To Negotiate or Not to Negotiate? The controversy of talking to terrorists over the years and at the present time.

Abstract

Over the years, the conventional wisdom on negotiations with terrorists has been holding that talks are wrong, morally unjustifiable, dangerous, and strategically counterproductive. The main arguments against negotiations are straightforward: talks grant a status to terrorist groups, conferring them legitimacy and rewarding them for their violence as a method to achieve their goals. In addition, compromises undermine the work of officials who tried to achieve peace and political change through democratic means. Most importantly, negotiations can destabilize a political system and set a dangerous precedent allowing terrorists to think that “violence pays”. Although statesmen are quick to publicly declare with firm and emotional statements that they will never talk to terrorists, yet they do, mostly using Back Channels talks, that is official negotiations conducted in secret. Furthermore, an increasing number of counterterrorism experts acknowledge that negotiations should be included in their set of strategies, especially when pursuing the transition of the terrorist group into a legitimate political party. The aim of this thesis is to shed some light on the issue while analyzing a wide array of intellectual resources by distinguishing pro and contra for each one of the arguments. With this goal in mind, two case studies will be discussed, namely the IRA case study and the Sgt. Bergdahl case study, both depicting successful negotiations when considering their objectives but greatly controversial. Taken together, this research shows that, despite the critics, negotiating with terrorists is a viable counterterrorism strategy, as war only is proving to be fairly ineffective.