategic activity that can also help states manage, fight, and potentially win wars.
To demonstrate that wartime talk does more than simply end hostilities, Dr. Min distinguishes between two kinds of negotiations: sincere and insincere. Whereas sincere negotiations are good faith honest attempts to reach peace, insincere negotiations exploit diplomacy for some other purpose, such as currying gaining political support or remobilizing forces. Two factors determine whether and how belligerents will negotiate: the amount of pressure that outside parties can place on belligerents them to engage in diplomacy, and information obtained from fighting on the battlefield.
Combining statistical and computational text analyses with qualitative case studies ranging from the War of the Roman Republic to the Korean War, Dr. Min shows that negotiations are more likely to occur with strong external pressures. A combination of such pressures and indeterminate battlefield activity, however, will most likely leads to insincere negotiations that may stoke fighting rather than end it. By revealing that diplomacy can sometimes be counterproductive to peace, Words of War compels us to rethink the assumption that it "cannot hurt" to promote diplomacy during war.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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