A Century of Crisis and Conflict in the International System PDF

A CENTURY OF CRISIS AND CONFLICT IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM Theory and Evidence: Intellectual Odyssey III MICHAEL BRECHER A Century of Crisis and Conflict in the International System Michael Brecher A Century of Crisis and Conflict in the International System Theory and Evidence: Intellectual Odyss...

A CENTURY OF CRISIS AND CONFLICT IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM Theory and Evidence: Intellectual Odyssey III MICHAEL BRECHER A Century of Crisis and Conflict in the International System Michael Brecher A Century of Crisis and Conflict in the International System Theory and Evidence: Intellectual Odyssey III Michael Brecher McGill University Montreal, QC, Canada ISBN 978-3-319-57155-3 ISBN 978-3-319-57156-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57156-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939553 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. 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Cover Image: © INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo Cover Design: Samantha Johnson Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Books by Michael Brecher THE STRUGGLE FOR KASHMIR (1953) NEHRU: A Political Biography (1959) THE NEW STATES OF ASIA (1963) SUCCESSION IN INDIA: A Study in Decision-Making (1966) INDIA AND WORLD POLITICS: Krishna Menon’s View of the World (1968) POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN INDIA: An Analysis of Elite Attitudes (1969) THE FOREIGN POLICY SYSTEM OF ISRAEL: Setting, Images, Process (1972) ISRAEL, THE KOREAN WAR AND CHINA (1974) DECISIONS IN ISRAEL’S FOREIGN POLICY (1975) STUDIES IN CRISIS BEHAVIOR (ed.) (1979) DECISIONS IN CRISIS: Israel 1967 and 1973 (with Benjamin Geist) (1980) CRISIS AND CHANGE IN WORLD POLITICS (with Patrick James) (1986) CRISES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: Vol. I, Handbook of International Crises (with Jonathan Wilkenfeld) (1988) CRISES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: Vol. II, Handbook of Foreign Policy Crises (with Jonathan Wilkenfeld) (1988) CRISIS, CONFLICT AND INSTABILITY (Vol. III of CRISES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY) (with Jonathan Wilkenfeld) (1989) v vi Books by Michael Brecher CRISES IN WORLD POLITICS (1993) A STUDY OF CRISIS (with Jonathan Wilkenfeld) (1997) A STUDY OF CRISIS [CD Rom edition] (with Jonathan Wilkenfeld) (2000) MILLENNIAL REFLECTIONS ON INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (ed. with Frank P. Harvey) (2002) REALISM AND INSTITUTIONALISM IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (ed. with Frank P. Harvey) (2002) CONFLICT, SECURITY, FOREIGN POLICY, AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY (ed. with Frank Harvey) (2002) EVALUATING METHODOLOGY IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (ed. with Frank P. Harvey) (2002) CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (ed. with Frank P. Harvey) (2002) INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL EARTHQUAKES (2008) THE WORLD OF PROTRACTED CONFLICTS (2016) POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND CHARISMA: Intellectual Odyssey I (2016) DYNAMICS OF THE ARAB/ISRAEL CONFLICT: Intellectual Odyssey II (2017) Contents 1   Multiple Paths to Knowledge  1 2   Theory I: Core Concepts and Systems  23 3   Theory II: Unified Model of Crisis (UMC) & ICB FrameWork  53 4   General Findings: Foreign Policy Crises  83 5   Theory III: Interstate Conflicts  131 6   Select Case Study Findings On Interstate Conflicts: Africa & Americas  147 7   Select Case Study Findings On Interstate Conflicts: Asia  179 8   Select Case Study Findings on Interstate Conflicts: Europe and the Middle East  211 9   Select Case Study Findings on Interstate Conflicts: Inter-Region  261 vii viii Contents 10 What Have We Learned About Interstate Conflicts?  315 11 Critique of International Studies  327 Appendix: Reviews of Michael Brecher’s Books  343 References  377 Names Index  403 Index  411 List of Figures Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 5.1 Stability and Equilibrium   31 Unified Model of Interstate Crisis   58 Conflict Resolution Model   133 ix List of Tables Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 2.4 Table 2.5 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 System Attributes: Links   33 Systemic Crisis and System Properties: Berlin Blockade 1948–1949   37 Systemic Crisis and System Properties: India/Pakistan 1965–1966   40 Unit- and System-Level Crisis Components   45 Static and Dynamic Concepts of Crisis   46 Case Studies: Hypothesis Testing—Time Pressure, Stress, and Behavior   111 Case Studies: Hypothesis Testing—Summary of Findings   115 xi CHAPTER 1 Multiple Paths to Knowledge International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project: Overview The past 4 decades have been a period of intense research concentration on international crises, that is, international political earthquakes, and interstate conflicts. From the outset it was apparent that the ICB project would become an ambitious, demanding, and rewarding exploration, in depth and breadth, of a large segment of the IR field: it encompassed the study of interstate military-security crises and protracted conflicts on a scale that, as the project unfolded, seemed awesome: time—the twentieth century since the end of World War I, November 1918, into the first 15 years of the twenty-first century (ICB dataset, Version 12); geographic scope—all states in the global system during that near-century; and content—from the eruption of crises, their escalation, de-escalation through attempts at successful crisis management, to the outcome and consequences of all international and foreign policy crises for all states. That project is now 42 years old but is still flourishing, measured by the number of scholars and students engaged in ICB research and the flow of publications, books, and articles. The origins of this project were closely linked to earlier periods and topics of my research. After more than two decades on a select number of crises and conflicts in two volatile regions—from the India/Pakistan conflict over Kashmir (1947) © The Author(s) 2018 M. Brecher, A Century of Crisis and Conflict in the International System, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57156-0_1 1 2 M. BRECHER to the Arab/Israel October-Yom Kippur crisis-war (1973–1974)—the time seemed ripe to launch an inquiry into crises, conflicts, and wars in the world at large over an extended period of time. The result was my initiation of the ICB project in 1975. Its aims were ambitious. One was to generate comprehensive datasets on foreign policy and international crises in the twentieth century, for none existed at the time, unlike the closely related phenomenon of war. The other was to frame and test a unified model of international crisis and crisis behavior. Both proved to be demanding tasks on a vast scale. The few persons consulted, in 1974–1975, before taking the plunge, were skeptical, particularly of the ambitious scope of the project, which, they cautioned, could take decades; it did, with the end not yet in sight. Perhaps they were right; they certainly proved to be correct about the time frame. Their views were considered, with great care; but in the end, declined, and the saga began. (The evolution of this project, its publications, and major findings thus far, will be presented later in this book.) Since 1977, Jonathan Wilkenfeld has been my closest ICB colleague during what has become a very long-term research phase. Jonathan and I differ in many respects: educational background (McGill-Yale and Maryland-Indiana); research skills and methodological dispositions (qualitative, case study and quantitative, aggregate data analysis); an age difference, 17 years; physical distance—we lived on two continents and in three countries, Canada/Israel and the U.S. during virtually the entire history of the ICB Project, and most of it was before the coming of e-mail, and temperament. We learned a great deal from each other, with mutual respect. This cooperative endeavor facilitated a multi-method study of crises and conflicts in world politics. Our close collaboration—and our friendship—continues undiminished and unimpaired after 40 years! In the early 1980s, we were joined by Patrick James, a very talented former Ph. D student of Jon Wilkenfeld, who has made major contributions to the concepts, models, and methods of the ICB project and has become a high-profile, accomplished IR scholar, serving as President of the International Studies Association (ISA) and Peace Science Society in 2018–2019. The ICB project also benefited from a vibrant and stimulating group of colleagues and graduate students in three universities in three 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 3 states—McGill, University of Maryland, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It also had the good fortune of attracting many eager and committed research assistants in the seemingly endless task of creating reliable datasets of international crises, foreign policy crises, and protracted conflicts: for the initial, longest research period, 1929–1979— it took more than a decade, 1975–1987—Hemda Ben Yehuda, Gerald Bichunski, Diana Brecher, Ofra Einav, Robert Einav, Alex Forma, Etel Goldmann/Solingen, Sharon Greenblatt, Rutie Moser, Hanan Naveh, Arie Ofri, Lily Polliak, Mordechai Raz, Michel Reichman, André Rosenthal, Joel Schleicher, Bruce Slawitsky, and Sarah Vertzberger (in Jerusalem); and Mark Boyer, Doreen Duffy, Steve Hill, Patrick James, Cindy Kite, Maureen Latimer, Eileen Long (in Maryland); for the period, 1980–1985, Joel Schleicher (in Jerusalem), Brigid Starkey and Alice Schott (in Maryland); for the periods, 1918–1928 and 1985–1994, Tod Hoffman, Eric Laferriere, Michelle Lebrun, Mark Peranson, and Michael Vasko (at McGill); and Ronit Lupu, Iris Margulies, Meirav Mishali, Noam Shultz, and Sarah Vertzberger (in Jerusalem), and, from 1995– 2015, Kyle Beardsley, David M. Quinn, and Pelin Erlap (at Maryland). Many scholars gave generously of their time and knowledge as regional specialists, with many benefits to the ICB project: Douglas Anglin, Naomi Hazan, and Saadia Touval (on Africa); Alexander de Barros, Thomas Bruneau, Nelson Kasfir, Jorge Dominguez, and Edy Kaufman (on the Americas); Ehud Harari, Ellis Joffe, Paul Kattenburg, Guy Pauker, Leo Rose, Martin Rudner, Yaakov Vertzberger, and George T.C. Yu (on Asia); Luigi Bonanate, Karen Dawisha, Galia Golan, Kjell Goldmann, Amnon Sella, and Robert Vogel (on Europe); and Richard H. Dekmejian, Alan Dowty, Benjamin Geist, Jacob Landau, and Yaakov Shimoni (on the Middle East). Like other scholars immersed in IR research, the senior ICB scholars have a longstanding policy interest, that is, a wish and hope that our findings on crisis, conflict, and war, especially on how decision-makers behave under (often escalating) stress, might make a contribution in the quest for a more tranquil world, through advice on conflict resolution and even on war prevention. We had no illusions that the contribution would be decisive. But we did—and do—place a high value on trying to ‘bridge the gap’ between academe and the decision-makers’ world. 4 M. BRECHER The ICB approach to the systematic study of crisis, conflict, and war derived from a deep commitment to pluralism in the quest for knowledge, that is, to complementary, not competing methodologies: this commitment to pluralism is not confined to the issue of qualitative vs. quantitative methods. It includes recognition of the merit of both deductive and inductive approaches to theory-building. And it extends to a focus on both large N and small N datasets: ICB has produced—and utilized—both types in its multifaceted inquiry. ICB began with a single-state foreign policy crisis decision-making model and a set of research questions. This model and the questions were designed to direct case studies of decision-making using a common framework and therefore to facilitate generalizations about behavior under the stress of crisis. A series of in-depth studies of individual interstate crises was launched—and nine volumes have been published since 1979; these volumes are set out below. Within 2 years (1977) and with Jonathan Wilkenfeld’s invaluable input, ICB moved to a second, parallel track, namely, studies in breadth of a large number of crises to complement the in-depth case studies. Each of these paths posed different questions. One dataset was appropriate to the system or interactor (macro) level of analysis, the other to the unit or actor (micro) level of analysis. One cluster of questions was designed to generate comparable data on the four phases of an international crisis— onset, escalation, de-escalation, and impact. The data were used to test hypotheses on the conditions most likely to lead to the eruption of a crisis, its escalation to peak hostility, often with violence at the eruption and/or escalation stage(s), the ‘winding down’ process leading to termination, and its consequences. The second cluster focused on the behavior of decision-makers at different levels of stress in the pre-crisis, crisis, endcrisis, and post-crisis periods of a state’s foreign policy crisis. During the past 42 years, we pursued both paths simultaneously, viewing them as complementary, not competitive sources of findings on international and foreign policy crises and on interstate protracted conflicts. Path I, 29 qualitative case studies, ranges from Ethiopia’s decisions in the 1935–1936 Ethiopia/Italy crisis and war and the U.K. decisions in the Munich Crisis of 1938 to Iraq and U.S. decisions in the Gulf Crisis and War of 1990–1991 and the North Korea (DPRK) and U.S. decisions during several crises in the North Korean Nuclear protracted conflict since 1993 (‘vertical’ research). Path II has taken the form of quantitative 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 5 aggregate data analysis of 476 international crises and 1052 foreign policy crises since the end of World War I (‘horizontal’ research). Objectives ICB research on international crises before, during, and after the Cold War focused on five objectives. One was to develop the concept of international crisis as an international political earthquake and to present a comparison of such earthquakes since the end of World War I: along many attributes such as trigger, triggering entity, duration, number of decisions, decision-makers, their attitudinal prism, and values; and along many dimensions such as geography-region, time, system structure, conflict setting, bloc alignment, peace–war setting, violence, military power, economic development, and political regime. A second, closely related aim was to create and apply concepts, indicators, indexes, and scales designed to measure the severity (intensity) and impact (consequences) of international crises viewed as international political earthquakes. These are based on the premise that such precise measurement is scientifically possible. A third goal was to bring closure to the persistent debate on which international structure is the most—and the least—stable, that is, the least—and the most—disruptive of the global international system— bipolarity, multipolarity, bipolycentrism, and unipolarity [or unipolycentrism]. The rationale for this debate and research question is that international stability is—or should be—a high value for all states and nations/peoples in an epoch characterized by weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the persistence of anarchy despite the proliferation of international and transnational regimes, the increase of ethnic and civil wars, and the growing preoccupation with worldwide terrorism. All these sources of turmoil enhance the normative value of stability. Thus illuminating the polarity–stability nexus has important long-term implications for foreign policy and national security decision-makers and the attentive publics of all states. A fourth objective has been to extend and deepen our knowledge of coping/crisis management by in-depth case studies, focusing on how decision-makers coped with the peak stress crisis period during diverse political earthquakes (crises) in each structural era of the past nearcentury: multipolarity (mid-November 1918 [end of World War I]– early September 1945 [end of WWII]), bipolarity (early September 1945–end 1962 [termination of the Cuban Missile crisis]), bipolycentrism 6 M. BRECHER (beginning 1963–end 1989 [end of the Cold War]), and unipolycentrism (beginning 1990–ongoing). The final aim has been to provide a novel test of the validity of neoRealism. The discovery of no or minor differences in the patterns of crisis and crisis behavior during the four structural eras would indicate strong support for the neo-Realist contention that structure shapes world politics, as well as the foreign policy-security behavior of states, its principal actors. However, the presence of substantive differences in the patterns of crisis and crisis behavior during the four structural eras since the end of WW I would seriously undermine the claim of neo-Realism to be the optimal paradigm for world politics throughout history and in the decades ahead. Taken together, the general objective of the ICB inquiry since 1975 has been to enrich and deepen our knowledge of international crisis and interstate conflict in the twentieth century and beyond. The late 1970s was also a period of several ICB-related publications which became guides to the Project’s research program, especially its theoretical framework and its in-depth case studies: two Brecher journal articles, “Toward a Theory of International Crisis Behavior,” in the International Studies Quarterly (1977) and “State Behavior in International Crisis: A Model,” in the Journal of Conflict Resolution (1979). The following year, the first ICB in-depth case study volume was published, Brecher with Geist, Decisions in Crisis: Israel, 1967 and 1973. This book, as noted, served as the conceptual and methodological model for the seven other ICB case study volumes (analyzing 15 crises) that were published from 1980 to 1994, as well as for the 14 unpublished graduate student case studies of foreign policy crises. All ICB case studies applied the foreign policy crisis model, initially presented as journal articles in 1977 and 1979, as noted above. The ICB case study volumes are as follows: *Brecher with Benjamin Geist, Decisions in Crisis: Israel 1967 and 1973 (1980). Dawisha, Adeed I., Syria and the Lebanese Crisis (1980). 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 7 *Shlaim, Avi, The United States and the Berlin Blockade, 1948–1949 (1983). *Dawisha, Karen, The Kremlin and the Prague Spring (1984). *Dowty, Alan, Middle East Crisis: U.S. Decision-Making in 1958, 1970, and 1973 (1984). *Jukes, Geoffrey, Hitler’s Stalingrad Decisions (1985). *Hoffmann, Stephen: India and the China Crisis (1990), and Anglin, Douglas G., Zambian Crisis Behavior: Confronting Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence, 1965–1966 (1994). [*These six books were published from 1980 to 1990 by the University of California Press in a series, Studies in Crisis Behavior, edited by Brecher.] The case study volumes and the unpublished crisis studies generated comparable findings which provided a valuable database for testing hypotheses on state behavior in crises. The published ICB books and other in-depth case studies analyzed 15 foreign policy crises of individual states. Fourteen other crises have been researched by my graduate students. These 29 crises served as the empirical basis for Part B (“Qualitative Analysis”) in Brecher, International Political Earthquakes (2008); the findings from that inquiry are presented later in this book. A dozen years, 1975–1987, were devoted to data gathering (coding) and analysis of crises and conflicts from 1929 to 1979, the initial time frame of the ICB Project: it was a collective research enterprise whose success owed much to the devoted coding of our research assistants, under the direction of Brecher and Wilkenfeld. Given the complexity of the Project, it took 2 years to complete the process of publication. In 1988, the first two volumes of a three-volume work, Crises in the Twentieth Century, were published as Handbook of International Crises (Brecher and Wilkenfeld) and Handbook of Foreign Policy Crises (Wilkenfeld and Brecher). The next year, the third volume containing analytic papers on this dataset appeared as Crisis, Conflict and Instability (Brecher and Wilkenfeld). Almost a decade later (1997), a substantially revised and significantly enlarged aggregate dataset and analysis segment of the project appeared, A Study of Crisis (Brecher and Wilkenfeld). It presented the updated dataset at both the system-level and actor-level of analysis and an array of 8 M. BRECHER findings on crisis, conflict, and war from late 1918 to the end of 1994. [Important findings from that book are presented later in this book.] Millennial Reflections on Crisis and Conflict In 1999–2000, as President of the International Studies Association, I confronted the task of conceiving and organizing the theme panels for the annual conference. In meeting this challenge I had the invaluable collaboration of my talented Program Chair for ISA 2000, Frank Harvey, a McGill Ph. D (1993) and, at the time, Professor of Political Science at Dalhousie University and Director of its Center for Foreign Policy Studies. The imminent millennial change seemed an auspicious time to reflect on the state of International Studies (IS). To accomplish this task, a large number of prominent contributors to IS were invited to prepare papers for the envisaged eight clusters of panels on the main theme of the conference in 2000—Millennial Reflections on International Studies. The panelists represented all branches of International Studies and included scholars from many universities in Australia, Canada, Europe, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The first cluster comprised six papers by proponents, critics, and a revisionist of Realism, the dominant paradigm in International Relations during the state-centric Westphalia era, 1648–1990: John J. Mearsheimer(University of Chicago). Joseph M. Grieco (Duke University and Catholic University of Milan). John A. Vasquez (Vanderbilt University, later, University of Illinois). Kalevi J. Holsti (University of British Columbia). Manus I. Midlarsky (Rutgers University). Patrick James (University of Missouri, later, University of Southern California). The second cluster of reflections on IR paradigms comprised four papers on Institutionalism: David A. Lake(University of California, San Diego). Robert O. Keohane (Duke University, later, Princeton University). 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 9 Joseph S, Nye Jr. (Harvard University). Oran Young (Dartmouth College). A diverse group of Alternative and Critical perspectives on International Studies was represented in the third cluster: Steve Smith(University of Wales, later, Essex University) [Overview] Robert W. Cox (York University, Toronto) [Critical Theory] Michael Cox (Editor, Review of International Studies, later, University of Wales) [Radical Theory] Ernst B. Haas (University of California, Berkeley) and Peter M. Haas (University of Massachusetts at Amherst) [Constructivism] Yosef Lapid (New Mexico State University) [Post-Modernism] R.B.J. Walker (Keele University, later, University of Victoria) [PostModernism] James N. Rosenau (George Washington University) [System Change] There were six papers on Feminist and Gender perspectives on International Studies: L.H.M. Ling(Institute of Social Studies, The Hague). V. Spike Peterson (University of Arizona). Jan Jindy Pettman (Australian National University). Christine Sylvester (Institute of Social Studies, The Hague). J. Ann Tickner (University of Southern California). Marysia Zalewski (Queen’s University of Belfast). Reflections on Methodology in International Studies comprised nine papers: Four were on Formal Modeling: Michael Nicholson (Sussex University). Harvey Starr (University of South Carolina). Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (Hoover Institution/Stanford and New York University). Steven J. Brams (New York University). Three papers focused on Quantitative Methods: Dina A. Zinnes (University of Illinois). James Lee Ray (Vanderbilt University). 10 M. BRECHER Russell J. Leng (Middlebury College). Two papers discussed Qualitative (Case Study) Methods: Jack S. Levy (Rutgers University). Zeev Maoz (Tel Aviv University, later, University of California, Davis). The cluster of millennial reflections on Foreign Policy Analysis comprised papers by four authors: Yaacov Y. I. Vertzberger(Hebrew University of Jerusalem). Stephen G. Walker (Arizona State University). Ole R. Holsti (Duke University). Jonathan Wilkenfeld (University of Maryland). There were five papers onInternational Security, Peace, and War: Edward A. Kolodziej (University of Illinois). Davis B. Bobrow (University of Pittsburgh). J. David Singer (University of Michigan). Linda B. Miller (Wellesley College). Three papers focused on International Political Economy: Helen Milner (Columbia University, later, Princeton University). Robert T. Kudrle (University of Minnesota). Lisa L. Martin (Harvard University). (The participants are listed above in the sequence with which their papers appeared in Brecher and Harvey (Eds.), Millennial Reflections on International Studies, 2002.) Although some esteemed colleagues were unable to accept the invitation, the group of 44 participants was a veritable ‘blue ribbon commission’ of the International Studies field; it included 13 former presidents of the International Studies Association (ISA). The essence of the Millennial Reflections Project is evident in the Introductory Statement by the editors of the volume that contained all the Reflections papers. 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 11 “When one of the editors was introduced to International Relations (IR)/World Politics at Yale in 1946 the field comprised international politics, international law and organization, international economics, international (diplomatic) history, and a regional specialization. The hegemonic paradigm was Realism, as expressed in the work of E.H. Carr, W.T.R. Fox, Hans J. Morgenthau, Nicholas Spykman, Arnold Wolfers and others. The unquestioned focus of attention was interstate war and peace.” “By the time the other editor was initiated into International Relations at McGill in the mid-late 1980s the pre-eminent paradigm was neo-Realism. However, there were several competing claimants to the ‘true path’: institutional theory, cognitive psychology, and postmodernism; and by the time he received his doctoral degree, other competitors had emerged, notably, critical theory, constructivism, and feminism.” “The consequence, at the dawn of the new millennium, was a vigorous, still-inconclusive debate about the optimal path to knowledge about International Studies (IS), most clearly expressed in competing views: that it is a discipline—International Relations {IR} or World Politics—like economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, history; or that it is a multidisciplinary field of study, the ‘big tent’ conception held by the premier academic organization, the International Studies Association (ISA). It was in this context that the Millennial Reflections Project was conceived.” The origin and rationale of the conference idea may be found in the central theme of my presidential address to the ISA conference in Washington in February 1999: “International Studies in the Twentieth Century and Beyond: Flawed Dichotomies, Synthesis, Cumulation” (International Studies Quarterly, 1999). Whether a discipline or a multidisciplinary ‘big tent’ mélange, International Studies has developed over the last half-century with diverse philosophical underpinnings, frameworks of analysis, methodologies, and foci of attention. This diversity is evident in the papers that were presented at the panels at the Los Angeles conference and revised for this state-of-the-art collection of essays at the dawn of the new millennium. In an attempt to capture the range, diversity, and complexity of International Studies, we decided to organize the 44 ‘think-piece’ essays into eight clusters. The mainstream paradigms of Realism and Institutionalism constitute the first two concentrations. The others were 12 M. BRECHER Critical perspectives (including Critical Theory, Post-Modernism, Constructivism, and Feminism and Gender perspectives); Methodology (including quantitative, formal modeling, and qualitative [case studies]); Foreign Policy analysis; International Security, Peace, and War; and International Political Economy. The raison d’etre of the Millennial Reflections Project was set out in the Theme Statement of the conference, titled “Reflection, Integration, and Cumulation: International Studies, Past and Future.” First, new debates, perspectives the number and size of subfields and sections have grown steadily since the founding of the International Studies Association in 1959. This diversity, while enriching, has made increasingly difficult the crucial task of identifying intra-subfield, let alone intersubfield, consensus about important theoretical and empirical insights. Aside from focusing on a cluster of shared research questions related, for example, to globalization, gender and international relations, critical theory, political economy, international institutions, global development, democracy and peace, foreign and security policy, and so on, there are still few clear signs of cumulation. If, we declared, the maturity of an academic discipline is based not only on its capacity to expand but also on its capacity to select, the lack of agreement within these research communities is particularly disquieting. Realists, for instance, cannot fully agree on their paradigm’s core assumptions, central postulates, or the lessons learned from empirical research. Similarly, Feminist epistemologies encompass an array of research programs and findings that are not easily grouped into a common set of beliefs, theories, or conclusions. If those who share common interests and perspectives have difficulty agreeing on what they have accomplished to date or do not concern themselves with the question of what has been achieved so far, how can they establish clear targets to facilitate creative dialogue across these diverse perspectives and subfields? With this in mind, the objective was to challenge proponents of specific paradigms, theories, approaches, and substantive issue-areas to confront their own limitations by engaging in self-critical reflection within epistemologies and perspectives. The objective was to stimulate debates about successes and failures but to do so by avoiding the tendency to define accomplishments with reference to the failures and weaknesses of other perspectives. It is important to note that our call to assess the ‘state of the art’ in International Studies was not meant as a reaffirmation of the standard 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 13 proposition that a rigorous process of theoretical cumulation is both possible and necessary. Not all perspectives and subfields of IS are directed to cumulation in this sense. Some participants found the use of such words as synthesis and progress suspect, declaring in their original papers that they could not address, or were not prepared to address, these social science-type questions. We nevertheless encouraged these individuals to define what they considered to be fair measures of success and failure in regard to their subfield, and we asked them to assess the extent to which core objectives (whatever they may be) have or have not been met, and why. Our intention was not to tie individuals to a particular set of methodological tenets, standards, assumptions, or constraints. We simply wanted to encourage self-reflective discussion and debate about significant achievements and failures. Even where critiques of mainstream theory and methodology are part of a subfield’s raison d’etre, the lack of consensus is still apparent and relevant. As a community of scholars, we are rarely challenged to address the larger question of success and progress (however one chooses to define these terms), perhaps because there is so little agreement on the methods and standards we should use to identify and integrate important observations, arguments, and findings. To prevent intellectual diversity descending into intellectual anarchy, we set out ‘guidelines’ for the contributors in the form of six theme questions or tasks. The panelists were requested to address one or more of these themes in their essays. 1.  Engage in self-critical, state-of-the-art reflection on accomplishments and failures, especially since the creation of the ISA more than 40 years ago. 2. Assess where we stand on unresolved debates and why we have failed to resolve them. 3. Evaluate the intra-subfield standards we should use to assess the significance of theoretical insights. 4. Explore ways to achieve fruitful synthesis of approaches, both in terms of core research questions and appropriate methodologies. 5. Address the broader question of progress in international studies. 6. Select an agenda of topics and research questions that should guide your subfield during the coming decades. 14 M. BRECHER The result was an array of thought-provoking ‘think pieces’ that indicate shortcomings as well as achievements and specify the unfinished business of IS as a scholarly field in the next decade or more, with wide-ranging policy implications in the shared quest for world order. The essence of each paper in the eight clusters was summarized in the introductory chapter of the Brecher-Harvey edited book. At the end of the volume, the editors presented findings on the six theme questions about International Studies: paradigms, methodologies, and the three broad substantive research areas namely foreign policy analysis; international security, peace, and war; and international political economy. They concluded with five general observations about progress, more accurately the lack of progress, in International Studies. “First, new debates, perspectives, theories, and approaches are proliferating much faster than old debates are being resolved—indeed, few if any of the ‘old’ debates have ever been resolved. To the extent that consensus exists at all, it usually emerges in the context of narrowly-defined research programs encompassing small communities of scholars who focus on less significant issues.” “Second, if we haven’t yet achieved closure on key theoretical and methodological debates, we never will; a symposium in 1972 arrived at the same conclusion.” “Third, for those who remain convinced that constructive dialogue and consensus is still possible, our most discouraging observation is that there are no solutions.” “Fourth, self-critical reflection does not come easily to most scholars. Finally, in response to the advice of one of the elders in the field, James Rosenau, ‘we need to acknowledge our own limitations and alert those we train to the necessity of breaking with past assumptions and finding new ways of understanding and probing the enormous challenges….,’ we declared that these assertions beg crucial questions. What precisely do we tell our graduate students to keep or discard. What is the ‘real world’ and how should it be studied? The debate continues.” (681–684) (2002) [Eds. Brecher and Frank P. Harvey] 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 15 Intellectual Odyssey: Phases, Themes, Concepts The first of my three long-term research Phases (1950–1969) focused on the politics, international relations, and modern history of South Asia, mostly India. The second Phase (1960–1980) concentrated on articulated perceptions of the Arab/Israel Conflict by political leaders, officials and intellectuals from Egypt and Israel, and their behavior in a complex protracted conflict. The third, on-going Phase, which began in 1975, has been devoted to the quest for theory, aggregate data, and case studies of international crises and protracted conflicts. The three phases, as noted early in this book, were linked intellectually but the areas of study and the duration of each phase were not neatly pre-arranged. They emerged in response to changing stimuli and varying concerns over time about sources of turmoil in the global system. This conception of research phases provided a framework for an assessment of (a) political leaders, notably those who profoundly shaped the political evolution of newly independent states in two regions, South Asia and the Middle East, specifically, India and Israel, since their Independence; (b) the Arab/Israel Conflict; and (c) the theory and practice of interstate crises and protracted conflicts in the near-century since the end of World War I. Political Leadership and Charisma (Odyssey I) This theme explored a selection of the literature on political leadership and some notable political leaders in Canada, the U.K., India, and Israel from 1944 to 1978: Trudeau (Canada); Attlee and Mountbatten (the U.K.); Nehru and Krishna Menon, along with many less visible but highly influential Indian politicians in those years, including Lal Bahadur Shastri and Morarji Desai, two other prime ministers in the post-Nehru era (India); and Ben-Gurion, Sharett, Eshkol, and Meir, the first four prime ministers of Israel, along with the prominent second-generation figures, Allon, Dayan, Eban, and Peres. This theme and the findings 16 M. BRECHER were the focus of attention in the first of three books that, together, traversed my intellectual odyssey since 1950: Political Leadership and Charisma: Nehru, Ben Gurion, and Other Twentieth-Century Political Leaders (2016). The second theme centered on perceptions of a complex unresolved conflict by eight prominent political leaders of Israel during the first three decades of independence (1948–1977) and by Egyptian officials and intellectuals during the decade of Sadat’s presidency in the 1970s, before his epochal visit to Jerusalem in 1977 and the Egypt–Israel peace agreement in 1979. There were also explorations of crucial decisions by Israel, with profound consequences: to make Jerusalem the capital of Israel in December 1949; to accept German reparations in 1952; to launch a preemptive strike against Egypt in October 1956 and against Egypt and Syria in June 1967; not to launch an interceptive war in October 1973, and the Egypt–Israel peace process, 1977–1979, culminating in a formal peace agreement in 1979. The findings from many years of research on this in-depth conflict were presented in my Dynamics of the Arab/Israel Conflict (2017). This theme focuses on international and foreign policy crises—their onset phase/pre-crisis period, escalation phase/crisis period, de-escalation phase/ end-crisis period, and impact phase/post-crisis period, for all independent states in the global system since the end of World War I, along with 33 interstate protracted conflicts—by states, major powers and international institutions, from late 1918 to 2017. This phase includes the major findings from in-depth case studies of decisions, decision-makers, and the decision process by principal adversaries in 29 foreign policy crises and 11 protracted conflicts from all polarity structures, geographic regions, types of political régime, levels of power, and levels of economic development.’ 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 17 The quest for theory, insights, and findings on the three main themes was guided by ten concepts in the field of International Relations– World Politics–International Studies (IR–WP–IS). Concept 1 Subordinate State System, an intermediate level of analysis between the dominant subsystem (interactions among the major powers of the global system) and a state. A subordinate system requires six conditions: 1. Its scope is delimited, with primary emphasis on a geographic region. 2. It comprises at least three state actors, 3. Together, they are objectively acknowledged by other state actors and international organizations as constituting a distinctive community, region, or segment of the global system. 4 The members of the subsystem identify themselves as such. 5. The level of power among subsystem members is relatively inferior to that of states in the dominant system, using a sliding scale of power in both. 6. Changes in the dominant system have greater effects on the subordinate system than the reverse. This concept of a subordinate state system grew out of extensive research on South Asian international relations, in particular, the India– Pakistan conflict since the late 1940s (Brecher 1963). [Three scholars presented somewhat different definitions of a subordinate system and a focus on three other regions: Binder (1958 Middle East), Modelski (1961 South East Asia), and Hodgkin (1961 West Africa)]. Concept 2: Foreign Policy System This concept, which took the form of a pre-theory of foreign policy, was developed in the mid-late 1960s and was first published as “A Framework for Research on Foreign Policy Behavior,” in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1969, and was elaborated in my book The Foreign Policy System of Israel (1972). The research design was based on a simple proposition: the concept of system is no less valid in foreign policy analysis than in the study of domestic politics. Like all systems of action, a foreign policy system comprises an 18 M. BRECHER environment or setting, a group of actors, structures through which they initiate decisions and respond to challenges, and processes which sustain or alter the flow of demands and products of the system as a whole. Underlying this research design is the view that the operational environment, reality, affects the results or outcomes of decisions directly but influences the choice among policy options, that is, the decisions themselves, only as they are filtered through the images [perceptions] of decisionmakers. Thus, the link between perceptions and decisions is the master key to a valuable framework of foreign policy analysis. This relationship of the two environments—operational and psychological—also provides a technique for measuring ‘success’ in foreign policy decisions. To the extent that decision-makers perceive the operational environment accurately, their foreign policy acts may be said to be rooted in reality and are thus more likely to be ‘successful.’ To the extent that their images are inaccurate, policy choices will be ‘unsuccessful’; that is, there will be a gap between elite-defined objectives and policy outcomes. The boundaries of a foreign policy system are vertical, that is, they encompass all inputs and outputs that affect decisions, whose content and scope lie essentially in the realm of International Relations, World Politics. As such, the boundaries fluctuate from one issue to another. It is necessary, therefore, to explore the content and interrelations of these key variables—environment, actors, structures, decisions, processes and issues—all placed within a framework of demands on policy or inputs, and products of policy or outputs. A foreign policy system may thus be likened to a flow into and out of a network of structures or institutions that perform certain functions and thereby produce decisions. These, in turn, feed back into the system as inputs in a continuous flow of demands on policy, the policy process, and the products of policy. All foreign policy systems, then, comprise a set of components which can be classified into three general categories, inputs, process, and outputs, a concept of the political system pioneered by David Easton in a World Politics article (1957). All data regarding foreign policy can be classified into one of these categories. Concept 3: International System Two questions about international system were posed in 1980 by a prominent IR scholar, Dina Zinnes: (1) ‘how do we know one when we see one’ and (2) ‘what distinguishes one from another’? A new definition of international system, that 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 19 provides answers to these questions, was presented in a 1984 joint paper with an ICB associate, Brecher and Hemda Ben-Yehuda. An international system is a set of [state] actors who are situated in a configuration of power (structure), are involved in regular patterns of interaction (process), are separated from other units by boundaries set by a given issue, and are constrained in their behavior from within (context) and from outside the system (environment). The essential properties of an international system are structure, process, equilibrium, and stability. Structure refers to how the actors in a system stand in relation to each other. Its basic variables are the number of actors and the distribution of power among them, from unipolar through bipolar to multipower or polycentric. Process designates the interaction patterns among the actors of a system. A link between structure and process is postulated: every structure has a corresponding interaction process, and a structure creates and maintains regular interaction. Issue is another distinctive property of a system, which serves to demarcate its boundaries. This concept may be defined as a specific shared focus of interest for two or more actors. There are war–peace issues, economic and developmental issues, political, cultural, status, and technological issues within broader categories of issue-areas. Every system has Boundaries which differentiate two kinds of effects on the behavior of actors—contextual, those arising from within a system, and environmental, those from outside. Context and Environment incorporate all geographic, political, military, technological, societal, and cultural elements that affect the structure and process of a system, from within and from outside the system, respectively. The definition of international system presented above enables us to identify a system. Other concepts are needed to distinguish among systems. These are Stability and Equilibrium, system attributes. The concept of Change is the key to the distinction between stability and equilibrium, as well as to the organic link between them. Change may be defined as a shift from, or an alteration of, an existing pattern of interaction between two or more actors in the direction of greater conflict or cooperation. Change may also occur in the structure of a system, namely, an increase or decrease in the number of actors and/or a shift in the distribution of power among them. 20 M. BRECHER Stability may be defined as change within explicit bounds. Instability designates change beyond a normal fluctuation range. These concepts may be operationalized in terms of the quantity (number) of change(s) in the structure of a system, its process or both, ranging from no changes to many changes. This continuum denotes degrees of stability. The absence of change indicates pure stability, its presence, and some degree of instability. Instability in the international system can be illustrated by change in the volume of such phenomena as wars or crises involving essential actors. Equilibrium may be defined as the steady state of a system, denoting change below the threshold of reversibility. Disequilibrium designates change beyond the threshold of reversibility. This meaning is broader than the notion of balance of power, a widely used synonym for equilibrium in the world politics literature. Incremental change indicates a state of equilibrium, which has no effect on the system as a whole. Step-level (irreversible) change indicates disequilibrium, which inevitably leads to system transformation, that is, a change in essential actors and/or the distribution of power among them. The new system, with properties which significantly differ from those of its predecessor, denotes a new equilibrium, that is, changes within it which are reversible. Every system has explicit or implicit rules of the game. Many international systems permit resort to violence as an instrument of crisis and conflict management. This is evident in the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense, enshrined in international institutions of the twentieth-century multipower system (League of Nations), as well as the bipolar, bipolycentric, and unipolycentric systems (United Nations). In sum, a revised definition of international system comprises six components: actors, structure, process, boundaries, context, and environment. Furthermore, the two basic system attributes, stability and equilibrium, were redefined and the links between them specified, completing the dual task of identifying and differentiating systems. Concepts 4 and 5 International Crisis (presented in my articles in International Studies Quarterly 1977, The Journal of Conflict Resolution 1979, and many other publications during the past three decades, culminating in my book, International Political Earthquakes ), occurs at two levels of analysis. An international (macro-level) crisis is conceived as an international political earthquake. It denotes (1) a change in type and/or an increase 1 MULTIPLE PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE 21 in intensity of disruptive interactions between two or more states, with a heightened probability of war/military hostilities that, in turn, (2) destabilizes their relationship and challenges the structure of an international system. A foreign policy (micro-level) crisis derives from three interrelated perceptions by a state’s decision-makers of (1) a threat to one or more basic values, (2) finite time for response, and of (3) heightened probability of military hostilities before the challenge is overcome. The two levels of analysis are distinct but interrelated. Concept 6: Unified Model of Crisis(UMC) is an analytical device to explain interstate crisis as a whole. It builds upon the logic of a model of international crisis and a model of foreign policy crisis and integrates them into an integrated model of interstate crisis. It also attempts to incorporate the models of the onset, escalation, and de-escalation phases, and a model of impact, into a systemic, unified model. This synthesis is the prototype of a theory of interstate crisis. Concepts 7 and 8 Crisis Severity and Crisis Impact refer to different types of change in different time frames. Severity is a composite of situational attributes during an international crisis (international political earthquake). The term refers to the volume of disruptive change between/among crisis actors from onset to termination of an international crisis, that is, an international political earthquake, and denotes the extent of instability. Severity measures the intensity of disruptive change during the course of the earthquake. It is a composite of scores for six indicators of Severity of an international crisis, each on a four-point scale: number of crisis actors, gravity of values threatened, ­violence, major power involvement, geostrategic salience, and d ­ uration. Impact is a composite of effects of an international crisis (political earthquake) on an international system and/or subsystem(s), as well as on the relationship between/among principal adversaries, after the end of a crisis. It refers, in system terms, to the extent of structural change or irreversibility and thus denotes the presence or absence of equilibrium. To capture the multiple effects, impact is measured by four indicators of change, each, like the indicators of severity, on a four-point scale: change in actors, power relations, alliance configuration, and norms or rules of behavior. In sum, Severity refers to the extent of disruptive interaction while an international political earthquake (international crisis) is in motion 22 M. BRECHER (instability). Impact refers to structural change after an earthquake (crisis) has ended (disequilibrium). Concept 9: Protracted Conflict —the initial formulation (Brecher 1993) and elaborations of this concept (as noted, to Brecher 2016 L) were cited in the introduction to the analysis of 13 twentieth-century protracted conflicts earlier in this book. The less-than-crystallized intellectual origins of this concept date to my early research phases, specifically, to the protracted conflicts between the Arab states and Israel, and between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, which I first encountered in 1948–1951 and 1950–1952, respectively; both conflicts remain unresolved almost seven decades later. Concept 10 Polycentrism was initially formulated and applied in Brecher and Wilkenfeld, Crises in the Twentieth Century: Handbook on International Crises (Vol. I), 1988. Its conceptual kin—Bipolycentrism and Unipolycentrism—were developed and applied in Brecher, International Political Earthquakes (2008). CHAPTER 2 Theory I: Core Concepts and Systems Core Concepts An international crisis, later identified as an international political ­earthquake, begins with a disruptive act or event, a breakpoint (trigger), that creates a foreign policy crisis for one or more states; for example, the crossing of the Thag La Ridge in India’s North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) by People’s Republic of China (PRC) forces on September 8, 1962, setting in motion the China/India Border Crisis-War; and the dispatch of Egypt’s 4th Armored Division into the Sinai Peninsula on May 17, 1967, along with its overflight of Israel’s nuclear center at Dimona in the Negev desert the same day, leading to the June-Six-Day War. An international crisis ends with an act or event that denotes a qualitative reduction in conflict activity. In the cases noted above, crisis termination was marked by the unilateral declaration of a ceasefire by China on December 1, 1962, and the end of the Six-Day War on June 11, 1967, respectively. A militarized interstate dispute [MID], the Correlates of War [COW ] project counterpart of the ICB concept of international crisis, has been defined as “a set of interactions between or among states involving threats to use military force, displays of military force, or actual uses of military force.” © The Author(s) 2018 M. Brecher, A Century of Crisis and Conflict in the International System, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57156-0_2 23 24 M. BRECHER The majority of post-WW I twentieth and early twenty-first century international crises, 58%, occurred within the context of an on-going interstate protracted conflict; however, the overall frequency of crises revealed a substantial decline—from 273 international crises, with a total of 619 crisis actors during the half-century, 1929–1979, to 84 crises, with a total of 209 crisis actors during the quarter century that followed, 1990–2015. International crisis and protracted conflict are closely related but not synonymous. The focus of crisis is usually a single issue or a specific episode—a territorial dispute, an economic boycott, a threat to a political regime, an act of violence, etc. By contrast, protracted conflict has been defined as “hostile interactions which extend over long periods of time with sporadic outbreaks of open warfare fluctuating in frequency and intensity…. The stakes are very high…. They [protracted conflicts] linger on in time…. [They] are not specific events …, they are processes” (Azar et al. 1978). Protracted conflicts are lengthy, at least 10 years, many of them ­several decades, centuries, or more. All fluctuate in intensity. Many move from war to partial accommodation and back to violence (e.g., India/Pakistan since 1947). Other conflicts have been characterized by continuous war but of varying severity (Vietnam 1964–1975). All arouse intense animosities with spillover effects on a broad spectrum of issues. And conflict termination, where it occurs, is often complex. Even when an international crisis is very long it can be distinguished from a protracted conflict, as with the (first) India/Pakistan crisis-war over Kashmir in 1947–1948, one of 12 international crises, including four wars, during the India/Pakistan protracted conflict over many issues, tangible and intangible, since the end of British rule over the subcontinent in 1947. So too with the (first) Arab/Israel crisis-war in 1948–1949, one of 30 international crises during their largely unresolved protracted conflict, including nine wars [to be summarized later in this book]. Using a modified version of the Azar et al. definition—deleting violence as a necessary condition because it did not accord with reality— ICB uncovered 33 protracted conflicts since the end of World War I: for example, at the global level, the East/West conflict and, at the regional level, Ethiopia/Somalia (Africa), Ecuador/Peru (Americas), China/Japan (Asia), France/Germany (Europe), and Iraq/Iran (Middle East), among others. 2 THEORY I: CORE CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS 25 An overall majority of international crises during the near-century, late 1918–late 2017, 58%, occurred within an interstate protracted conflict, with a notable decline over time—from 59% of 1918–1994 crises to 52% of crises from 1995 to 2015. The other international crises occurred outside that setting; that is, they emerged in an environment without the prior condition of prolonged dispute over one or more issues and without the spillover effects of cumulative crises between the same adversaries. Operationally, for a dispute between states to qualify as a protracted conflict (conflict), there must be three or more international crises between the same pair or cluster of adversaries over one or more recurring issues during a period of at least 10 years (The concept, protracted conflict, is similar to that of “enduring rivalry” (ER), with three conditions: at least five militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) between the same adversaries, each lasting at least 1 month; 25 years from the first to the last dispute within the rivalry, and a gap of no more than 10 years between two of these disputes). This definition of an interstate protracted conflict provided the conceptual basis for the classification of international crises, and for the research questions that guided the analysis of international crises and protracted conflicts. Are there differences in the configuration of crises that occur within and outside protracted conflicts, and, if so, what are they? Specifically, how does the attribute of protracted conflict affect the crisis attributes and dimensions from onset to termination? Crises that erupted within conflicts were more likely than others to have been triggered by violence, to generate the perception of grave threat, and to entail the use of violence in crisis management. Despite these indicators of crisis severity, the international system has often been unable to deal with these crises effectively, either through its international organizations or through the attempts at crisis resolution by major powers. The notion that international crises within protracted conflicts are more likely than others to be triggered by violence derives from a conflict’s distinctive characteristics. First, prolonged hostility between the same adversaries creates mutual mistrust and expectation of violent behavior. Second, the likely presence of several issues within an on-going interstate conflict, a characteristic of many but not all protracted conflicts, strengthens this anticipation. Third, resort to violence in the past relationship between adversarial states reinforces the belief that violence will recur. And finally, the importance of the values at stake creates a disposition to initiate violence against an adversary. 26 M. BRECHER Conceptually and empirically, crisis is also closely linked to war. Most international crises erupt in a non-war setting. Some do not escalate to war (notable e.g., Berlin Blockade, 1948–1949, Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962). Other crises begin in a non-war setting and escalate to war later (Entry into World War II, 1939). And still others occur during a war, such as defeat in a major battle, Stalingrad, in 1942–1943, for Germany, or the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in 1945, for Japan. These intra-war crises (IWCs) profoundly affected the decisions of German and Japanese leaders during World War II. All types of international crisis manifest its necessary conditions, namely, more intense, or a basic change in, disruptive interactions and a perceived likely outbreak of military hostilities (or, for an intra-war crisis, a perceived adverse change in the military balance), which undermine the relationship between the adversaries and pose a challenge to system stability. Moreover, the effects of the IWCs cited here were more significant than most non-IWCs for state behavior and the evolution of world politics. In sum, a crisis can erupt, persist, and end with or without violence, let alone war. Perceptions of value threats and stress do not require war. Nor do they vanish with war. Rather, the occurrence of war at any point in the evolution of a crisis intensifies disruptive interaction, along with perceived harm and stress. Since war does not, per se, eliminate or replace crisis, IWCs were integrated into the overall set of international crises from late 1918 to the end of 2015 in the ICB Dataset. At the same time, IWCs have one distinctive attribute, a war setting. Of the 476 international crises that then comprised the ICB Dataset, 86 cases (18%) were IWCs. The most elaborate presentation of the dataset in an ICB publication, A Study of Crisis (Brecher and Wilkenfeld 1997, 2000), provided an analysis of international crises from the perspective of seven significant contextual attributes of the international system and its member-states: polarity and geography, as fundamental structural characteristics in which international crises unfold; ethnicity and regime type (democracy/nondemocracy) as constraints and influences on decision-making in crisis; the conflict setting (protracted conflict/non-protracted conflict), and extent of violence as criteria by which the international community judges the potential danger a crisis poses for the system as a whole; and third-party intervention as a potential response by the system and its actors. Each of these contextual attributes was examined with data on international political earthquakes spanning the entire twentieth century since the end 2 THEORY I: CORE CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS 27 of World War I and the first 15 years of the twenty-first century. Each of the seven sections concluded with a summary of key findings pertaining to the more than 50 hypotheses examined in A Study of Crisis, along with the significance of these empirical findings for the international system as it approached the beginning of the twenty-first century. In the midst of preparation of the large-scale report on ICB empirical and analytical findings, A Study of Crisis, a ‘first cut’ analysis of two crucial ICB concepts, by Brecher and Patrick James, was published in Crisis and Change in World Politics (1986). Its central contribution was to point the way: it was the first published version of the concepts, Crisis Severity and Crisis Impact, which were elaborated and refined in later Brecher publications, 1993 and 2008 (to be presented below). System and Crisis This chapter attempts to overcome a major obstacle to a creative system orientation in international relations—a dearth of knowledge about system-level change. To accomplish this goal, two tasks are necessary. First, building upon earlier contributions, a new definition of international system is offered and its essential properties—structure, process, equilibrium, stability—are presented and discussed. The second requirement is to create a new approach to crisis and to forge links between its unit and system levels. This, in turn, will facilitate the analysis of crises as catalysts to system change, that is, serving as international earthquakes. In an early critique, Zinnes (1980) argued persuasively that a satisfactory definition of international system must address two basic questions: (1) ‘how do we know one when we see one’ and (2) ‘what distinguishes one from another’? The first can be met by a definition which builds upon earlier writings but restores the balance between structure and process within an integrated set of system components.1 An international system is a set of actors who are situated in a configuration of power (structure), are involved in regular patterns of interaction (process), are separated from other units by boundaries set by a given 28 M. BRECHER issue, and are constrained in their behavior from within (context) and from outside the system (environment).2 Structure refers to how the actors in a system stand in relation to each other. Its basic variables are the number of actors and the distribution of power among them, from unipolar through bipolar to multi-power or polycentric. Process designates the interaction patterns among the actors of a system. The basic interaction variables are type, identified along a conflict/cooperation dimension, and intensity, indicated by the volume of interaction during a given period of time.3 A link between structure and process is postulated: every structure has a corresponding interaction process, and a structure creates and maintains regular interaction. International systems (and crises) do not require the physical proximity of actors, though this trait is frequently present. Another distinctive property of a system, which serves to demarcate its boundaries, is issue. This concept may be defined as a specific shared focus of interest for two or more state actors. There are war–peace issues. K.J. Holsti (1972: 452–455) noted several issues at the base of 77 international conflicts and crises from 1919 to 1965: territory; composition of a government; rights or privileges to bases; national honor; unlimited aggrandizement or imperialism; liberation, and unification. There are economic and developmental issues. Keohane and Nye (1977, part II) analyzed fishing, commercial navigation, offshore drilling, and military uses in the issue-area of ocean space and resources, as well as exchange rates, reserve assets, international capital movements, and adjustment, liquidity, and confidence in a regime within the international monetary issue-area. There are also political, cultural, status, and technological issues within broader categories of issue-areas (Potter 1980). The inclusion of subsystems within this definition enables us to resolve a paradox in the globally oriented concept of international system and thereby to address the other system properties, namely, boundaries, context, and environment. The paradox is simple yet fundamental. Every system has boundaries which demarcate members from other units. However, the global international system excludes a priori the possibility of non-member units and, therefore, of boundaries. It has the additional shortcoming of negating the existence of an environment as a phenomenon distinct from the system itself. That in turn makes impossible a distinction between two kinds of effects on the behavior of actors— contextual, those arising from within a system, and environmental, those from outside. As Young (1968a: 23) observed, a global system can be 2 THEORY I: CORE CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS 29 characterized only by its context since “there is nothing outside the system which can be labeled environment.” The concept of environment, he continued, is useful when dealing with subsystems, for these “may be affected by various factors (including other organized entities) located outside its boundaries in spatial terms.” There are several usages of the concept of boundaries in international politics. They may be conceived in vertical terms, that is, boundaries in time (Rosecrance 1963, Chap. 11; Haas 1974); as horizontal, that is, in spatial terms (Singer 1971: 12–13); or diagonal, that is, time and space boundaries together (Rosenau 1972: 149). The notion of boundaries presented here is derived from the generic definition of international system above. As such, they make possible the spatial distinction between context and environment. Context and environment incorporate all geographic, political, military, technological, societal, and cultural elements which affect the structure and process of a system, from within and from outside the system, respectively. These two concepts can be combined along two dimensions: extent of similarity and degree of integration. Four types of effects can be specified: 1. Similar-Integrative—homogeneity in religion and culture facilitates negotiation and compromise among actors in a system; 2. Similar-Disintegrative—the presence of ethnic minorities of similar origin in contiguous states increases turmoil and the tendency to hostile behavior; 3. Dissimilar-Integrative—economic and technological heterogeneity among actors leads to increasing interdependence, specialization, and mutual cooperation; 4. Dissimilar-Disintegrative—political regimes with different ideologies induce competition for leadership and spheres of influence. The definition of international system presented above enables us to identify a system. Other concepts are needed to distinguish among systems. These are stability and equilibrium, system attributes which have been dealt with extensively in the mainstream of international relations literature. In general, more emphasis has been given to stability. Moreover, its relationship to equilibrium has not been fully developed.4 The argument proposed here is the necessity of restoring equilibrium to a coequal status with stability among the attributes of an international system, as a precondition to developing the concept of system-level crisis.5 30 M. BRECHER Closely related tasks are definitions of stability and equilibrium and a specification of relationships between them so as to permit us to distinguish among international systems. The concept of change is the key to the distinction between stability and equilibrium, as well as to the organic link between them. Change may be defined as a shift from, or an alteration of, an existing pattern of interaction between two or more actors in the direction of greater conflict or cooperation. It is indicated by acts or events which exceed the bounds of normal fluctuations or a ‘normal relations range’ (Azar 1972; Azar et al. 1977: 196–197, 207). Following Ashby (1952: 87), four types of change may be distinguished: full function—no finite interval of constancy; part function—finite intervals of change and finite intervals of constancy; step function—finite intervals of constancy separated by instantaneous jumps; and null function—no change over the whole period of observation. Change may also occur in the structure of a system, namely, an increase or decrease in the number of actors and/or a shift in the distribution of power among them. Stability may be defined as change within explicit bounds. Instability designates change beyond a normal fluctuation range. These concepts may be operationalized in terms of the quantity (number) of change(s) in the structure of a system, its process or both, ranging from no changes to many changes. This continuum denotes degrees of stability. The absence of change indicates pure stability, its presence, and some degree of instability. Any system can thus be designated as stable or unstable. Instability in the international system can be illustrated by change in the volume of interaction inherent in such phenomena as wars or crises involving essential actors. The presence of one of these processes may also induce structural change and thereby accentuate system instability. Equilibrium may be defined as the steady state of a system, denoting change below the threshold of reversibility. Disequilibrium designates change beyond the threshold of reversibility. This meaning is broader than the notion of balance of power, a widely used synonym for equilibrium in the world politics literature. These concepts may be operationalized in terms of the quality (significance) of change in structure, process or both, ranging from total reversibility to total irreversibility. This continuum denotes degrees of equilibrium. Incremental change indicates a state of equilibrium which has no effect on the system as a whole. Steplevel (irreversible) change indicates disequilibrium, which inevitably leads to system transformation, that is, a change in essential actors and/or 2 THEORY I: CORE CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS 31 Fig. 2.1 Stability and Equilibrium the distribution of power among them. The new system, with properties which significantly differ from those of its predecessor, denotes a new equilibrium, that is, changes within it which are reversible. These system attributes are presented in Fig. 2.1. Every system has explicit or implicit rules of the game. Many international systems permit resort to violence as an instrument of crisis management, its legitimacy deriving from the legal sovereignty of international actors. This is evident in the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense, enshrined in the international institutions of the twentiethcentury multi-power system (League of Nations) and bipolar system, and in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century unipolycentric and renewed multipolar systems (United Nations). Violence which exceeds 32 M. BRECHER the bounds of a normal fluctuation range, even when legitimized by the ‘rules of the game,’ constitutes, in our terms, instability, but not disequilibrium, unless this violence challenges the structure of the system. Acute disruptions in an existing structure or process or both may, or may not, lead to disequilibrium. This potential linkage was illuminated by Keohane (1981): “a ‘distortion’ [i.e., instability] per se—an increase in temperature in an air-conditioned room, the rise of a single powerful state in a balance of power system, or a sharp increase in price because of a sudden upsurge in demand—does not suggest that a system is in disequilibrium: rather, it tests that hypothesis by allowing us to see whether adjustments take place. Does the air-conditioning bring the temperature back to the normal level, do coalitions form to counter the power of the rising state, do new sources of supply appear in response to price increases? … Disequilibrium of a system … appears only when the ‘forces tending to restore the balance’ (Arrow’s phrase in a discussion of equilibrium) fail to operate. Air-conditioning that heats a room to 100 °F.; ‘bandwagoning’ that leads to hegemony by a single power; prices that rise sharply and continuously without bringing forth new supply—these are indications of disequilibrium.” There are additional linkages. Four states of a system, along with illustrations and systemic outcomes, are presented in Table 2.1. In sum, approaches to international systems have been assessed. A revised definition has been proposed based upon six system components: actors, structure, process, boundaries, context, and environment. Furthermore, the two basic system attributes, stability and equilibrium, have been redefined and the links between them specified. Thus, the dual task of identifying and differentiating systems has now been completed. The next section will focus on the concept of systemic crisis both within a given system and as a catalyst to system transformation. Definitions of systemic crisis, based upon concepts related to international systems, can be classified into two groups: process and combined interaction structure. Process definitions view systemic crisis as a turning point at which there occurs an unusually intense period of conflictual interactions. According to McClelland (1968: 160–161), “a crisis is, in some way, a ‘change of state’ in the flow of international political actions …” 2 THEORY I: CORE CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS 33 Table 2.1 System Attributes: Links Stability Instability Equilibrium Disequilibrium No change or few reversible A changes in either structure or process and thus no effect on the system as a whole Ideologically based coalition B groups in bipolar system and flexible alignment patterns in balance of power system preserve existing structure System unchanged C Few, irreversible changes in either structure or process which lead to system transformation Exit of major actor from bloc leading to loosening of bloc system and basic change in system polarity Many but reversible changes A in structure, process or both which do not lead to system transformation Limited wars in a multipolar B or bipolar system System unchanged: equilibrium maintained, stability restored C System transformed: new equilibrium Many irreversible changes in structure, process or both which lead to system transformation World war—likely to lead to destruction of existing structure, in either multipolar or bipolar system System transformed: new equilibrium, new stability Code A State of the system, B Illustration, C System outcome Elsewhere (1972: 6–7) crisis “interaction is likely to affect the stability or equilibrium of the system …” Similarly, for Azar (1972: 184), “Interaction above the … upper critical threshold… for more than a very short time implies that a crisis situation has set in.” These definitions emphasize stages of conflictual behavior among states, different types of activity, the direction and speed of behavioral change, and shifts that indicate changes in the interaction processes. Well-operationalized concepts exist (Azar et al. 1972). And scales facilitate the ranking of various behavioral groups (Azar et al. 1977; Corson 1970; McClelland 1968; Tanter 1966). The shortcomings are analytical. The logic for designating the beginning and end of a crisis was not precisely indicated. Changes in process were not related to structure. There was no attempt to uncover causes and effects of systemic crisis. The result is a group of studies more valuable for their empirical findings than for understanding the phenomenon of systemic crisis (e.g., Burgess 34 M. BRECHER and Lawton 1972; Eckhardt and Azar 1978; McClelland 1968, 1972; Peterson 1975; Tanter 1974; Wilkenfeld 1972). Combined structural-interaction definitions view a systemic crisis as a situation characterized by basic change in processes which might affect structural variables of a system. Thus Young (1968c: 15) identified “a crisis in international politics [as] a process of interaction occurring at higher levels of perceived intensity than the ordinary flow of events and characterized by … significant implications for the stability of some system or subsystem …” Integrating structure into a process definition serves as a good analytical starting point by specifying the essential conditions and effects of crisis situations. There is, however, little operationalization of the crucial concept of structure. The result is highly abstract theoretical writings. There was another group, comprising Kaplan, Pruitt, Waltz, and others, for whom systems were characterized by normal periods of equilibrium and stability with occasional shifts to disequilibrium and instability. Although such situations are not explicitly termed systemic crises, these transitions are clearly related to the concept of crisis. Except for Kaplan, however, emphasis was placed on the traits of a specific system, not on changes from one system to another. A problem common to systemic crisis definitions was the mixture of unit- and system-level concepts. For Young (1968c: 10, 14), “crisis concerns the probabilities that violence of major proportions will break out,” a point which “explicitly refers to subjective perceptions about the prospects of violence rather than to a more objective measure of the probability of violence.” Another striking illustration was Wiener and Kahn’s (1962) 12 generic dimensions of crisis. Among them are system-level indicators such as a turning point in a sequence of events, a new configuration of international politics as a crisis outcome, and changes in relations among actors. There were also unit-level indicators: a perceived threat to actor goals; a sense of urgency, stress, and anxiety among decision-makers; increased time pressure; and so forth. In sum, there were several shortcomings in system-level definitions of crisis: 1. they did not integrate all the key concepts—change in interaction, type of structure, degree of disequilibrium, and instability; 2.  they focused clearly on interaction processes but did little to explain their sources and diverse effects on a system; and 2 THEORY I: CORE CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS 35 3. they mixed system concepts with unit-level components such as perception, stress, and values. Moreover, there was little attempt to link definitions at the two levels of crisis (McCormick 1978; Tanter 1978). In an effort to overcome these weaknesses, a new definition of international systemic crisis is presented, based upon the system properties discussed in the first section of this chapter. A systemic crisis may be defined as a situational change characterized by two necessary and sufficient conditions: 1. an increase in the intensity of disruptive interactions among system actors and 2. incipient change within the structure of an international system, more precisely, in one or more structural attributes—power distribution, actors/regimes, rules, and alliance configuration. This definition refers to crises in the military-security issue-area only. Conditions (1) and (2) denote a higher than average increase in intensity of conflictual interactions and strain to the structure. By average, we mean normal fluctuations as discussed earlier, that is, not beyond the bounds of the ‘steady state’ of the system. Systemic crisis encompasses change. System change need not occur by leaps and jumps, that is, crises; it may result from cumulative events. However, such change is the product of something other than a crisis. The definition presented here specifies change in process and structure. It is also linked to stability and equilibrium, for these conditions indicate a shift in the state of a system from stability-equilibrium to instabilityequilibrium or stability-disequilibrium or instability-disequilibrium, as illustrated in Table 2.1. In schematic terms: few distortions in process or few challenges to a structure denote low instability, whereas many changes indicate high instability; minor distortions (reversible) in process or minor challenges to a structure denote equilibrium, while major changes (irreversible) indicate disequilibrium. Instability, defined as change beyond a normal fluctuation range but within bounds, is present in all systemic crises; disequilibrium, that is, irreversible change, is not. 36 M. BRECHER The two crisis conditions and the linkages among system properties can be illustrated by the Berlin Blockade Crisis of 1948–1949. Tension between the Western powers and the Soviet Union centered on the issue of occupied Germany. The 1945 Potsdam Agreement had divided Germany into four zones of occupation, by France, the UK, the USA, and the USSR, but had provided that they were to be treated as one economic unit under the Allied Control Council. On June 7, 1948, the three Western powers published the recommendations of the March 1948 London Conference (to which the Soviet Union had not been invited), calling for a merger of their zones in Germany. This conflictual-type act broke an existing, though fragile, East–West consensus on Germany and set in motion several changes in rapid succession. The Soviet Union responded on June 24 by blocking all Western transportation by land into and out of Berlin. President Truman countered on June 26 with an order to step up the US airlift into Berlin, which had begun 2 months earlier, and continued with plans for the rehabilitation of Germany as part of Western Europe. Talks between the crisis actors began on August 2, 1948. An informal consensus on the future of Germany was reached by the four powers on March 21, 1949. An agreement was signed on 12 May formalizing the partition of Germany into two quasi-independent states, the Federal Republic of Germany [FRG, West Germany] and the German Democratic Republic [GDR, East Germany]. These events indicated an accommodation by the system, the May 12, 1949 event marking the end of the Berlin Blockade Crisis. In systemic crises, changes vary in quality, as well as in quantity: they are reversible in some cases, irreversible in others. Thus a sharp increase in conflictual interactions between the Western powers and the USSR clearly indicated system instability between June 7, 1948 and May 12, 1949. The Berlin crisis also affected the East–West equilibrium. Distortions were step-level in nature; that is, neither the interaction pattern nor the structure of the dominant system in world politics at the time was the same before and after the crisis. The agreement of May 12, 1949 illustrates this point. It left Germany divided, creating the foundation of two new international actors, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), and tightened the polarization between the superpowers. Furthermore, the interaction pattern between the Western powers and the Soviet Union after the agreement on Berlin came into effect differed 2 THEORY I: CORE CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS 37 Table 2.2 Systemic Crisis and System Properties: Berlin Blockade 1948–1949 Dominant system components Dominant system attributes Crisis phase Interaction Structure Stability Equilibrium 1. Pre–June 7, 1948 Interaction among the powers ruling Germany within a normal relations range Rapid increase in (irreversible) conflictual interaction between the USSR and the Western powers Decline in conflictual ­interaction and a system accommodation Embryonic bipolarity Stable Equilibrium 2. June 7, 1948– March 21, 1949 3. March 21–May 12, 1949 Grave challenge Unstable to the existing structure Disequilibrium Tight bipolarity Stable (New) equilibrium substantially from that during the occupation of Germany by the four powers. The system during the Berlin Blockade crisis was in a state of high instability leading to disequilibrium. As such, it helped to catalyze the transformation of the transitional international system of embryonic bipolarity (1945–1948) to tight bipolarity. The threshold events between phases of the Berlin Blockade Crisis, as well as the overall links between crisis conditions and the system attributes of equilibrium and stability, are summarized in Table 2.2. A similar analysis will now be undertaken for an international crisis at the subsystem level, the India/Pakistan struggle over Kutch and Kashmir in 1965–1966. A South Asian regional system had emerged in 1947 with the transfer of power from the United Kingdom to India and Pakistan. For almost a quarter of a century, until the sundering of Pakistan in the crisis leading to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, India and Pakistan were the relatively equal major powers in the South Asian system, with 38 M. BRECHER several small or very small powers on the geographic periphery of the sub-continent, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) from 1948, Afghanistan from 1949, Nepal since 1950, and Bangladesh. The normal pattern of interaction between India and Pakistan was characterized by mistrust and verbal hostility, with periodic disruptions of an intensity sufficient to mark international crises, as that over the post-partition territorial issues of Junagadh, Kashmir, and Hyderabad (1947–1949) and the Punjab war scare (1951). There were also longstanding conflicts over diverse issues like refugee compensation and repatriation, and the division of river water in the Indus Valley. Among them was the princely state of Kutch. Its ruler had acceded to the Indian Union in 1947, but Pakistan claimed that the northern section of the Rann of Kutch was part of its Sind province. Incidents occurred in 1956, but Indian control over the disputed territory was quickly restored. The India–Pakistan systemic crisis over Kutch and Kashmir began in April 1965 and ended in January 1966. The initial breakpoint occurred on April 8, when India launched an attack on the disputed Kutch border. Pakistan responded with a counter-attack the same day. Much higher-than-normal hostile interaction continued until the end of June 1965. Pakistani forces initially repelled local Indian troops. In response, on April 26, India placed its armed forces on alert, thereby escalating the crisis. A British call for a ceasefire and negotiations was accepted in principle on 11 May, but hostilities continued until June 30 when both parties agreed to all the terms of a UK-mediated package—mutual withdrawal of forces, direct negotiations, and arbitration if these failed to settle the dispute. High instability characterized the subsystem during those months, but its basic equilibrium remained unchanged. Third-party intervention led to partial accommodation of the South Asian subsystem. A second phase of this systemic crisis began in August 1965 and lasted until January 1966. The breakpoint occurred on August 5 when Pakistan-supported guerrillas infiltrated into the Indian-held part of the former princely State, Jammu and Kashmir, in an attempt to spark a large-scale uprising against India’s rule. The overall distribution of power between India and Pakistan was at stake, making the challenge to the structure of the regional system much greater than in the April–June phase over the Rann of Kutch. India responded on August 25 by sending several thousand troops across the 1949 Kashmir ceasefire line, capturing most areas through which the infiltrators came. The crisis escalated further on September 1, when Pakistan sent an armored column across the 2 THEORY I: CORE CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS 39 ceasefire line in southern Kashmir threatening the vital road linking the Kashmir capital, Srinagar, with the plains of India. This led to a further escalation, India’s invasion of West Pakistan on September 5. The sharp increase in the volume of disruptive interaction indicated greater system instability. This was accentuated by China’s denunciation of India’s ‘aggression’ against Pakistan and its ‘provocation’ on the Sikkim–Tibet border. Moreover, Peking (later, Beijing) issued an ultimatum to Delhi to dismantle all border military fortifications and to stop all alleged intrusions into Tibet. While rejecting China’s demands on the 17th, India hinted at a willingness to make minor concessions. The next day Chinese troop movements were reported to be within 500 m of Indian border positions. However, on September 21, China withdrew its ultimatum, announcing that India had complied with Peking’s demands. This moderate decrease in conflictual interaction denoted further partial accommodation at the systemic level; change had not risen above the threshold of irreversibility. The threat of direct Chinese military involvement in a South Asian crisis generated mediation efforts by the superpowers through the Security Council. A ceasefire resolution in mid-September, which also provided for a UN observer group in Kashmir, was accepted by India and Pakistan. This did not, however, indicate an exit point in the system-level crisis, for both armies continued to occupy each other’s territory, a situation which was soon followed by violations of their ceasefire agreement. Another pacific strand of third-party intervention began on September 17 when Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin offered to convene a conference in Tashkent between President Ayub Khan of Pakistan and Indian Prime Minister Shastri. The conference was held between January 4 and 10, 1966. It ended with a declaration affirming the intentions of both parties to restore diplomatic and economic relations following the withdrawal of their troops from all occupied territory, as well as the repatriation of prisoners of war. Thus, January 10, 1966 marked the end of the crisis and a successful accommodation by the South Asian system. The challenge to its structure had been overcome, the pre-crisis equilibrium had been restored, and instability had reverted to its long-term norm of passive distrust. As with the Berlin Blockade Crisis of 1948–1949, the links between crisis conditions and the system attributes of equilibrium and stability in the 1965–1966 India–Pakistan crisis are presented schematically in Table 2.3. 40 M. BRECHER Table 2.3 Systemic Crisis and System Properties: India/Pakistan 1965–1966 Subsystem components Crisis phase Interaction 1. April 8–June Increase in (reversible) 30, 1965 (Kutch) conflictual interaction between India and Pakistan 2. July 1–August Decline in c­ onflictual 4, 1965 interaction and a partial system ­accommodation 3. August 5– Rapid increase September 16, in (irreversible) 1965 (Kashmir) conflictual interaction between India and Pakistan 4. September 17, Marked decline in 1965–January 10, conflictual interaction 1966 and effective system accommodation Subsystem attributes Structure Stability Equilibrium Bipolarity Unstable Equilibrium Bipolarity Stable Equilibrium Grave challenge Unstable to the existing structure Disequilibrium Bipolarity Stable (restored) equilibrium Stable At the outset of this chapter, two questions were raised regarding international systems: how do we know one when we see one; and what distinguishes one from another? The same questions can be posed about international crises. We have already indicated how to recognize a crisis. It remains to explain how to distinguish one crisis from another. For this exercise, two additional concepts, severity and impact (importance), must be introduced. Severity is a composite indicator of crisis attributes from the beginning to the end of an international crisis. It refers to the volume of conflictual interactions among the crisis actors and thus denotes the extent of system instability during a crisis. Impact (Importance) is a composite indicator of crisis attributes after the conclusion of an international crisis. It refers to the quality of structural change or irreversibility and, as such, indicates the effects of a crisis on the equilibrium of a system. 2 THEORY I: CORE CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS 41 Severity can be operationalized by six indicators. One is the number of crisis actors: the larger the number, the more disruptive will be hostile interactions, the greater the likelihood of superpower or major power involvement, and the more difficult the system’s accommodation, all pointing to greater severity. Another indicator is the geostrategic salience of the location of an international crisis in terms of its natural resources and distance from major power centers. An underlying assumption is that the broader the geostrategic salience, the more severe will be the crisis. Salience ranges from a single regional subsystem (e.g., Afghanistan– Pakistan crisis over Pathanistan, 1955) to the global system (Cuban missiles, 1962). A third indicator is the extent of heterogeneity among crisis adversaries, measured by the number of attribute differences in terms of military capability, political regime, economic development, and culture (maximal heterogeneity—Mayaguez, 1975, between Cambodia and the United States). Here, too, the operative assumption is that the greater the heterogeneity among adversaries, the more severe the crisis. A fourth indicator of Severity is the extent of superpower involvement in an international crisis, ranging from situations in which both the USA and the USSR are crisis actors to a crisis in which neither was involved in any form. In general, the greater the involvement by superpowers, the greater the challenge to the structure of a system and, therefore, the more severe the international crisis. A fifth indicator of severity is issues. Crises may focus on one or more issues within one or more issueareas—military-security, political-diplomatic, economic-development, and cultural-status. The first issue-area creates the most severity. Moreover, the larger the number of issues, the more severe the crisis is likely to be. Finally, severity is indicated by the extent of violence in a crisis, ranging from full-scale war, through serious clashes short of war, to minor clashes, to no violence.6 The impact (importance) of an international crisis can be operationalized by four indicators. One is actor change as a consequence of a crisis. This ranges from the creation or elimination of one or more actors (e.g., Bangladesh, 1971; South Vietnam, 1975), through a change in regime type (e.g., Czechoslovakia, 1948, democracy to communism), to a change in regime orientation (e.g., Guatemala, 1954, pro-Soviet to proUSA), to no change in actors or their regimes. Another indicator is the extent of alliance change flowing from an international crisis, the most important being the formation or termination of an alliance (China Civil War, 1948–1949, and the PRC-USSR alliance, 1950), followed 42 M. BRECHER by the entry or exit of one or more actors into or from a formal or informal alliance (Greece–Turkey–Truman Doctrine, 1946–1947), an increase or decrease in cohesiveness in an existing alliance (Prague Spring, 1968) to no change in alliances. Power change is a third indicator of crisis importance, extending from the entry or exit of an actor into or from the ranks of the most powerful states in a system (Japan’s atomic bomb crisis, 1945), through a change in rank among the most powerful members of a system, to a change in relative power, but not in power rank, among the adversaries, to no change. Finally, the importance of a crisis is indicated by the extent of change in rules of the game. There may be new rules, codified or tacit (Prague Spring, 1968 and the Brezhnev Doctrine), an increase or decrease in actor consensus about existing rules, or no change in rules.7 Two international crises—one at the dominant system level (Berlin Blockade, 1948–1949), the other at the subsystem level (Kashmir, 1965– 1966)—were examined in terms of several core concepts, system, stability, equilibrium, and crisis. These same cases will now be evaluated in terms of severity and importance. The Berlin Blockade crisis of 1948–1949 was the first major direct confrontation between the two superpowers, though both had been adversaries in the 1945–1946 Iran Hegemony crisis.