Peace Agreements and Civil Wars in Africa: Insurgent Motivations, ...

They are also dominated by animosities and hatreds that can be traced back over decades and even centuries.²³ Once war between groups is started, stopping it or trying to arrange for negotiations is impossible because it becomes an irrational act—as the objectives become less clear, and even less amenable to rational calculation, and more a question of blind sentiment.²⁴ In such conflicts, hostility begets hostility, creating conditions of violent conflicts that feed upon themselves.²⁵ Civil wars are thus analogous to epidemics: once ignited, they are likely to follow their own course until a decisive military victory over one party is reached.²⁶

Sunk Costs

A related reason as to why wars are protracted is because of the way belligerents assess the costs incurred, and the benefits expected, in continuing the conflict. As King has again noted, the potential benefits of continuing to fight are analyzed prospectively, while the costs are viewed retrospectively.²⁷ Belligerents in a civil war can come to see the war as an investment and may prolong it to justify the costs (casualties lost to the enemy, property lost, international image, and death of party’s leaders). Justifying sunk costs, rather than avoiding future ones, can thus become the source of the belligerents’ objective in continuing the war. This, in short, can explain why some conflicts are difficult to resolve through negotiation.

Leaders as Obstacle to Negotiations

Another explanation why peace agreements are difficult to arrange is because of the role leaders play in negotiations. First, as Zartman notes, in the early stages of a civil war, negotiations fail because parties persist in talking to unrepresentative counterparts who cannot speak for large groups of followers, or who could not carry out an agreement if it were reached.²⁸ Second, even if some moderate members of both parties are willing to accept negotiations, the attitudes and preferences of hard-liners are likely to prevent them from doing so because members of the latter group may be so committed to the struggle that they are incapable of contemplating a possible compromise with the enemy.²⁹