STEP 1
Assess the Existence and Perception of a Stalemate
Identify Objective Indicators
Objective indicators provide evidence of the existence of a stalemate and pain associated with it. Objective indicators can include events external to the actions of the parties, as well as the behavior of the parties themselves.
Determine If a Stalemate Exists
Stalemate means parties are caught in a conflict that they cannot win at an acceptable cost: They cannot escalate their way to victory.
Are the conflicting parties stuck in a stalemate? Is the conflict active or merely frozen in inactivity? Have there been attempts by either side to escalate its way out of the stalemate by military-or even political- means? Have those efforts produced no clear outcome except to show that winning is impossible? In these cases, the message is evident and the evidence of a mutual stalemate is direct. The best evidence for a desire to escalate is an attempt to escalate, but the parties may also announce plans, make threats, leak intentions, and so on. But that is not enough; it is the failure of the escalation ("fall back") that produces the hurting stalemate.
Israel and Hamas escalated their conflict in Gaza in early 2008 until they saw that neither could prevail over the other; an informal cease-fire and secret negotiations ensued; the cycle was repeated again at a higher level of intensity at the beginning of 2009, with the stated purpose, on the part of Israel, of restoring the "deterrent capacity" it had earlier lost.
In 1965, India and Pakistan launched a series of escalations over the Rann of Kutch and Kashmir that demonstrated that Pakistan could not take Kashmir by force and India could threaten but not take Lahore; exhausted, both sides fell back into a cease-fire demanded by the United Nations and then a full truce mediated by the Soviet Unio