Peace Does Not Fall from the Sky

By Sybille Ngo Nyeck

Peace does not fall from the sky. This is the central theme of Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace (Princeton University Press, 2004), the debut book by Virginia Page Fortna, professor of political science at Columbia University. How is peace obtained and maintained when war ends, Fortna asks. Why have certain peace and cease-fire agreements succeeded while others have fallen apart?

This unique book offers the first comprehensive analysis of a wide range of international peace agreements over the past several decades. Through considering the function of cease-fire agreements and the ongoing political situations following those cease-fires, Fortna argues that the constituent elements of the agreements prophesy the durability of the peace or the resumption of fighting.

Peace does not fall from the sky. Peace efforts necessitate the cooperation of all parties involved in a conflict together with the international community. Cease-fire agreements facilitate this cooperation at different levels. The content of peace agreements affects the durability of peace, whether the aim is to resolve a political or a military problem or even when agreements take the form of armistices.

The book offers a depth of study on the mechanisms that have been incorporated into peace agreements, and looks at a wide range of factors that affect such agreements. For example, Fortna studies the role of demilitarized zones, the control of weapons, the presence of international peacekeeping forces, the “cost of the audience,” the war history of belligerent parties and the pre-existent conditions in those regions, the geography of war, the importance of tracking death tolls, and the evaluation of situational variables, including the “hazard factor.” All of these items were taken into account in her quantitative and qualitative analysis of cease-fire agreements.

Virginia Fortna asserts and demonstrates that belligerent “ parties tend to invest more in keeping peace when it would otherwise be most precarious. ” And although Peace Time is focused on conflicts between states, its analysis could also applied to civil wars with regional dimensions, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The book analyzes all peace agreements between states in interstate wars between 1946 and 1994 – an extraordinary body of work. The author demonstrates that peace is not only born from the cooperation between parties, but also from the strength of the cease-fire agreements. Virginia Fortna asserts and demonstrates that belligerent “ parties tend to invest more in keeping peace when it would otherwise be most precarious. ” And although Peace Time is focused on conflicts between states, its analysis could also applied to civil wars with regional dimensions, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Fortna explains the specific challenges of cease-fire agreements between contiguous states.

Peace Time comes at the right moment to equip and engage not only students and academics but decision-makers, peace activists, and the international community in a project toward sustainable peace. Indeed, for contemporary warring parties, this book offers a range of durable agreements as models. Through Fortna's writing, these case studies become inspirational: science and hope work together to transform warring actors into instruments of peace.

No, after war, peace does not fall from the sky. Rather, it is the elements of indigenous cease-fire agreements that portend the peace. The durability or failure of peace depends on the constituent pieces of these oracles. Considering the need for non-military solutions in today's conflicts and toward a sustainable peace in our world, we can only hope that Peace Time will be made widely accessible and will be translated into other languages. To learn more about Virginia Page Fortna's work, please visit her homepage on the Columbia website.

Sybille Ngo Nyeck is a native of Yaounde, Cameroon. Her online column The Colors of Conscience appears regularly in The Witness. Sybille may be reached by email at sybeck77@yahoo.fr .