Ceasefires under Scrutiny – Reviewing Marika Sosnowski’s Redefining Ceasefires

I am grateful to Articles of War for the opportunity to provide some reflections on Redefining Ceasefires: Wartime Order and Statebuilding in Syria (hereinafter Redefining Ceasefires), by Dr. Marika Sosnowski. This is an insightfully researched and well-written study in which Sosnowski undertakes a much-needed assessment of the notion of ceasefires and their application to the Syrian context. This assessment defines what ceasefires are and inquires how they create a “wartime order” that affects State-building dynamics during civil war.

One of the book’s significant contributions is its capacity to delve into the broader implications of these agreements, transcending their immediate impact on quelling violence or resolving civil wars and potentially “helping to make more practical and realistic decisions about ceasefires and their implications at international, national and local levels during wartime” (p. 2). Importantly, Sosnowski argues that ceasefires rarely only “cease fire.” Instead, they “create particular types of wartime order that can have diverse consequences for other contested areas of control that have statebuilding potential” (p. 2).

The book examines ceasefires in Syria over a ten-year period (2011-2021), identifying how different agreements have affected military phases and strategic aspects of the war. Over this timeframe, the author collected primary documents (i.e., texts of ceasefire agreements) and conducted interviews with 89 key stakeholders. These sources offered unique documentation and a more comprehensive understanding of how “war and ceasefires shape the contours of people’s lives.” In Sosnowski’s words, “[u]nsurprisingly, it is often ugly and terrifying, although also not without hope, dignity and ingenuity” (p. 9).

Given the depth of the study, I will concentrate on specific subjects, rather than delving into the content of all eight chapters.

The Importance of Ceasefire Agreements

Ceasefire agreements hold paramount importance, and their relevance can be seen in numerous conflicts around the world (e.g., here, here, and here). They play a pivotal role in mitigating the devastating effects of armed conflicts on individuals by allowing humanitarian aid to reach affected populations. When describing the Ethiopian context, the International Committee of the Red Cross 2022 Annual Report notes that access constraints in the northern part of the country “eased during the ceasefire from March to August and after the signing of the agreement [on a permanent cessation of hostilities] in November. This enabled essential services to begin resuming in Tigray” (p. 117).

Earlier this year, and as a result of the devastating earthquakes affecting Syria and Türkiye, the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry called “on all parties to the conflict in Syria to commit to a comprehensive ceasefire to enable humanitarian workers and rescuers to reach those in need without fear of attacks.” Another relevant recent example can be found in the UN Secretary-General’s call for a global ceasefire in March 2020 as a result of the spread of COVID-19 “to help create corridors for live-saving aid” and “open previous windows for diplomacy.” Indeed, ceasefire agreements can create openings for broader negotiations, which in turn can lead to longer-term resolutions of conflicts as they offer space for dialogue between warring parties. They can also provide platforms for parties to commit to respect international law. From a legal perspective, in fact, some of these types of agreements can even be considered as common Article 3 “special agreements,” when they are used to bring into force humanitarian provisions that otherwise would not apply in non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) (p. 1199).

Ceasefire Agreements: Definition and Types

Ceasefires can be employed in diverse manners, giving rise to a range of potential outcomes. Historically, Sosnowski correctly identifies that “much of the peace and conflict literature has been concerned, either implicitly or explicitly, with how” they can serve to reduce or eliminate violence and make peace (p. 17). Even today, she adds, “the majority view is that ceasefires are generally a relatively fleeting interregnum on the road between war and ‘peace’, or perhaps more war. This means that at best, ceasefires are seen as humanitarian and positive, or at worst, benign” (p. 1).

Based on the various NIACs in Syria, Sosnowski nonetheless—and rightfully so—notes that ceasefire agreements can also “be considered a locus where elements normally considered the purview of the sovereign state, such as diplomacy, territorial control and security, can be asserted or negotiated” (p. 31). They can formalize, in this regard, parties’ claims over disputed areas of control, thus representing a moment that interjects into “contestations of power and authority by different actors on the ground” (p. 31). This is why Sosnowski advocates

for broader thinking and closer analysis about the wartime order ceasefires create and the diverse types of contestations over statebuilding, beyond only the military arena, that ceasefires can influence, in particular those related to local governance and economic networks, citizenship and property rights and control over diplomacy, territory and security (p. 32).

An example of these dynamics the book refers to on various occasions is the 2016 Syrian Cessation of Hostilities, which, according to the author, was “used to justify diverse agendas” (p. 53). While it offered the Syrian government the possibility to increase its military activities in certain regions of the country, it also affected the capacity of local actors to provide governance. These included, “tribal leaders taking a more active role in local councils and humanitarian organisations making the decision to by-pass the rebel-run court (because its new leader was seen as too religious) and instead propping up local councils, and implicitly local armed actors” (p. 65). In other words, this ceasefire led to a recalibration of intricate system of “layered governance” at the local level.

In addition to examining the content and impact of selected examples, Sosnowski also proposes a categorization of types of ceasefires. This is done with the goal of facilitating the exploration of diverse hypotheses concerning the relations between the different forms of wartime order that these agreements establish, and their interactions with disputed areas of military and political authority, as well as with the avenues they offer for power consolidation. A typology of ceasefire agreements, she argues, can assist in showing that actors in NIACs “can enter into different types of ceasefires and these have diverse implications both in practice and analytically” (p. 88). She proposes and thoroughly examines four types in Chapter 4: substantive; interim; symbolic; and coercive agreements. Importantly, Sosnowski acknowledges the limitation of this proposal, which must be tested with a larger dataset of ceasefire agreements beyond the Syrian case “to bolster its credibility” (p. 89). Categorizing ceasefire agreements is nonetheless an important endeavor that deserves merit and can serve to understand various interactions and power-sharing dynamics between different international and local stakeholders and the commitments they are willing to make.

Ceasefires and Rebel Governance

 “Rebel Governance,” when applied to an armed group, has been defined as the manner in which such a group “regulates life within a defined territory and provides public services” (p. 40). The social sciences literature on the topic indicates that when these groups control a territory for a protracted period of time, they adopt behaviors that regulate the everyday lives of individuals through the establishment of a governance system, including formal and informal structures as well as regulatory practices (p. 85-86).

Sosnowski states that as insurgencies “attempt to develop systems of governance and navigate their own path to statehood, a timely question is whether ceasefires affect the ability of rebels to govern the civilians living within the area they control, and if so, how” (p. 31). She responds to this inquiry by relying on the aforementioned 2016 Cessation of Hostilities, which influenced governance activities in Syria’s southern Daraa province. Interestingly, Sosnowski explores the “prominent role” that tribal leaders had in managing institutions, representing a form of “greater rebelocracy not solely tied to armed groups” (p. 104).

After the ceasefire, she describes, “tribal leaders formalised the functioning and widened the membership of the Shura [council] as a way to provide justice and mediate a variety of disputes between armed groups as well as disagreements between civilians” (p. 103). In the same sense, the influence of these leaders resulted in more affiliated individuals being appointed to local governance structures, notably to local councils, the Shura council, and even armed groups. The significance of Sosnowski’s study rests in its ability to pinpoint the factors that facilitate the emergence of these local dynamics. Ceasefires, as she correctly notes, “create particular types of wartime order that change the relationships between different layers of conflict and governance” (p. 93).

Concluding Remarks

Redefining Ceasefires is a very welcome addition to the specialized literature. It represents an important study for those trying to understand how local governance is constructed, maintained, and legitimized in armed conflict. I am indeed convinced that its findings will be of use beyond the Syrian context, informing strategies of engagement with local actors and also serving policymakers when negotiating ceasefires.

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Ezequiel Heffes is the Director of Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict in New York..

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