International crisis  

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"Political scientist George Friedman has postulated that if high prices for oil and food persist, they will define the fourth distinct geopolitical regime since the end of World War II, the previous three being the Cold War, the 1989–2001 period in which economic globalization was primary, and the post-9/11 "War on Terror"." --Sholem Stein

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The term international crisis is widespread term without a single common definition. To some, it involves "a sequence of interactions between the governments of two or more sovereign states in severe conflict, short of actual war, but involving the perception of a dangerously high probability of war".

Contents

Types

Lebow gives a breakdown of three types of international crises:

  • Justification of Hostilities. One of the nations decides, before the crisis starts, to go to war and constructs a crisis to justify it. The pattern of justification is almost always the same: Rouse public opinion, make impossible demands, try to legitimize the demands, deny your real intentions then employ the rejection of the demands as a reason for war. A recent example, commonly employed by critics of George W. Bush, is the Iraq disarmament crisis, which precipitated the Iraq War.
  • Spinoff Crisis. The nations are involved in a war or crisis with another nation or nations and this precipitates another crisis, e.g. the Lusitania incident in 1915.
  • Brinkmanship. Intentionally forcing a crisis to get the other side to back down. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is a well-known example of brinkmanship.

With the exception of a justification of hostilities, the study of international crises assumes that neither side actually wants to go to war, but must be visibly prepared to do so. In the words of Groucho Marx, "Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it".

Strategies

George's book presents an overview of the process and conflicting goals of crisis management as well as many examples. He discusses a number of strategies, including:

Offensive strategies

Defensive strategies

  • coercion
  • limited escalation
  • tit-for-tat
  • test of capabilities
  • "drawing a line"
  • Buying time strategy
  • Conveying commitment and resolve to avoid miscalculation by the adversary

List of defused crises

International crises tend to result in war, almost by definition; they are then remembered best not as crises but as causes of wars. For information on international crises that resulted immediately in war, see List of wars. Given the above, some of the crises that are best-known as crises were defused. The following crises did not immediately provoke large-scale violence, but set of anger in countries:

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Ongoing crises

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "International crisis" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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