A ceasefire may still be a long way off, but it's crucial to think through all of this in advance. The CTBT provides a good example; when the diplomats were ready to adopt a treaty in the mid-1990s, technical experts had already spent decades developing verification mechanisms.

For those drafting or analyzing potential arrangements, RAND offers several design rules. They make a lot of sense to me.
- Formalize & specify
- Widen, tailor DMZs
- Establish a joint commission
- Incorporate monitoring w/ attribution
- Separate geopolitics & local security
- Cyclical review

The study recommends pairing human peacekeepers with remote sensing tech to monitor the line of separation more effectively and cheaply than traditional missions. Some colleagues and I will soon have more to share about how emerging and traditional seismo-acoustic techniques could also contribute.

The report, by @scharap.bsky.social and co-authors, argues that specific, formal, and monitored agreements perform better than vague political declarations. This dovetails with existing political science scholarship suggesting that ceasefires with monitoring mechanisms tend to be more durable.

The book is available open access here: www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mon...

To be clear “Paris for Narva” is just meant as a shorthand and not the most plausible scenario necessarily

Maybe, but the underlying political issue (Paris for Narva) would in my view remain. I think conventional is the key here.

Sure, and not just French - this goes for any such guarantee. As you know, in the 50s-60s, the U.S. guarantee was made credible (or the credibility issue was circumvented), through putting thousands of tactical nukes in border areas.