Shownotes

The nature of peace talks and conflict resolution has radically changed. Historically, most wars end with political settlements, usually the result of formal negotiations. The prototypical modern peace talks were hosted a major or mid-size power that wasn’t a party to the conflict, negotiated by professional diplomats and technical experts, and implemented with some international oversight by the United Nations or a group of governments.

Recent wars have departed from this script. Negotiations these days occur in all manner of venues. There are secret or semisecret talks by unofficial emissaries, sometimes known as “track two diplomacy.” There are official talks managed by tiny powers like Qatar and Oman, all the way to powerful but new players in the peacemaking space, like China. And official superpower diplomacy in the current era looks nothing like the old: today, the US president’s personal lawyer and son in law, with no staff, try to negotiate peace agreements and simultaneously private deals for the Trump Organization.

Michael Wahid Hanna has followed many of the peace talks, successful and failed, of recent decades. On this episode of Order from Ashes, he takes stock of how the peace negotiations have changed, and whether we should downgrade our expectations for what diplomacy can 

Participants

Michael Wahid Hanna is US program director at International Crisis Group.

Thanassis Cambanis is director of Century International. 

Date: Thursday, June 4, 2026

Episode: Order from Ashes 115