Temper the negotiation hopes. States often worry a willingness to talk will communicate weakness to an adversary.
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Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and a Foreign and Defense Policy Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime (Cornell University Press 2019), won the American Political Science Association's Best Book in International Security (pre-tenure faculty member).