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-Two facts emphasize the need for a negotiated end to the Syrian conflict. Firstly, Syria's plunge into chaos. The country being beyond repair, something new will (have to) emerge soon. Even though Brian Jenkins (2014) diagnosed Syria's death already years ago, continued savagery and dismemberment of institutions has done a lot to make it even deader now. Secondly, the military stalemate. None of the warring parties stands a chance to ever gain control over the whole territory. Strangely enough, and in spite of these two facts, chances for a negotiated settlement regularly seem to disappear much swifter than they appear. One may ask where such a catastrophical absence of negotiations comes from - purpose or accident, madness or badness.
+Two facts emphasize the need for a negotiated end to the Syrian conflict. Firstly, Syria's plunge into chaos. What used to be the modern state of Syria is no longer with us. The idea that any government of the foreseeable future would be able to rule the respective territory again had been declared dead some time ago (cf. Jenkins 2014). If anything has changed since then, it could only be that the option of Syria as a full-fledged state in its full territory is even deader now than it was then. The country is beyond repair. Secondly, the military stalemate. None of the warring parties can really win. Strangely enough, though, attempts to negotiate disappear swifter than they come up. How come that there is such a catastrophical absence of negotiations? Is it on purpose or by accident, is it madness or badness?
-Building upon Michael Lüders' (2015) ''Wer Wind sät'' I hope to present one or the other conceptual tool that might be of use to reach a fuller understanding of what went wrong in Syria - and what could prevent a repetition of the kind of thought, actions, and strategies that caused the Syrian tragedy in the first place.
+Building upon Michael Lüders' (2015) ''Wer Wind sät'' this paper looks into the (f)utility of one or the other conceptual tool to further our understanding of what went wrong in Syria - and what continues to push the whole region ever closer to the abyss of an even larger collective destruction.
 = Agonal Partnership =
 One plausible hypothesis would be the following: while it has always been difficult to to change from sword to talk, this has become much more complicated in our new age of small, asymmetric, and unconventional warfare with its recurrent complaint by state parties that they suffer from a "lack of partners for peace". It may sound terribly nostalgic of traditional warfare to say that it was a great advantage of "old" wars that they were culturally embedded in a network of practices, customs, rules, and meta-rules that allowed for institutionalized communication even with soldiers still fighting. Ethnologist Wilhelm E. Mühlmann (1940) had referred to such phenomena as "agonal partnership". The existence of a meta-level of partnership in the middle of armed conflict produced things like the Christmas Truce 1914 and similar episodes all but impossible to imagine taking place in the present-day Syrian conflict:
-:While German and British fighter pilots in World War I were the deadliest of enemies, stories of chivalry are not as rare as might be expected. In one case, German pilot Oswald Boelke shot down a British plane in January, 1916. Boelke then landed and was delighted so see that he had brought down the enemy plane with its two-person crew (Somervill and Formilli) alive. He had a long talk with the pilot, saw to it that they were both taken in a car to the hospital, and later visited a crewmember in hospital. He even offered his services to deliver a letter. The crewmember addressed it to a certain Captain Babington of the Royal Flying Corps. In it he said that both members of the crew were alive and only slightly wounded, and that they wanted their families to know that. The German pilot Boelke took the letter, flew over the British lines and dropped it from the air. The letter did reach the captain and ultimately the crew members' families ("Gentlemen of the skies: German flew behind enemy lines to deliver letter from Brit he shot down. MailOnline 8 September 2012).
+:While German and British fighter pilots in World War I were the deadliest of enemies, stories of chivalry are not as rare as might be expected. In one case, German pilot Boelke shot down a British plane in January, 1916. Boelke then landed and was delighted so see that he had brought down the enemy plane with its two-person crew (Somervill and Formilli) alive. He had a long talk with the pilot, provided a car to take them to the hospital, and even offered his services to deliver a letter that Formilli had written from his sick-bed to a certain Captain Babington of the Royal Flying Corps (telling of their conditions and asking the captain to let their respective families know). Pilot Boelke flew over the British lines, and dropped the letter. It finally did reach its destination, and ended up, almost a century on, at an auction together with pictures showing the British aircraft after it had been shot down ("Gentlemen of the skies: German flew behind enemy lines to deliver letter from Brit he shot down. MailOnline 8 September 2012).
-In the Syrian conflict, there is no such thing as agonal partnership. Much to the contrary. Like other "small" wars, it is characterized by deep hatred and lack of empathy, the absence or violation of humanitarian law and rules of engagement, a lack of distinction between combatants and non-combatants, and even between war and peace. Small wars like the Syrian one are almost by definition wars of blurred boundaries and de-civilizing vicious circles of brutality. Not only the other side's combatants are being defined as enemy, but the ethnic, religious or national group in its entirety. Civilians are seen as legitimate objects of sub-state actors in small wars - but even regular armies tend towards assimilating to the irregular ways of fighting they see in their counterparts. Moreover, small wars are being fought everywhere: in deserts and urban centers, on battlefields and the bridges or Christmas markets of European capitals. In addition, long-distance weapons like killer drones guided by far away armchair "pilots" and/or impersonal computer software ("disposition matrix"), the use of makeshift weapons like trucks or cars, etc., contribute to a chaotic situation in which nothing is harder to imagine than chivalry as part of agonal partnership.
+In the Syrian conflict, stories of just how gentlemanly combatants behaved, even in grim battle, do not abound (to say the least). There seems to be no such thing as agonal partnership. Quite to the contrary: like in other "small" wars, there is a distinctive lack of chivalry and empathy, of respect for humanitarian law, of a willingness (and ability) to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. All this creates a vicious circle of de-humanizing stereotypes and activities such as rape, torture, and arbitrary killings. The irregularity of the partisan militia also affects conventional forces who tend to assimilate their own behavior to match that of the others. With blurred boundaries, these wars are fought in deserts as well as on bridges and market places in Central Europe. With blurred boundaries between war and peace, battle zone and hinterland, with distance weapons like killer drones guided by far away armchair "pilots" and/or impersonal computer software ("disposition matrix"), countered by the use of makeshift weapons like trucks or cars against civilian targets the situation is chaotic, and in the midst of this chaos nothing is less likely to flourish than agonal partnership.
-The very fact that sub-state actors use unconventional weapons, tactics, and objects - including civilians - makes them more vulnerable to a definition as terrorists. Such a label paves the way for a strategy of extermination rather than negotiation. As White House Speaker Scott McClellan said when asked how the United States would react to Usama bin Laden's offer to negotiate a truce in 2006, "We don't negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business" (Buncombe 2006). - And is it hard to imagine a symmetric attitude on the part of insurgents with the experience of being exposed to incessant large-scale bombing and drone raids? Hence, what is certainly lacking in the Syrian conflict, is "agonal partnership" as a window of opportunity for getting to the negotiating table.
+The very fact that sub-state actors use unconventional means makes them more vulnerable to a definition as terrorists. Once this label sticks, it paves the way for a strategy of extermination rather than negotiation. As White House Speaker Scott McClellan said when asked how the United States would react to Usama bin Laden's offer to negotiate a truce in 2006, "We don't negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business" (Buncombe 2006). Not to negotiate with terrorists is presented as a moral imperative, almost like an eleventh commandment ("thou shalt not negotiate"), but it is also considered as fruitless because of terrorists' lacking trustworthiness.
 = Agonal Autism =