HOW DO MILITARY CONFLICTS END? LESSONS FOR UKRAINE

Abstract

The main ways of ending military conflicts, both between states and within the state, are considered. Among the four main ways to end the war are: military victory, negotiated settlement, negotiated truces, peace of sorts is imposed by third parties. Researchers conclude that the best way to promote sustainable peace is a negotiated settlement. The main factor here is the text of the peace agreement, which creates the rules of the game, according to which the key actors in the conflict agree to act. The models of democracy that can be laid down in a peace agreement are analyzed. Among them are consociational democracy, power-dividing, centrifugal and corporate models. The attention is paid to the consociational model, which according to the author, is the best alternative for resolving the armed conflict in the occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine. The basic idea of power-sharing or consociational democracy is to accommodate the interests of the political elite, which represents each segment in a divided society. The key characteristics of power-sharing are a grand coalition, segment’s autonomy, proportional representation, and mutual veto. All these features can be applied in different categories of power-sharing. These are political, military, economic, and territorial dimensions. Besides, there are three types of power-sharing: inclusive power-sharing, constraining power-sharing, and dispersive power-sharing. The division of different types helps to understand at what stage of conflict resolution, what kind of institutions of power-sharing should be implemented. An analysis of the Minsk Agreement revealed that its text was at odds with current conflict resolution practices, which was one of the reasons why the agreement does not affect conflict resolution.