This special issue of Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict (DAC) grew out of a conference convened in 2005 at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) of George Mason University to celebrate Professor Christopher Mitchell’s imminent elevation to Professor Emeritus status. A former director and long-term faculty member of ICAR, as well as a leading authority on problem-solving processes and a practitioner of interactive conflict resolution, Mitchell had become greatly interested in exploring the relationship between the asymmetry or symmetry of protracted intergroup conflicts and the processes of conflict escalation or resolution. During the 1990s, he wrote two pioneering essays on the topic, as well as dealing with some of its implications for peace processes in his 2000 book, Gestures of Conciliation.1 The Festschrift conference, organized by Nadim Rouhana and Richard Rubenstein, brought together a group of well-known conflict scholars who shared Mitchell’s interests and wished to honor him by pursuing these complex issues further.