War is a fractal nightmare, a violent horror that contains within it an infinite series of smaller horrors, all intricately detailed. This week, the world is learning of the Bucha massacre, civilians shot in a Russian-occupied town outside of Kyiv and then their bodies left, according to satellite footage, to rot in the street for weeks. The massacre is public because the invading army pulled back from its position, letting Ukraine retake control of the town.

The likeliest outcome for Russia’s war on Ukraine, at this point, remains a negotiated ceasefire and settlement. But getting to that can be hard, especially in light of atrocities, like the Bucha massacre, committed against civilians during the war.

What does it mean when the surest way to prevent further atrocities is to end a war, but the atrocities themselves make it politically untenable to bring a war to a close? That’s a question at the heart of “Negotiating Peace with Your Enemy: The Problem of Costly Concessions,” a paper by Valerie Sticher and published in the December 2021 Journal of Security Studies.

The article builds on the simple idea that negotiating in war is different from ordinary bargaining situations. “Conflict party members not only care about their own benefits but also want to avoid rewarding the negative behavior of their opponent,” writes Sticher.

Both parties may ultimately be served by that war’s end, but if one leader is seen as too lenient against an enemy, the leader negotiating peace may in effect be sacrificing their political future and, if the domestic opposition is great enough, possibly their life. Concessions are both essential for negotiated ends to war and also easy cudgels with which hardline opposition can bludgeon leaders.

Leaders will bring with them their own preferences for negotiating an end to the war. If a leader has built their appeal on nationalism and hatred of the outsider, they may be less inclined to settle than one who came to power on a more universalistic platform. But leaders are constrained not just by their preferences, but by those of their constituents, whether voters in a democracy, military elites, or even the cadre leaders of aligned militias not formally in the chain of command.

Whatever the constituency, to get the country on board with a ceasefire, a leader has to trust that the terms will be politically acceptable domestically in order to ensure a peace sticks and is not immediately overthrown.

“In some situations, unpopular concessions can be a bargaining tool: if leaders can credibly demonstrate that they are constrained by their constituents, the other side may consider additional concessions to reach a deal,” writes Sticher. This comes with a big caveat: “if concessions are unpopular on both sides, this will likely lead to a situation where no agreement is acceptable to the constituents of either side, and by extension not acceptable to the leaders themselves.”

Ultimately it is war itself that raises the costs of concessions, and makes it harder for parties to reach the bargaining table. Every peace may be negotiated with an enemy, but unless one party is determined to negotiate at gunpoint, terms decided before the shooting starts can be likelier to stick.

Jake Romm theorized that the makers of weapons used to kill civilians could be held accountable under international law, provided they sold those weapons to a country with a pattern of using them to kill civilians. Romm specifically pointed to Raytheon sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia, where the weapons have been used against people in Yemen. While past wars have seen convictions for selling weapons to facilitate war crimes, Romm is under no illusion that Raytheon executives will ever face trials under the Rome Statute. Instead, by bringing up the legalistic argument, Romm hopes for “a denaturalization of arms sales,” and with it the sense that the profit incentives of selling weapons no longer obscure the harms those weapons cause.

Tibisay Zea spoke with Venezuelan migrants who crossed the Darién Gap from Colombia into Panama. The stretch of dense jungle, which one migrant described as a “green hell,” is the only land route from South America to the United States. For Venezuelans looking to make it into the country, the gap has become increasingly popular as a route after Mexico started requiring tourist visas for Venezuelans. “You have to climb steep hills and trudge through swamps. We would walk 12 hours a day, we saw dead bodies, we came across a 2-year old child who was abandoned. I saw the worst side of human beings,” Jose Loya told Zea. 

Durrie Bouscaren listened to the stories of deaf families fleeing Ukraine. The horrors of war come with auditory cues, like air raid sirens to urge shelter, or the whistling and detonating of bombs when the raid comes. For the deaf, seeking shelter meant relying on family and friends who could hear, or it meant waiting for text messages to seek shelter. Outside of Ukraine, families have encountered new challenges. Bouscaren writes “There’s been one major challenge: Ukrainian and Romanian sign languages are completely different. They’re even based on different alphabets.” Volunteers with Romania's National Association of the Deaf have helped bridge this gap, leaning on loanwords and signs from other languages.

This live action "Black Mirror" remake is a bit unsubtle.

“What are you going to do, stab me?” said 22 friends sitting down at a table full of knives.

If we don’t prepare to win the future how can we ensure we’ll blow up the present.

Turns out there’s a wrong way to eat rice.
All those memes will be lost in time, like years in the rain.

DC’s still got it.

I'm tired of Earth, these people. I'm tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives.