The Syrian Civil War

The Syrian Civil War, which began as popular opposition against the regime of President Bashar Al Assad in March 2011, has led to a staggering death toll of over 470,000 people, injured hundreds of thousands more, and led to a global refugee crisis, with over 11 million Syrians fleeing their homes. (Syrianrefugees.eu). On 22 February 2016, following talks in Munich, the United States and Russia announced the terms for a cessation of hostilities in Syria, pledging that the ceasefire would “be monitored in an impartial and transparent manner and with broad media coverage” (U.S. State Department).  On 26 February, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2268, demanding all parties to the conflict to comply with the agreed ceasefire. (UN SC Resolution 2268).  By July 2016, following many months of continued military actions by all parties, the ceasefire had mostly unraveled (Reuters). In September 2016, following further negotiations between the main parties involved in the war, the United States and Russia once again reached a deal to reinforce the ceasefire (Reuters). The ceasefire went into effect on 12 September.  It was, once again, poorly adhered to, completely collapsing on 19 September, after a Syrian or Russian bombing raid targeted an Arab Red Crescent humanitarian aid convoy, leaving 20 aid workers dead (The Guardian).

Why did the United Nation’s Security Council Resolution 2268, demanding all parties in the Syrian Civil War cease hostilities and abide by a ceasefire, not fulfill Resolution criteria? My analytical research paper will argue that the United Nation’s Security Council Resolution 2268, demanding all parties in the Syrian Civil War cease hostilities and abide by a ceasefire, did not fulfill Resolution criteria because (1) it lacked third-party intervention in the form of a peacekeeping force, and (2) the ceasefire negotiation did not include all belligerent actors involved in the conflict, allowing for continued military operations inside Syria against terrorist groups specially the terrorist groups.

This literature review serves four purposes.  First, it provides a broad historic overview of the United Nations’ role in keeping peace to determine how it can contribute to the enforcement of ceasefires and settlement of civil wars.  Second, it analyses the conditions that affect the likelihood of success or failure in civil wars termination agreements.  Third, it highlights the importance of third party intervention, such as peacekeeping operations, to help facilitate conflict termination, as well as criticisms of the international community’s approaches.  Finally, based on this literary review, I will identify the factors that lead to a ceasefire’s successful implementation and outcome.

The literature on conflict termination, ceasefires, peace processes and peacekeeping is vast.  In particular, since the end of the Cold War, there has been growing interest and research on how to secure peace in intrastate conflicts and civil wars. This part of the literature review provides an overview of UN’s role in keeping peace, and highlights the importance of peacekeeping operations in intra-state conflict termination and resolution. Peacekeeping has evolved since the creation of the UN, and is the main mechanism available to the organization to enforce Chapters VI and VII of the UN Charter (UN, 13-14).  The UN defines peacekeeping as “a technique to preserve the peace, however fragile, where fighting has been halted, and to assist in implementing agreements achieved by peacemakers” (UN, 18).  UN Peacekeeping operations fulfill the organizations’ mandates under the overall authority of the Security Council, with the command of the Secretary-General, and assisted by the Department of Peace Keeping Operations (UN, 14).  No two peacekeeping operations are alike.  The principles that guide these operations have risen from past experiences.  During the Cold War, peacekeeping operations in the Sinai Peninsula, Congo and Lebanon, typically involved tasks such as monitoring, supervising and reporting on ceasefire agreements, and acting as a buffer between opposing forces (Lambert, 3).  These first generation or “classic” peacekeeping operations, set the norms and main legal principles that permeate the essence of peacekeeping (Cox, 244).   After the Cold War, UN peacekeeping evolved.  Often described as second generation or “robust” peacekeeping, these operations have more often taken place after extremely violent intrastate conflict, and have taken on an increasing number of tasks and mandates, to include humanitarian relief, resettlement of refugees and the rebuilding of political and administrative structures (Cox, 257).  These operations, with their larger mandates have proved to be extremely complicated.  They have also considerably drifted away from the main principles of classic peacekeeping, specifically the principles of consent of all parties, impartiality and non-use of force except for self-defense (Cox, 245).  Given the large amount of these operations after the Cold War, and the highly publicized failures of operations in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo, there has been tremendous criticism of the United Nation’s ability to conduct these operations, and at first-glance, a conclusion that the UN’s peacekeeping mechanisms cannot effectively maintain peace after a civil war.

In the process of determining whether peacekeeping operations are effective mechanism to keep the peace and enforce ceasefire agreements after a civil war, it is important to determine the likelihood of any intrastate ceasefire agreement to succeed in the first place.  In Rethinking Models of Civil War Settlement, Frederic Pearson, Marie Lounsbery, Scott Walker and Sonja Mann, study the likelihood and staying power of civil war ceasefire agreements.  Their research looks at several models and factors, and how they contribute as predictors for a ceasefire outcome (Pearson et al., 111-115).  Their “Nature of the Conflict” model is examined using duration, intensity and type of conflict factors. In relation to duration and intensity, they found that, in line with other researchers, “the longer the […] civil war, the greater the success of peace building attempts after the conflict” (Pearson et al., 112).  As it relates to intensity or lethality of the conflict, measured by number of deaths during fighting, they find that high intensity wars are hard to end with a ceasefire, and that low intensity civil wars, especially those that are also long in duration, are more likely to end in a successful ceasefire agreement (Pearson et al., 112).  Therefore, conflict “ripeness” and belligerents’ exhaustion, increases the likelihood that one side, or all sides of the civil war are ready to make concessions, and agree to a ceasefire (Pearson et al., 112).  When it comes to the type of civil war conflict, ethnic or religious based, versus politico-economic based, they found no statistically significant difference in the likelihood of a ceasefire being successful (Pearson et al., 112).  For the “Domestic Conditions” model they focus on the type of political regime of the country prior to the civil war (Pearson et al.,113).  They found that ceasefire agreements are more likely to succeed in countries where the political regime were previously democratic versus undemocratic or authoritarian regimes (Pearson et al., 113-114).  Through their “Nature of End to Hostilities” models, they also found that the way the hostilities end matter.  Ceasefire agreements that are forced upon the belligerents from outside are less stable that those that are negotiated between the belligerents (Pearson et al., 114).

A successful ceasefire agreements after civil wars faces many challenges. Still, since the end of the Cold War, there has been an increased effort by the international community and the United Nations to resolve intra-state conflicts through negotiated settlements. Pearson et al.’s research shows that the likelihood of successful negotiated ceasefires and peace agreements after civil war is very low. However, when they introduce third party intervention into their models, the probability of success increases. For instance, when applied to the type of civil war conflict model, which initially showed no statistical difference in outcome, when third party intervention is introduced, both ethnic-religious and politico-economic conflicts are more likely to be resolved (Pearson et al., 112).   They also found that third-party security guarantees and intervention are critical elements to ensure that outside negotiated agreements hold and succeed in ending hostilities (Pearson et al., 115).   In a final model, the “Nature of Peace Enforcement”, they found that “when negotiated civil war settlement agreements provide for third-party enforcement, the probability of failure is reduced by 98 percent” (Pearson et al., 115).

Similarly, in Sustaining the Peace: Determinants of Civil War Recurrence, J. Michael Quinn, T. David Mason and Mehmet Gurses, study the characteristics of post-civil war environments that make the recurrence of hostilities more likely.  Specifically, they analyze whether a government victory, rebel victory or negotiated settlement affect the probability of success or failure (Quinn et al., 168).  They found that, “civil wars that end in negotiated settlements are more likely to lead to renewed violence than those that end in a decisive victory by either side” (Quinn et al., 171).  However, they contend that not all agreements are equally likely to breakdown.  Peace settlements and ceasefire have a greater chance of success when third parties provide credible commitments, specifically third-party intervention though peacekeeping forces to police compliance (Quinn et. al., 172).

As can be seen, keeping the peace after a civil war is a large undertaking, and agreements are more prone to fail if left alone, especially when ceasefires and settlements are negotiated and forced upon the belligerents in a hard-fought, and bloody conflict. In Inside and Out: Peacekeeping and the Duration of Peace after Civil and Interstate Wars, Virginia Paige Fortna, demonstrates that third party intervention, through peacekeeping forces, significantly increases the chances of ceasefire success because peacekeeping ensures effective implementation of ceasefire agreements (Fortna, 98).   Similarly, Madhav Joshi, in United Nations Peacekeeping, Democratic Process, and the Durability of Peace after Civil War, argues that UN peacekeeping is an integral element in successful peacebuilding after a civil war (362). His argument supports the notion that UN peacekeeping, not only build peace in the short term, but promotes durable peace in a post-civil war state, by providing external security guarantees, aiding in reconstructing institutional capacity, and providing a favorable environment for a transition to democracy (363-365).   

The international community’s attempts to negotiate and enforce peace after civil war is not without criticism. In Why Peace Processes Fail” Negotiating Insecurity After Civil War Jasmine-Kim Westendorf argues that, even though “negotiated peace processes have […] become the preferred way that the international community supports conflict resolution in civil wars”, the technocratic processes used by the international community, through institutions such as the United Nations, are not sufficient to end conflict and often do not establish peace (1, 4).  This occurs due to an increasing bureaucratic approach, which tends to be depoliticized, and does not respond to individuals and actors involved in conflicts, and often work against them (Westendorf, 4).  She gives four structural features of negotiated peace agreements that result in failure (Westendorf, 9).  First, the process of international mediation for negotiated peace agreements often exclude certain factions or belligerents from negotiations (Westendorf, 11). Second, mediation and peace agreements are implemented too early in the conflict, not allowing conflicting groups to realize that they are better off negotiating rather than continuing fighting (Westendorf, 10).  Third, when hostility terminating agreements are accepted, they often lack credible commitments between the belligerent forces, an essential factor when building trust and addressing concerns opponent’s security dilemmas (Westendorf, 11).  Finally, a lack of third party intervention or peacekeeping force, “especially through the initial volatile period after a peace settlement” contributes to increased failure of peace processes, in the short and long term (Westendorf, 11).

In Is the Sum Greater than the Parts: The Terms of Civil War Peace Agreements and the Commitment Problem Revisited, Madhav Joshi and J. Michael Quinn state that “peacekeeping forces alone are insufficient to ensure success” of civil war termination agreements (29).  Their research concludes that the potential for successfully negotiated agreements increases when all conflict actors are included in the negotiation of terms and comply with the enforcement mechanisms (Joshi and Quinn, 10).  Bell states that is due in large part to the structure and language of post-Cold War peace agreements, which have increasingly been viewed by the international community as legally binding documents (qtd. in Joshi and Quinn, 10).

Beyond conducting a detailed analysis of a large number of civil war ceasefire cases, a survey of related literature indicates that there are four factors that impacts a ceasefire agreement’s implementation and outcome.  First, third-party intervention, specifically through peacekeeping operations, is a dominant factor contributing to the outcome of a ceasefire in a civil war.  Second, including all belligerent actors in the negotiations increases the chances of success and by including them in the terms of the ceasefire enforcement.  Third, outside negotiated ceasefire agreements have to take into consideration the conditions on the ground, and is forced on the belligerents before the conflict is ripe for peace.   Fourth, credible commitments, especially in the form of concessions between conflicting factors also increase chances of success. These credible commitments come as result of inclusive negotiations, and security guarantees by third-party actors.   To test my hypothesis I will use the peacekeeping forces, and inclusion of all belligerents variables to determine why United Nation’s Security Council Resolution 2268 did not fulfill Resolution. Of these two factors, the latter is the dominant variable, and will be the focus of my analysis. To test my hypothesis, I will use a cross-case, structured focused study, analyzing five past ceasefire agreements and their corresponding UN resolutions enforcing the ceasefires.  The analysis will focus on the two variables, to determine causation or correlation towards success or failure. The case studies are limited to selected post-Cold War, intrastate conflicts, with an outside negotiated ceasefire agreement, and its corresponding UN Security council resolution.

Figure 1: Literature Review Summary Table

References:

Lambert, James (2011) The United Nations and Military Interventions: Factors for Success and Ability to Lead in Comparison with an International Coalition. U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, KS (Retrieved 20 January 2017).

Cox, Katherine (1999) Beyond Self-Defense: United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and the Use of Force. Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Volume 27, p. 239-273 (Retrieved 27 January 2017).

Pearson, Frederic, Marie Lounsbery, Scott Walker and Sonja Mann (2006) Rethinking Models of Civil War Settlement. International Interactions, Volume 32, p. 109-128 (Retrieved 25 January 2017).

Quinn, J. Michael, T. David Mason and Mehmet Gurses (2007) Sustaining the Peace: Determinants of Civil War Recurrence. International Interactions, Volume 33, p, 167-193 (Retrieved 25 January 2017).

Fortna, Virginia Page (2003) Inside and Out: Peacekeeping and the Duration of Peace After Civil and Interstate Wars. International Studies Review, Volume 5, p. 97-114 (Retrieved 17 January 2017).

Joshi, Madhav (2013) United Nations Peacekeeping, Democratic Process, and the Durability of Peace after Civil Wars. International Studies Perspectives, Volume 14, p. 362-382 (Retrieved 25 January 2017).

Joshi, Madhav and J. Michael Quinn (2015) Is the Sum Greater than the Parts? The Terms of Civil War Peace Agreements and the Commitment Problem Revisited. Negotiation Journal, Volume 10, p. 7-30 (Retrieved 25 January 2017).

Westendorf, Jamine-Kim (2015) Why Peace Processes Fail: Negotiating Insecurity After Civil War. Excerpt. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder CO (Retrieved

United Nations Secretariat, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: Principles and Guidelines. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Division of Policy, Evaluation and Training. http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/documents/capstone_eng.pdf. (Accessed 1 February 2017).