Among other things, Balázs Orbán wrote on Mandiner that the assessment of the two major armed conflicts taking place today – the Russian-Ukrainian war and Israel’s fight with the forces of Hamas – divides progressive politicians and opinion makers in a special way.
On the one hand, they don’t want to hear about peace negotiations in the case of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and they ask for it if, say, the Hungarian government raises the need for it, but they urge peace negotiations with the same vehemence in the case of the conflict in the Middle East – he emphasized.
According to the political director, although they are only following their own interests with these inconsistencies, which is “pure hypocrisy”, with this explanation – as he put it – “we deprive ourselves of understanding why the progressives are wrong and why the Hungarian government is right”.
He explained: the peace-making process has scientific foundations and the analysis of data from past wars shows that after the first 30 days of an armed conflict, the chances of making peace continue to deteriorate, moreover, if interstate wars drag on for more than a year, they can typically last for more than a decade . In other words, the longer a war has been going on, the more difficult it is to end it – stated Balázs Orbán, who said that it would have been especially helpful if the participants in the war had heeded the Hungarian government’s call for peace from the very first moment, or at least continued the negotiations in Turkey that began in March 2022.
This recognition further increases the need to start peace negotiations as soon as possible, and this once again proves the Hungarian government’s commitment to peace, the author emphasized.
Analyzing the data further, the political director wrote that half of these conflicts end with some kind of negotiated settlement, more often with a ceasefire, less often with a peace agreement, and he sees the important difference between the two in that the first is an agreement on the temporary or permanent suspension of violence, while the second is the conflict agreement addressing its main causes, accordingly the first one is violated numerous times by the parties.
According to Balázs Orbán, an armed conflict ends with a ceasefire in 30 percent of cases, in 21 percent with the victory of one side, in 16 percent with peace, and in 33 percent with a different outcome.
Over time, the state of war becomes unsustainable not only for the warring parties, but also for external actors, a stalemate that is painful for both parties can force the actors to the negotiating table, who in this case admit that the status quo is harming them, but also know that they cannot defeat the other side. Negotiations are therefore a logical way to resolve the unsustainable situation – stated the political director in his article.
Speaking about the critics of peace policy, Balázs Orbán wrote: they usually argue that it is impossible to sit at the negotiating table without a concrete peace plan, even though knowledge of peace processes does not justify them.
In his opinion, according to the investigations of the Political Arrangements Research Program of the University of Edinburgh, the first and most essential element of any peace process is a ceasefire, and the preparation of a peace agreement only follows after that.
That is, the parties typically do not have a well-defined peace plan before declaring a ceasefire and starting negotiations, but several parameters force them to first temporarily stop fighting and start peace negotiations. Balázs Orbán stressed that what the final peace will be will be developed during the negotiations, there is no pre-written peace plan.
Balázs Orbán’s conclusion is that the convulsive mania of the Hungarian government’s critics regarding a concrete peace plan is without any basis and he called it incomprehensible why the leaders of the Western world, the United States and Europe refrain from taking meaningful steps for the sake of peace, since this way the chance that the Russo-Ukraine conflict will become more intense, and the longer they drag on, the less chance that the fighting will not turn into a decades-long conflict.
The road to peace begins with a decision and then continues with a cease-fire, the suspension of hostilities and the conclusion of peace as soon as possible – according to the Hungarian government’s conviction – is in the interest of both Europe and Hungary, the author emphasized.
Balázs Orbán concluded his opinion piece by saying that the Hungarian position is not only in our interests, but also correct: peace requires a cease-fire first, and only then can we begin to develop a concrete peace plan.
2024-09-03 19:44:40