Eric Min, assistant professor of political science and global studies at UCLA, uses both quantitative and qualitative analysis to examine how nations use negotiations during war in his new book, "Words of War."
UCLA International Institute, July 10, 2025 — Eric Min, assistant professor of political science and global studies at UCLA, spoke about his book, “Words of War: Negotiation as a Tool of Conflict” (Cornell, February 2025), at a talk in early May sponsored by the Burkle Center for International Relations. Maggie Peters, associate professor and vice chair for graduate studies in the political science department and faculty member in the global studies program of the International Institute, moderated the talk.
Using both quantitative and qualitative analysis (in the form of case studies), Min addressed how nations use negotiations to achieve different goals in war and how their success is influenced by such factors as battlefield results and the prevailing belief in the value of negotiations within the international system.
One of the main empirical contributions of the book, he said, are two datasets that he created and used to test his arguments. The datasets catalogue over 1,700 battles and 189 periods of negotiation across 92 interstate wars between 1823 and 2003, allowing for a uniquely granular analysis of intra-war dynamics.
“Negotiations,” said Min, “have to be understood as not only a tool that helps to settle wars, but also as an instrument that’s sometimes used to manage fighting and potentially win wars as well.” As a result, “diplomacy during a war is not some sort of side process, but a central process to understanding conflict.”
The book distinguishes between “sincere negotiations” (good-faith attempts to find a political agreement) and “insincere negotiations” (bad-faith attempts that seek either to deflect political pressure, blame the other side or gain breathing room to regroup, remobilize and re-arm). “The latter type is often underappreciated by negotiation scholars,” noted the author.
Belligerents, explained Min, are frequently reticent to communicate during a given conflict because they have no faith that the other side would observe an agreement (a “credible commitment problem”) or fear talks could signal weakness and flagging resolve, which might embolden the enemy and undermine support for a war at home.
In his view, states generally agree to come to the bargaining table during a war for two reasons: battlefield information clearly favors one side or “latent external pressures for peace” lower the costs of negotiation. Here, Min emphasized the rise of those external pressures in the post-1945 world system exerted by an international community that has “a sort of peace lobby [comprised of] international organizations, international laws and international norms.” Ironically, he observed, these pressures lead to more insincere negotiations.
In this circumstance, explained the political scientist, “actors will talk regardless of what’s going on in the battlefield because it’s not a reaction to the battlefield, it’s just a reaction to third-party pressure… [This] opens up the floodgates to allow belligerents to use negotiations for side effects that they think might help them in the war, rather than bring the war to an end.
“So, if a negotiation doesn’t end a war, what happens in the conflict after the failed negotiation?” asked Min. Based on extensive regression analysis of his empirical data, the author arrived at two principal findings. “The first finding is that when talks fail to end a war, we see systematic evidence that subsequent fighting on the battlefield tends to favor the war target.
“The second finding, which is tightly related, is that failed talks are also followed by subsequent fighting that is more consistent with what we might expect to happen on the battlefield.” That is, battlefield results will tend to reflect the two sides’ pre-war military capabilities. “[T]hat equilibrium really seems to set in after talks that fail to end a war,” he observed, adding that failed talks also tend to prolong conflicts.
The political scientist said his findings held equally for inter- and intra-state conflicts, largely because civil conflicts have a great power asymmetry between belligerents and greater pressures for peace. “In that case,” he reflected, “I think insincere negotiations might be an even more compelling or necessary tool of non-state actors in order to have some fighting chance.”
Rather than simply make peace proposals and exert pressure on belligerents to negotiate, Min said the U.S. and other powers would be better off encouraging communication between belligerents and standing by to facilitate diplomacy.
In addition, he emphasized, “Mediators need to create proposals that are reactive to what is actually going on in the battlefield or is being learned from fighting.” Other things to consider are policies that the U.S. could implement to either make warring parties more secure about a negotiated agreement or raise the cost of a war and perhaps drive a specific party to the negotiating table. “It is all these other things that you do on top of negotiations,” said Min, “and not just this continuous insistence on talking without considering more of these [additional] policies.”
Read article on Min's 2024 Distinguished Teaching Award.
Watch the video of the book talk.