Sangin District, in Helmand Province, was once described by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates as “the most dangerous not only in Afghanistan but maybe the whole world.” Nevertheless, Afghan Government officials received a written offer of peace from the principal local grouping aligned to the Taliban on the 29th May 2010, before NATO’s surge, or Sangin’s handover from U.K. to U.S. forces. This offer evolved into the local negotiated agreement known as the Sangin Accord, announced in January 2011. This is the first academic study of that agreement. This work also considers relationships between motivations for negotiation at the local level, and international policy and actions: military power, stabilisation activities, and reconciliation (including the co-option and legitimation of enemies). It compares explanations for negotiated agreements from academic theory and military doctrine, especially I. William Zartman’s ripeness theory and its evolutions, and offers suggestions for other local reintegration or reconciliation scenarios. The conclusions offer observations on applying Ripeness theory when intervening to seek political reconciliation in a local area removed from centralised authority, and without a permanent military advantage – which I term ‘fringe areas’. It highlights the impact of history (both received and remembered), and traumatic experiences, on memory, perception and rationality; vital factors for Ripeness theory. Finally, it explores the paradox between policymakers’ desire to negotiate from a position of strength, and Ripeness theory’s contradictory requirement for a mutually perceived hurting stalemate – simultaneously alongside a political Way Out – as essential preconditions to genuine negotiation.

The negative effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has been felt on a global scale.This makes it more relevant than it has been in a long time to understand how to achievesuccessful mediation and negotiation between Russia and post-soviet states. By examining theRusso-Georgian War of 2008 and the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2022, and thencomparing the two cases. This paper aims to investigate what factors contribute to successfulmediation in these two cases, and to hypothesise what obstacles exist for achieving successfulmediation in the war between Russia and Ukraine. The method used for this purpose isprocess-tracing, and the theoretical framework that has been used is Zartmans ripeness theoryand its formula for the concepts of mutually enticing opportunity, mutually hurting stalemate,ripe moment, and way out. The results of this study shows that a ripe moment existed in theconflict between Russia and Georgia despite the weak grounds for the existence of a mutuallyhurting stalemate. The study also concluded that the ceasefire agreement between the twocountries included a strong presence of one of the subcategories of the mutually enticingopportunity concept. Furthermore, the study also showed that a mutually hurting stalemate doesnot exist in the war between Russia and Ukraine, but simultaneously indicated strong grounds fora mutually hurting stalemate developing in the near future. Finally, the study identified fourdifferent obstacles for successful mediation between Russia and Ukraine. These related to theexistence of a mutually hurting stalemate, the motivations of the two conflict parties, and thechallenge of developing a mutually enticing opportunity.