Generalizations On Human Conflicts

conflicts differ in their complexity and importance, in the strategies to which they give rise, and in the solutions to which they lead (contention or yielding or conflict-avoidance or problem-solving)Conflicts at the interpersonal, intergroup, inter-organizational, and international level are not the same. Nevertheless, we believe it is possible to develop generalizations that cut across, and shed light on, most or all conflicts Pruitt and Kim, 2004

From Inter-personal Fights to InterState Conflicts (War)

Linking all Human Conflicts

In his studies of war and violence, Lewis Richardson linked international and domestic conflicts in his data set of Deadly Quarrels. By deadly quarrels, he meant any human quarrel which caused deaths to their participants. This definition directs the study of human conflict beyond international wars alone and suggest that any dead quarrel is within the ambit of conflict-studies, whether it is war, between states, civil wars within states, violence between criminal bands, guerrilla war and even murders.

Implications
Influenced by psychology and disdainful of the study of international politics, Richardson saw all human killings, whether it is an act of an individual crime, revolution, or war, as steaming from one causehuman aggression. Therefore, for Richardson, the only difference between wars and other forms of deadly quarrels are their magnitude in terms of numbers of casualties (deaths and wounded)

Implications of the Definition

There is some presumption that violent (deadly conflicts) have some characteristics in common which are not shared with nondeadly conflicts such as lovers quarrel, strikes, trade wars. Quarrels which result in death involve moral issues of a different order of magnitude from those which is not. Thus, at the individual level, murder is considered a crime in most societies. However, at the international level, large-scale murders like war and even genocide are tolerated and even gloried. Peaceful stable situation

Pattern of Escalation from Stability to Deadly Quarrel

Political tension situation Political Crisis LowIntensity conflict HighIntensity conflict

Political stability legitimacy

Systemic strain/ Political Cleavage

Erosion of the regime legitimacy/ emergence of faction

Open hostility/ repression,

Destruction of human lives/ properties

Domestic peace/ diplomacy

Political opposition/ diplomatic

Demonstrati Insurgency/ Revolution/ ons/threats mobilization inter-state conflicts brinkmansh Show of

What are deadly quarrels?

Conflicts that involved the deliberate infliction of physical injury or death on one person or group of people by another. Among states, violence is interpreted as an instrument with which to achieve something else, is based on the notion that violence is used instrumentally for the rational pursuit of a goal.

Elements of Deadly Quarrel

They involve the use of force or coercion and should be distinguished from nonviolent conflicts such as strikes, trade wars, sanctions, or trade embargo. They result to deaths or injuries.

Social Situations That Result to Deaths

Accident a situation that caused deaths without any intention. Genocidedeliberate attempt by one group of people to physically eliminate another. The violence is inflicted by another with very little reciprocal violence by the weaker side.

Situations
Somatic Violencethe unavoidable deaths caused by the structure of society, i.e. inequality in resources, lack of medical services, epidemic, famine, pestilence.

Types of Conflict
(According to the use of Violence) Face-to Face Murder,gang wars,criminal acts. Family quarrel, lovers quarrel Political (Impersonal) Interstate wars, revolutionary guerrilla warfare. Strike, trade-wars, diplomatic negotiations,

Inter-State Conflicts
War is organized violence carried on by political units against each other. This definition of war as a contest of arms between sovereign states is derived from the post-1448 experience, as well from the Cold War.

War as Organized Violence

War is ordered activity with rules and customs. War is not random violence, it is focused and directed. It is a collective and social, not an individual activity.

War as a Form of Violence

It is carried out in the name of an organized and legitimate political unit. It should be employed by the state against another state.

War as Organized
I t s h o u l d b e organized violence waged by a sovereign state. The concept of war was an outcome of a long historical process of limiting the widescale use of violence.

Assumptions about War

War is learned. War is a result if a long-term process. There is no such thing as an accidental war. War is a product of interactions and not a result of systemic factors. War is a means of making political decision. War is a multi-causal phenomenon.

War is Learned
War can be conceived as a learned behavior in two senses: A collective learned to make war as a general practice that is available to them as a means of resolving disputes; War is an appropriate response to other human collectives given a particular situation.

War Results from a long-term Process of Political Interactions

Wars are generated from long-term political relationship that has become intractable, conflictive, hostile, and eventually violent.

 Wars become more likely when the sequence of diplomatic actions fail to resolve highly salient issues, resulting in an increase in the level of conflictive actions, and which in turn increase psychological hostility between political actors. This process produces a kind of relationship between two countries that is prone to conflictive actions leading to a militarized dispute.

Wars are Products of Political Interactions, not Simply of Systemic Conditions

Wars are Means of Resolving Political Disputes

War serves as a allocation mechanism or a set of formal and informal rules/devices/actions for making and implementing political decisions. It an organized force that resolves issues on the basis of the power and determination of the contending political actors.

Wars are Multi-Causal Phenomena

Wars can be generated by several distinct causal paths or causal sequences. This accounts for the need to understand the various typologies of war. Understanding the causes of wars requires comprehending two sets of causality: a) necessary (underlying); and b) sufficient (triggering).

Assumptions General Typologies of War

There are different types of war. Wars of rivalry (Peer Conflicts)/wars of inequality (Unequal Conflict). Institutionalized(limited) Wars/Total war

Limited versus Total Wars

Features Issues and Stakes Limited Wars Fought generally over marginal border questions and comparatively minor changes in the disposition of stakes (economic, strategic, or colonial advantages) National/Total Far-reaching territorial and ideological demands, hegemonic claims, or fundamental changes in the global order, and the rules of the global society.

Wars of Inequality
Relative Parity among the Parties can be measured in terms of Capabilityamount of resources the belligerents can utilize to achieve its strategic goals. Reputation and status Pertains to the parties respective positions in the global hierarchy of power.

norms governing the conflict

Keeping the loss of military personnel to a minimum.

Practice of inflicting severe casualties not only against the opposing military but also against the civilian

Typologies of War

Wars of Equality Wars of Inequality (asymmetric)

Anatomy of a Militarized Interstate Conflict

The External Environment( Stability, norms, power distribution, alignment pattern, third party) Characteristics of a Dispute (Issue and pattern of evolution) Characteristics of the disputants (proximity, power/capabilities, domestic stability, ties, role, prior conflict experience, and risk propensity)

Institutionalized/ Limited Wars

China-U.S. War during the Korean War; China-Soviet Union 1969; Crimean War Russia, France, and U.K. Japan-China War of 1896. UK-Argentina 1982;India-China 1962

China-Vietnam War of 1979; Soviet Union-Finland 1939-40; U.S.-North Korea 1950-1953.

Total Wars

U.S.-Germany; U.S.Japan; U.S-Soviet Union

U.S.-North Vietnam; Germany-Poland; Germany-Greece

Issues that Generated Wars

(1648-1991)
Period General Characteristics of Wars
States were willing to limit their claims and the use of force for its sake.

Issues
Period General Characteristics of Wars
There was a problem in terms of settlement between the belligerents of the Great War, and the need to create international institutions that would guarantee the preservation of settlement and prevent wars. The forms of armed combat have diversified to the point where one can no longer speak of war as a single institution of the state system. The use of force for political purposes range from intifadas, terrorism, guerrilla wars, peacekeeping, conventional war.

Issues that Generated Wars

Issues that Generated Wars

Immediate post-Westpahalia 1648-1700

Territorial (12%) Commercial Navigation (8%) Dynastic (7%) Strategic (5%) State Survival (5%) Territory (39%) Commercial Navigation (13%) Dynastic Issues (8%) Strategic Territory (6%)

Post World War I 1919-1941

Territorial (14%) State Survival (11%) Enforce Treaty (9%) Maintain Integrity of State/empire (9%) Commerce/resources (6%)

The Classical Balance of Power System 1715-1814

War became then primarily of a great power activity and became intermingled.

The Concert of Europe & the Period of Congress 1815-1914

There was an attempt to create a system to check or regulate ambitions but this had little impact on the national liberation movements.

Maintain integrity of integrity of State Empire (18%) Territorial (13%) National Liberation/State Creation (9%) National Unification (8%)

Post World War II 1945-1991

Gov t Composition (16%) National Liberation (16%) Maintain Integrity (16%) Territorial (14%) State/Regime Survival (12%) National Unification (10%)

Expected-Political Utility of War

War as an instrument of national policy, a means by which a state s objective is attained. Basic determinant of how the international system is shaped. Determinant of polarity.

Expected Political Utility of War

Enforcing international law. Preserving the balance of power. Means of promoting changes in the international system

War and Its Impact on Socio-Political Conditions

Led to state-formation and expansion. Triggered internal conflicts or revolution. Fostered societal learning patterns. Triggered non-constitutional changes in government and democratization.

Economic Implications of War (Negative)

- Destruction of land, labor, and capital. - Diversion of civilian skills and resources to military purposes. - Diversion of investments for future growth purposes to more immediate consumption.

Economic Implications (Positive)

Economic growth (state expansion and level of development) Acceleration of technological innovation. Distribution of wealth. Centralization of the economy that can lead to productivity gains. The Phoenix factor.

Wars in the 20th Century: From Institutionalized to Total War

Technology,industrializ a t i o n , m a s s conscriptions, and nationalism led to the emergence of total wars in the 20th century First, Second, and the Cold Wars.

Total Wars
Wars in the first part of the 20th century were marked by unconditional surrender, massive destruction, deliberate targeting of non-military targets, and impositions of new socio-economic systems on conquered states by the victors.

Changing Perception Toward Wars

War as a natural calamity. War as an unfortunate accident.

War as a voluntary human activity (the ultimate contest). War as a pathological aberration that must be cured. Was is a disease.

What is peace?
Peace is not the mere absence of war. Peace is a situation that needs to be created. Peace must be defined as a situation in which the probability of war is so remote that it does not really enter in to the calculations of any of the states involved in the dispute.

Conditions for Peace

A higher expectation of utility and gains from peace than war. A civic culture. A commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes. An ethical code that guides international relations. Mutual legitimatization; A social-communicative process. Shared trust. A collective purpose and social identity among states Security Community.

Changing Nature of International Conflicts

Since 1945, there have been approximately 100 wars. Only 17 were fought by states on both sides. 9 of these 17 wars took place in just two regions (South Asia and the Middle East)

Transformation of War
Most conflicts are of an intra-state nature-decolonization wars, civil war, secession wars, state terror and terrorism. These are considered war of the Third Kind. They are organized violence that have to do with ideology/or the nature of community, rather than state interests.

Immediate Causes of the Transformation

Experience with three total wars in the 20th century. The development of nuclear weapons. Stratification of the military powersthere is only one superpower. Conventional warfare has become a very expensive affair. Emergence of global norms against territorial conquest and subjugation.

Revolutionary Warfare, Secession, Civil War, and Terrorism