Crisis

The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives Crisis

Contributors: Edited by: Paul Joseph Book Title: The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives Chapter Title: "Crisis" Pub. Date: 2017 Access Date: May 6, 2017 Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc. City: Thousand Oaks, Print ISBN: 9781483359892 Online ISBN: 9781483359878 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483359878.n167 Print pages: 418-420 ©2017 SAGE Publications, Inc.. All Rights Reserved. This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.

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In social relations, any chaotic situation resulting in disorder is experienced as a crisis by people, states, governments, and organizations. A crisis also means an emergency event that is expected to lead to a dangerous and unstable situation adversely affecting an individual, group, community, civic organization, government, or society. Any crisis is supposed to be negative, when changes—political, societal, economic, security, and environmental—start occurring suddenly with no prior warning. Thus, a crisis happens when a complex system either starts functioning poorly or breaks down abruptly. Then, it requires an urgent decision to be made to control the situation. The defining characteristics of crisis include that a situation must be unexpected and specific; it is not a routine event, and it has a high degree of uncertainty and threat. Also, when an old system can no longer sustain and maintain itself, the crisis starts functioning as a transformational process, and it becomes evident that a change is needed in the existing complex system. Gradually, these characteristics challenge the organization and pose a potential threat to the goals of an organization. This entry explores the nature of crises with respect to international conflicts and war. Next, a typology of crises is proposed, with historical examples. The entry concludes with an examination of the role of stress in decision making during situations of crisis. Origins and Typology of Crisis Situations Most crises are of human origin, except for natural ones, which include volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Such man-made crises can be turning points in international conflicts. The precrisis, crisis, and postcrisis situations are generally known as the chaotic process, and the literature of international politics employs two general approaches, the substantive and the procedural, to study them. Actually, it is a human failing that we do not recognize the onset of crisis conditions, owing to denial and other psychological responses. The relationship between crisis and war is sometimes very close, and it requires minute observation to determine the extent to which crisis influences the course of a conflict. Each crisis has an ostensible starting point; for example, the assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian nationalist in June 1914 precipitated a chain of events that led to the start of World War I. The separation of actors and failure of states are the most common types of crises within the current international system—for example, the breakup of the eastern bloc in 1989, followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 and the breakup of Yugoslavia starting in 1992. International crisis is nowadays a common term for a conflict between the administrations of two or more sovereign states. In international relations, each state wants to be on the side of the winners during crisis; therefore, a crisis situation is considered an opportunity to gain something. (Interestingly, the traditional Chinese concept of crisis includes the recognition that a crisis always includes an opportunity.) Such conflicts and events increase the high probability of war. War historians categorize international crises into three types: justification of hostilities, spin-off, and brinkmanship. The Iraq disarmament crisis, which precipitated the Iraq war, is a well-known example of a justification-of-hostilities crisis; as many observers have pointed out, the U.S. government had decided before the crisis began to go to war and fabricated a crisis to justify it. The pattern of justification for imposing a war includes stirring up public opinion, making illegitimate demands, trying to legitimize demands, hiding real intentions, and blaming the rejection of the demands as a reason for war. The primary issue that led to the multinational invasion of Iraq was the Iraq disarmament crisis of March 20, 2003. Following the invasion of Iraq, however, the Survey Group found no weapons of mass destruction, as had been alleged.

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In a justification-of-hostility crisis, the resultant war can be traced to the initiator’s desire to use the crisis as a tool for provoking war. Since the initiator seeks war as the only outcome, the crisis is converted into a vehicle for provoking war. U.S. president Woodrow Wilson, during the crisis provoked by the German sinking of the British steamship Lusitania, tried to exploit this incident as a pretext for breaking off relations between the United States and Germany. Consequently, he directed Lansing to moderate and modify American demands so that a compromise settlement could be reached. However, if the initiator is deprived of his alleged justification of war or conflict, the crisis can be ended short of war, as when Czechoslovakia acquiesced to the demands of Hitler in 1938. The Lusitania incident in 1915 is a notable example of spin-off crisis. A German submarine attacked RMS Lusitania, and consequently, 1,198 people lost their lives. The sinking of the Lusitania caused an international outcry, especially in the United States, Great Britain, and across the British Empire. Moreover, 128 of 139 U.S. citizens aboard the ship died in the attack. The Germans were already involved in a war with the British, which precipitated the sinking of the ship. Spin-off crises seem to be a less easily governed and directed type of confrontation. The adverse impact upon a third party of the preparations of the initiator for a primary conflict results in spin-off crisis. The protagonist is further motivated by his respective interests vested in war results, and he considers it irreconcilable and vital. Domestic pressures on one or both sides, moreover, lessen the possibility of any compromise; for example, in the Spanish-American (1898) and Russo-Finnish (1939) crises, domestic pressures precluded the possibility of compromise. In many crises, the perception of vital interest has been proved wrong; the Spanish efforts to subjugate Cuba led to a series of humiliating defeats by America, and the German invasion of Belgium in 1914 brought England into the war, which resulted in the British Expeditionary Force reaching France. The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 is a well-known example of brinkmanship. The United States had placed ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, aimed at Soviet Russia, with Moscow within range. In response, the Soviet Union deployed Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba with the consent of the Castro regime. These activities between the two nations were the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. Brinkmanship crises, however, are different from spin-off and justification-of-hostility crises inasmuch as the outcome of brinkmanship crises is not so easily predetermined. Crisis: Decision Making and Stress Crises generally follow four successive phases. The first is the precrisis phase, also known as the warning phase. In this, analysts detect the initial warning signs, but the government decides not to respond, as the problems caused by the crisis have not yet affected the government’s vital interests. The second stage is the crisis phase, in which crisis begins, and government tries to control it. The third stage is the crisis abatement phase. The government may either lose prestige or gain some advantage, depending upon how effectively or ineffectively it controls or finds a solution to the crisis. In the postcrisis phase, the government analyzes its policies and strategies. Preplanned and well-structured crisis management is needed to avoid injury to a government during a crisis. Stress is an important determinant of performance. During a crisis, many nations may have to show their willingness to go to war as one of the available options to prevent it. However, the loss of control over policy may follow actions that could make willingness to risk war more likely. Policy makers and political leaders may have to deal with many threatening messages within a short span of time. Political scientists and war historians have confirmed that the poor Page 3 of 5

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judgment shown by governments in the July 1914 crisis was due to fatigue, strain, and a failure to read incomplete and inaccurate messages correctly. But time constraints and information overload are not solely responsible for the failure of managing a crisis effectively. Some of the worst cases of crisis, such as the Indian challenge of China in 1962, the United States failure in Korea in 1950, and the Russian policy toward Japan in 1903–1904 proved to be fiascos in crisis management. Despite having ample time, the policy makers in all three crises failed to understand the situations and demonstrated bad judgment. In the 1962 India– China crisis, the politicians and policy makers had ample time, nearly a year, yet they misjudged the international situation and formulated their policies in wrong directions. Crisis management strategies are based on predictions that are set on expectations about the behavior of other international actors. These expectations are often derived from implicitly drawn haphazard analysis of a large number of signals and indices. When initiators recognize and realize their initial misjudgments, they try to avert war, for example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis and in the experience of the Fashoda; however, when there is a dearth of learning, such as in the July 1914, 1962 Sino-Indian, and 1950 Korea crises, the protagonists go to war. Some crisis management strategists suggest that policy should reflect an ongoing and rapid learning process in order to avoid erroneous perceptions that may turn a crisis into a war. But there is also the possibility of misjudgment even if new learning happens during a crisis, as it may be hindered by the same obstacles that caused the initiator to misjudge his adversary’s resolve in the first place. For example, the July 1914 crisis was the direct product of the Austro-Hungarian effort to support their empire by destroying Serbia; similarly, Soviet strategic insecurity resulted in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Often, political leaders perceive the need to attain specific foreign policy objectives, and for that, they become predisposed to see these objectives as achievable. This was well reflected in the Korean and Sino-Indian crises. The policy makers felt required to pursue aggressive foreign policies in reply to domestic pressure and strategic political imperatives. It was their strong conviction that they could attain their respective policy goals and objectives without provoking war with their respective adversaries. However, the protagonists were aware of the extent to which they were themselves powerless to back down. Moreover, the leaders involved were convinced that they would emerge victorious with relatively few causalities, even if real war did, in fact, break out. Indian, American, and German political leaders held these beliefs despite the considerable evidence to the contrary. See alsoAttribution Error; Cuban Missile Crisis; Threat Perception http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483359878.n167 10.4135/9781483359878.n167 Further Readings Bates, Darrell. The Fashoda Incident of 1898: Encounter on the Nile. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1984. Buchanan, Albert Russell. The United States and World War II. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. Deaver, Michael V. Disarming Iraq: Monitoring Power and Resistance. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001. Glennon, John P., and Nina J. Noring. Suez Crisis: July 26–December 31, 1956. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990. Hilsman, Robert. The Cuban Missile Crisis: The Struggle Over Policy. Westport, CT: Praeger,

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1996. Loewenheim, Francis L. Peace or Appeasement? Hitler, Chamberlain, and the Munich Crisis. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. Lukes, Igor, and Erik Goldstein. The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II. London: Frank Cass, 1999. Mason, Paul. The Iraq War. Mankato, MN: Arcturus Publishing, 2010. Mitroff, Ian I. Managing Crises Before They Happen: What Every Executive and Manager Needs to Know About Crisis Management. New York: AMACOM, 2000. Murray, Williamson, and Robert H. Scales. The Iraq War: A Military History. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003. Nathan, James A. Anatomy of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001. Ragsdale, Hugh. The Soviets, the Munich Crisis, and the Coming of World War II. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Schwarz, Michael, Konstantin Sonin, and the Centre for Economic Policy Research. A Theory of Brinkmanship, Conflicts, and Commitments. London: Centre for Economic Policy Research, 2005. Shin, Inseok. The Korean Crisis: Before and After. Seoul: Korea Development Institute, 2000.

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The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives