Chapter 1-.Lect. 3.

Key Concepts : Conflict and Crises in International Politics

(Managing International Crises-English Section)

Dr.Ahmed Elshoura Abouzied

 (1) The Concept of Crisis:
 The concept of crisis is a wide variety of meanings.
Indeed, it is used in various fields, such as medicine,
economics, management, public administration,
communications, history, psychology, political
science, and international relations.
 In social relations, crises are chaotic situations that
might be experienced by people, states, governments,
organizations, etc.
 The word 'crisis' means disorder; in other words we
can explain that crisis is a situation which is not
normal or stable.
 The Concept of Crisis:
In terminology, another word, 'chaos' is one
of the closest terms in meaning to the word,
'crises. In reality, pre-crisis, crisis, and post-
crisis periods are called generally chaotic
processes.
Chaos might cause disorder for a temporary
time period.
 The Concept of Crisis:
 The most commonly revealed chaos type for the
current international system is the destruction
or separation of actors.
 For instance, the break-up of the Eastern Block
in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union at the
end of 1991, and the break-up of Yugoslavia
beginning in 1992 are all examples.
 However, the currency of chaos could be a
moderator in many cases to move to stability
from a higher level of chaos.
 (2) Crises in International Politics:
Approaches to Crises in International Politics
 The literature in international relations has two
general approaches to crises in international politics:
the substantive and procedural approaches.
 The substantive approach is concerned with the
contents of each crisis, problem and/or situation.
 On the other hand, the purpose of the procedural
approach is concerned with forming general theories
about the crises to find out the procedural definition of
general crises and focus on the shared characteristics
of all kinds of crises without examining their specific
subjects or contents.
Approaches to Crises in International
Politics
 Followers of the procedural approach have
primarily developed two main theoretical
perspectives when defining crises in
international politics.
 First, the users of the decision-making approach,
who take the government as the level of primary
analysis, are interested in the conditions and the
procedures within the actor.
 Second, the users of the international systems
approach are interested in mutual changes
among the actors.
Approaches to Crises in International
Politics
The conditions of the situation require the
decision-makers to apply crisis management.
 According to the supporters of this
approach, e.g., Charles Hermann, a foreign
policy crisis is a situation which threatens the
most important and the primary aims of the
political unit, and limits the time for thinking,
planning, and responding in order to change
the probable outcome.
Approaches to Crises in International
Politics
Based on the decision-making perspective,
there are two types of crises to talk about
based on the number of people involved:
one-sided crises and two-sided crises.
As a difference between the two types of
crises, an actor amidst a crisis situation may
perceive himself surrounded by crisis and
threat, while the opponent may not perceive
a crises.
 Approaches to Crises in International
Politics
 For instance, in 1936, Germany with its leader, Hitler, did
not perceive itself to be in a crisis situation when the Rhine
area had been re-militarized, while Belgium, Czechoslovakia,
Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, and England perceived
crises.
 Nevertheless, there can also be a crisis situation that is
perceived by each actor, which would then be a two-sided
crisis (i.e., a 'normal' crisis).
Approaches to Crises in International
Politics
 According to the definitions of crises in the light of
the (top-down) systems perspective (the objective
approach), an international crisis is a situation in
which normal/patterns of interaction between
nations change significantly.
 For example, it could be possible to talk about a crisis
situation that erupted in the international system (at
the global, dominant or subsystems level) related to
the cases which may cause highly conflicted
interactions, or challenges against domination of one
actor in international system.
Approaches to Crises in International
Politics
Some analysts such as Charles McClelland
and Oran Young have made descriptions of
crises from the perspective of the
international system.
According to McClelland, an international
crisis is a 'changer of situation' that takes
place in the actions between the rivals and
affects the entire international political
system.
 Approaches to Crises in International
Politics
 For instance, the significant changes in the international system
beginning from the 1990s could be easily thought of in this
manner as a period of crisis period.
 As a matter of that fact, the trembling and the breaking down-
process on the European side of the Eastern Block in 1989 caused
the fall of the Soviet Union in late 1991, and this occurrence, as a
continuous process, indirectly triggered more local crises such as
the 1991 crisis in Iraq and also the 1992 crisis in Yugoslavia.
 Afterwards, the characteristics of those crises became the reasons
for 'the storm of change' that could be considered as a
cornerstone for the causes of the 11 September 2001 crisis. As we
can see, the reasons for crises are related to each other, as in a
chain reaction. The whole structure of a particular chain of events
could be described as an 'international crisis'.
 Approaches to Crises in International
Politics
After the Cold War, two crisis-related trends appeared.
 The first one is the changing tendency to observe that
most international crises are related to the perception of
the 'so-called' global power, the USA; therefore, almost all
large scale crises had previously been considered to be
foreign policy crises for the Washington administration.
Now, crises tend to be considered international crises by
the rest of the world as well.
 The second one, related to the first, is that the crises of
the Cold War years were generally symmetrical ones,
which erupted between the two equal sides and/or
blocks, while recently occurred crises are perceived as
asymmetrical ones, meaning that they appear between
states which do not have a equal power.
 (3) Crisis Waves in International
Political System:
There were four waves or series of important
international crisis in the last century of
world political history (from the late 19th
century through the 20th century) involving
several significant military and diplomatic
confrontations between the world actors
affected during these international crisis
periods.
Crisis Waves in International Political
System:
In 'the first one of those crises periods', there
were certain political and military which was
the last year of a period (1870-1904) of
stability and diplomatic balance based on the
superiority of Germany in Europe.
Because of that, the first period of crisis was
experienced in the years between 1904 and
1914.
Crisis Waves in International Political
System:
 In addition to the armament competition between
the alliances, the colonial struggle intensified.
 For instance, Germany-France disagreements in 1904,
1905, 1908 and 1911 because of the Morocco
problem, and Austria-Russia crises about the Balkans
in 1908, 1912 and 1913 come to mind.
 During the first crisis, small-scale disagreements
occurred between the two opposite blocks as well. As
a result of that progress, the unsettled balance broke
down suddenly in 1914.
Crisis Waves in International Political
System
The second wave of international crises'
occurred between the years of 1935 and
1939.
In accordance with the appeasement
strategy, France and Britain had been sensibly
open to negotiations and agreements.
 Crisis Waves in International Political
System
 Each aggressive or wide ranging action of The third Reich had been
perceived as acceptable by the other side in order to keep the peace; in
other words, they were trying to resist the outbreak of war.
 As was seen, the appeasement strategy had been considered at the time
as the most appropriate crisis management technique to be able to
preserve the peace. But this strategy had not been able to avoid war
either.
 Although the Allies had tried to put the new strategy into practice in
1938 just before World War II, the result did not change, the war started
in 1939.
 Crisis Waves in International Political
System
 'The third crisis period' in the international system,
that has been called the 'Cold War', occurred
between the years of 1948 and 1964.
 During that period, there was never any general war
among the nations in the crisis; however, they
occasionally stopped smaller war. Therefore, it is
possible to say that the crisis managers had gained
some experience from previous international crises
and that they tried to not make the same mistakes.
 First of all, they avoided use of the appeasement
strategy and they always tried to convert the strict
structure to a loose bipolar one.
 Crisis Waves in International Political
System
 The prominent crises such as the Berlin Crisis in 1948
(the Blockade Crisis), Korea in 1950, Suez in 1956,
Lebanon and Quemoy in 1958, Congo in 1960, the
Berlin Wall crisis in 1961, and the Cuban Missiles
Crisis in 1962 can be given as examples.
 The Cuba Missile Crisis in 1962 was an important
situation which could have caused a nuclear war
between the two 'poles', but, fortunately, the world
avoided that threat by the effective measures taken
by the two leaders, Kennedy and Khrushchev.
 Crisis Waves in International Political
System
 The initial events of 'the fourth crises wave' in the international
system appeared in East Germany first then, followed by Central
and Eastern Europe between the years of 1989 and 1990.
 After those incidents had spread to the Soviet Union, the collapse
of the Soviet communist system happened in late 1991, followed
by an international crisis.
 That situation occasioned the following crises: the Iraq Crisis in
1991-1992, the Yugoslavia Crisis in 1992-1996, the Kosovo Crisis in
1999, the crisis of terrorist attacks against the USA on 11
September 2001, etc.
 The main trigger of some of these crises before 2001 was the
absence of the Soviet authority, but after the 2001 terrorist
attacks, our hypothesis is that to a great extent, the cause was the
willingness of the USA to fill the gap with a kind of Pax-Americana.