‘Small Steps’ Approach to Conflict Settlement

The article analyzes the phenomenon of the small steps tactics in the peace process. An attempt is made to demonstrate how the systematic interaction of the parties to resolve non-politicized issues allows either to avoid another "freeze" of the negotiation process, or, at least, to maintain an informal dialogue when negotiations are not conducted at the political and diplomatic level. This approach is adjacent to the Track II diplomacy or one-and-a-half track diplomacy, as well as to the concepts of sustainable dialogue and confidence building measures. Reconciliation and finding a reliable formula for settlement is impossible in cases of protracted and smoldering conflicts without creating a sufficient level of mutual trust, at least between those social groups of representatives of the parties who form the political agenda and who are at the negotiating table. The study allowed the author to identify the similarity of confidence building measures and the "small steps" tactics, as well as conceptual differences that allow us to talk about its innovative nature. The article reviews the positive narratives of the "small steps" tactics and identifies limitations for its application. For this purpose, archival documents of the negotiation process, reports of the OSCE and foreign ministries of the parties to the conflict, statements of the involved participants, as well as the personal experience of the author, who was involved for a number of years in the negotiation process on the Transdnistrian settlement in the "5+2" format. The paper concludes that the "small steps" tactic is not able to resolve the conflict or build a settlement model, but, thanks to the principle of mutual security of behavior models, it makes it possible to achieve a change in the relations of the parties to the conflict, to transfer them from confrontational to cooperative, thus influencing the situation in the conflict zone.