CHARACTERISTICS OF CONFLICT, CRISIS, AND COMPETITION

Conflict leading to organized violence emerges from a particular combination of parties, imcompatible positions over an issue, hostile attitudes, and certain types of diplomatic and military actions. The parties to an international conflict are normally, but not necessarily, the governments of nation-states (obvious exceptions would include the various Palestinian guerrilla bands and the Secre­tary-General of the United Nations). Parties seek to achieve certain objectives, such as additional or more secure territory, security, souls, access to markets, prestige, alliances, world revolution, the overthrow of an unfriendly government, changes in United Nations procedures, and many other things. In efforts to achieve or defend these objectives, their demands, actions, or both will run counter to the interests and objectives of other parties.

An issue field is the subject of contention between the parties and includes the positions they are attempting to achieve. Conflict behavior (attitudes and actions) is likely to result when party A occupies a position that is incompatible with the wishes or interests of party В and perhaps others. The critical condition is thus the condition of scarcity, where a move in an issue field by one party is seen to be at the expense of the other party's position. The most traditional issue field is actual territory, but territorial control is hardly the only condition that gives rise to international conflict. There may also be incompatibilities of position on such issue fields as tariff structures, the price of oil, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the treatment of minorities in a state, or the powers and duties of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Conflict may arise in these areas because one government wants the problem solved in a manner incompatible with the wishes of another party or parties.

The term tensions refers to the set of attitudes and predispositions— such as distrust and suspicion—that populations and policy makers hold toward any other parties. Tensions do not by themselves cause conflict but only predis­pose parties to employ or manifest conflict behavior should they seek to achieve incompatible objectives. The Israeli and Syrian governments display distrust, fear, and suspicion toward each other, but incompatible positions on an issue, such as control of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights must arise before these predispositions or attitudes lead to diplomatic or military actions. In other words, antagonism, distrust, suspicion, and the like are not sufficient conditions for the occurrence of conflict or crisis.¹

Finally, conflict includes the actions—the diplomatic, propagandist, com­mercial, or military threats and punishments discussed in Part III—that the con-

¹ See, for example, Raymond W. Mack and Richard C. Snyder, "The Analysis of Social Conflict—Toward an Overview and Synthesis," Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1 (1957), 217; Clinton Fink, "Some Conceptual Difficulties in the Theory of Social Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, 12 (1968), 434; Lewis A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (New York:Free Press, 1956), pp. 37-38.

The Interaction of States: Conflict and Conflict Resolution

tending parties take toward each other. We thus distinguish the issues created out of incompatible collective objectives, the attitudes of policy makers that predispose them to make threats and carry out punishments, and the actions taken. Tensions are only a part of conflict, the underlying psychological dimen­sion. What, then, is a crisis?

A crisis is one stage of conflict; its distinguishing features include a sudden eruption of unexpected events caused by previous conflict. A conflict, such as the division of Berlin or sovereignty over Taiwan, may continue for decades, but occasionally, sudden and unexpected hostile actions by one party will raise tensions and perceived threat to such a point that policy makers of the responding state are "forced" to choose between extreme alternatives, in­cluding making war or surrendering. From the policy makers' point of view, the hallmarks of crisis are: (1) unanticipated (surprise) actions by the opponent, (2) perception of great threat, (3) perception of limited time to make a decision or response, and (4) perception of disastrous consequences from inaction.² None of these events or perceptions is likely to occur unless there has been a preceding conflict.

If we adhere to these definitions of conflict and crisis, we can eliminate some situations that are frequently classified as conflict. First, situations in which private citizens become involved with another government or with citizens of another country over some contentious issue and subsequently call upon their own government to provide them with protection or redress can be called "dis­putes." We will exclude them from most of the ensuing discussion because, in most cases, they do not involve the collective objectives of governments. To cite some examples: the accidental shooting of farm animals near the frontier by the border police of a neighboring state; the violation of an international frontier by a group of armed bandits; and frontier guards shooting at each other, where such an incident was not organized and commanded by a govern­ment. Naturally, such incidents and the ensuing disputes may lead to conflict and even war if there are tensions and other conflicts between the two states. In most cases, however, they are dealt with through legal or administrative procedures and have little bearing on relations between governments.

Second, our definition of conflict and crisis excludes what may be termed international competition. Recall that the perception of scarcity is a central ingre­dient of conflict, where a move of position by one state in an issue field is considered a loss or threat by the other party. In a conflict, the issue field, like a pie, is usually of a fixed size. If state A obtains a larger piece, state В perceives it will necessarily receive a smaller one. In competition, however,

² See Charles F. Hermann, "International Crisis as a Situational Variable," in International Politics and Foreign Policy: A Reader in Research and Theory, rev. ed., ed. James N. Rosenau (New York: Free Press, 1969), p. 414. For a model of stages in a conflict, see Lincoln P. Bloomfield and Amelia С Leiss, Controlling Small Wars: A Strategy for the 1970s (New York: Knopf, 1969), Chap. 2; and an alternative formulation in Michael Brecher, "A Theoretical Approach to International Crisis Behav­ior," The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, 3 (Winter-Spring 1978), 5-24.

402 The Interaction of States: Conflict and Conflict Resolution

the size of the pie varies. State A may try to achieve some objective or increase some value, but this effort means neither that state B's share of the value will decrease nor that it will be totally excluded from sharing in that value. An important Soviet feat in space exploration does not mean that the United States has lost the "space race." It can perform its own feats; prestige and scientific knowledge are not limited or constant. In the heyday of European and American imperialism during the latter part of the nineteenth century, the Western states could compete with each other for colonies and markets as long as the territory available for colonization and commercial exploitation kept expanding. However, once all the non-Western areas of the world had been carved up between the imperial nations, none could gain more except at the expense of some other imperial power. Thus, competition changed to conflict.

We can now examine international conflict in the twentieth century ac­cording to the four components: parties, issue fields, attitudes, and actions. This will provide us with a basis for assessing the relative effectiveness of means of resolving international conflicts.

THE INCIDENCE

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