The target article makes important contributions to our understanding of asymmetric intergroup conflict by highlighting the physiological, psychological, social, and institutional processes that govern the behavior of parties who seek to challenge versus maintain the status quo. De Dreu and Gross (D&G) focus particularly on how “clashes between attackers and defenders evolve” (sect. 1, para. 4) and get decided. Here I complement their contributions by discussing how attackers and defenders may resolve their dispute at the bargaining table.

D&G allude to the negotiation literature in the target article. Intergroup negotiation constitutes a principal way through which groups settle their disputes (Aaldering et al. Reference Aaldering, Greer, Van Kleef and De Dreu2013; Halevy Reference Halevy2008; Putnam Reference Putnam1988; Steinel et al. Reference Steinel, De Dreu, Ouwehand and Ramírez-Marín2009; Van Kleef et al. Reference Van Kleef, Steinel and Homan2013). Intergroup negotiation is often used to resolve decades-long attacker-defender conflicts between revisionist forces and powerholders. Prominent examples include the 1990s negotiations in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, as well as the recent negotiations in Colombia, in which the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) represented the revisionist forces, respectively. Integrating D&G's game-theoretic approach with existing knowledge on negotiations can facilitate theorizing about and empirical investigations of intergroup negotiations in attacker-defender conflicts.

There are multiple links between asymmetric intergroup conflict as modeled with the attacker-defender game (AD-G) and research on negotiation. First, the structure of the AD-G emerges by modeling attackers’ preferences using payoffs from the game of Chicken and defenders’ preferences using payoffs from the game of Stag Hunt. Research suggests that individuals commonly use both of these classic games to mentally represent asymmetric intergroup conflict between revisionist and non-revisionist parties (e.g., the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Halevy et al. Reference Halevy, Sagiv, Roccas and Bornstein2006), as well as bilateral negotiations more generally (Halevy et al. Reference Halevy, Chou and Murnighan2012). Indeed, decision-makers sometimes mentally represent international conflict as an asymmetric game in which “we” (the in-group) play a game of Stag Hunt while “they” (the out-group) play a game of Chicken (i.e., the 1980s nuclear arms race: Plous Reference Plous1985).

Second, interest misalignment is at the core of the AD-G and research on negotiations. Some of the motivating examples provided by D&G, such as “world hegemony” and “exclusive access” to resources (sect. 2.1, para. 1), suggest a zero-sum, step-level view of conflict outcomes, that is, a binary world in which only winning or losing matters and the margin of victory or defeat is irrelevant (Bornstein Reference Bornstein1992). Consistent with the view that intergroup conflict is rarely zero-sum (Schelling Reference Schelling1980), negotiation research acknowledges that complex real-world negotiations entail continuous outcomes and encourages negotiators to renounce fixed-pie perceptions of conflict outcomes (De Dreu et al. Reference De Dreu, Koole and Steinel2000). Further, negotiation research suggests that differences in priorities across multiple issues present the parties in complex intergroup negotiations with opportunities to engage in mutually beneficial trade-offs to increase joint outcomes. Thus, for example, if one party prioritizes security arrangements and refugee resettlement over all other issues while the other party prioritizes territorial gains and access to natural resources (e.g., water) over all other issues, both parties can get more of what they want by making concessions on low-priority issues in exchange for concessions on high-priority issues.

A third opportunity for integration between the AD-G and negotiation research has to do with the propensity to initiate negotiation. Research on negotiation suggests that power asymmetry often inhibits disadvantaged parties’ propensity to initiate negotiations (Bowles et al. Reference Bowles, Babcock and Lai2007; Small et al. Reference Small, Gelfand, Babcock and Gettman2007). Research on intergroup negotiations in asymmetric conflicts, in particular, suggests that parties’ willingness to come to the table depends on their beliefs that they would be able to challenge versus uphold the status quo at the bargaining table. Specifically, members of disadvantaged groups show greater willingness to negotiate when they believe they would be able to tackle consequential issues earlier rather than later in the negotiation, whereas members of advantaged groups show the opposite preference for tackling consequential issues later rather than earlier in the negotiation (Kteily et al. Reference Kteily, Saguy, Sidanus and Taylor2013).

The proposed model of attack and defense conflicts facilitates the generation of novel hypotheses concerning parties’ willingness to resolve their dispute through negotiations. For instance, D&G note that mutual cooperation “is more attractive to defenders than any other configuration of outcomes” and that mutual defection “is less costly to defenders than to attackers” (sect. 2.2, para. 2). Based on these features of the model, researchers can derive novel hypotheses such as these: (1) Defenders would be more likely to come to the table when negotiations are framed as enabling mutual cooperation. (2) Attackers would be more likely to come to the table when defenders signal unwavering commitment to expand all necessary costs associated with a head-on collision scenario.

Evidence from an asymmetric conflict between striking union members (the revisionist party) and government officials (the powerholding party) lends initial support to these predictions (Halevy et al. Reference Halevy, Chou, Murnighan, Mannix, Neale and Overbeck2011). Consistent with the payoff structure of the AD-G, members of the revisionist party perceived their labor dispute as a game of Chicken, whereas members of the powerholding party perceived it as a game of Stag Hunt. The powerholding party signaled its willingness to pay the costs associated with a head-on collision by keeping all schools closed for more than 2 months as the teacher union went on an all-out strike. This intergroup conflict was eventually resolved via collective bargaining that was framed as an application of mutual collaboration.

Attackers and defenders often use intergroup negotiation to resolve their conflict. Integrating the insights and findings presented by D&G with insights and findings from negotiation research – including mental models and framing, signaling and communication processes, willingness to negotiate and willingness to engage in mutually beneficial trade-offs, and the relative influence of “hawks” and “doves” on negotiation processes and outcomes (Kahneman & Renshin Reference Kahneman and Renshon2007; Steinel et al. Reference Steinel, De Dreu, Ouwehand and Ramírez-Marín2009) – has the potential to greatly enhance our understating of how attacker-defender conflicts are managed and resolved at the bargaining table.