Civilizational wars require interested outside powers to broker any pause

Evidence

Achieving a temporary pause also requires a second factor: the involvement of nonprimary level participants with the interest and the clout to bring the fighters together. Fault line wars are almost never halted by direct negotiations between primary parties alone and only rarely by the mediation of disinterested parties. The cultural distance, intense hatreds, and mutual violence they have inflicted on each other make it extremely difficult for primary parties to sit down and engage in productive discussion looking toward some form of ceasefire. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 803

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the classic two-sided problem in the Milgrom law-merchant material: parties too deeply hostile to self-police need a third-party institution; disinterested mediation fails because it lacks both clout and local knowledge.