Nir Eisikovits

A Theory of Truces

On August 14, 1945, Edith Shain, a 27-year-old nurse at Doctors Hospital in New York, left her shift and ran into the street to celebrate the surrender of the Japanese. A few moments after she reached Times Square, a sailor embraced her. “Someone grabbed me and kissed me, and I let him because he fought for his country,” she told the Washington Post many years later.1 A snapshot of the kiss, taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt and published by Life magazine, became one of the most famous images of the last century. Ms. Shain’s explanation for its popularity: The picture “says so many things: hope, love, peace and tomorrow. The end of the war was a wonderful experience, and that photo represents all those feelings.”2 This is how wars ends. Men stop killing each other and start kissing pretty nurses instead. We leave the fighting behind. Permanently. We demobilize. We go back to work. We go back to school. We start families and have babies. Violence is replaced by its opposite.

The non-ideal theory of conflict management: a response to critics of A Theory of Truces

ABSTRACT This essay responds to criticisms of and reflections on A Theory of Truces offered by Keith Breen, David Lyons, Colleen Murphy and Thaddeus Metz. I focus on the place of truces within just war theory, the permissibility of making truces with particularly unsavory actors, the tension between present and future considerations in truce making, and Truce Thinking as an instance of non-ideal theory.

Academic - Business Collaboration: A Market Failure

In this paper we consider the reasons for and the costs of limited collaboration between academic researchers and private sector firms. We focus, in particular, on one type of knowledge transfer between the two realms, namely, academic consulting to the private sector. We argue that academics do not understand the value their expertise, methodological approach and soft skills can have for industry. We also argue that industry actors are not fully aware that rigorous, evidence-based advice can be obtained from academics and that, in some cases, advice from academics will either exceed or compare favorably with services obtained from leading consulting companies. The paper is organized as follows: part I surveys the different forms that collaboration between academia and industry can take. Part II examines the empirical data on how much collaboration is actually happening. Part III explores the reasons for the broad disconnect between industry and academia. Parts IV and V argue that the lack of such collaboration results in missed opportunities for both academics and industry and thus constitutes a market failure. Part VI raises suggestions for increasing collaboration.

The Conceptual Neighborhood

We have, so far, outlined a theory of truces and defended it against charges of cynicism and appeasement. We have also established that truce thinking has a “deep” history in the West’s intellectual tradition. It is now time to situate truce thinking in a more contemporary “intellectual neighborhood.” In this chapter I examine how it is related to recent debates in political philosophy and international relations theory. Specifically, I examine its ties to the “political theory of modus vivendi” developed since the start of this century by thinkers such as John Gray and John Horton, to philosophical accounts of political reconciliation in the aftermath of mass violence, and to discussions about the meaning of containment in international relations. This chapter should both orient the reader as to the place of the proposed theory of truces in the current scholarly literature and further bring into focus, by means of comparison, some of the theory’s most distinctive features.

Three Case Studies

We have, so far, given an account of the philosophical and psychological commitments of truce makers, defended truce thinking from accusations of cynicism and appeasement, traced an intellectual genealogy for truces, and situated them vis- -vis the related concepts of modus vivendi, reconciliation, and containment. Having completed the theoretical part of this study, I close with a consideration of some historical examples. The case studies in this chapter illustrate how truce thinking operates in practice, highlight its potential for economizing on conflict, and point to the risk it carries for political stagnation. They also shed further light on the nature of truce thinking, illuminating the relationship of its different facets. I begin by considering Edmund Burke’s exhortation to Britain (1775) to refrain from going to war with its American colonies. Next, I take up the intractable tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, specifically in the context of the 2014 summer war in Gaza. I conclude with considering Spain’s Pact of Forgetting after Franco’s death. The first two episodes represent missed opportunities for truce thinking. The third is a case in which truce thinking helped facilitate a transition to democracy under difficult circumstances.

Truces in the Western Tradition

So far, we have sketched a theory of truces and defended it from charges of political cynicism. We now move to show that truce thinking has deep roots in Western thought; that it is grounded in existing if marginalized ways of thinking about war’s end; that there is, if you will, an alternative history of thinking about winding down wars in which truces figure prominently. Locating such canonical sources can confer a degree of political legitimacy on the practice (much in the same way that calling on the new testament or the cosmopolitan tradition as foundations of the idea of human rights confers legitimacy on that field). More importantly, excavating this history provides a foil against which to examine and elucidate the attributes of truce thinking we have been discussing. Finally, the investigation suggests further features that need to be added to our theory. I draw on both historical and cultural sources in this chapter, focusing on truces in Homer’s Iliad, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, the book of Genesis, the doctrines of the Peace of God and Truce of God in medieval Christianity, and finally, on the discussion of truces in Hugo Grotius’s De Jure Belli ac Pacis.

The Legitimacy of Truce Thinking

In Chapter 1, I argued that truce makers typically display one or more of the following five commitments: (1) An optimism about the passage of time; an assumption that “buying time” may change the circumstances that make a more comprehensive peace deal impossible. (2) A belief that partial, modest arrangements or agreements can both alleviate living conditions for those involved in chronic conflict and improve mutual attitudes. Here we made use of Camus’s (unheeded) call for a civilian truce in Algeria and Randall Forsberg’s nuclear freeze manifesto circulated in the 1980s. (3) A realization that intractable ideological foes don’t have to fight in the name of their incommensurate ideologies. Here we drew on George Kennan’s Long Telegram and subsequent X article. (4) A conviction that waging war in the name of abstract principles or a virtuous political self-understanding may make wars longer and bloodier than they have to be. Here we used Hume’s essay “Of the Balance of Powers.” (5) A belief that truces can be helpful in resting and rearming for a future round of conflict. These five considerations, taken collectively, were labeled “truce thinking.”