The Concept of International Conflict Management

Introduction

Conflicts among societies and within a single community have existed since the dawn of human settlements. The evolution of human life has introduced new motivations for the divergence of goals and interests, which some categorize as conflict. This conflict became more pronounced among nation-states following the Westphalian System established in 1648, as global disputes increasingly centered around ideological, religious, ethnic affiliations, and expansionist ambitions, among other reasons. These conflicts continue to have repercussions that are felt in some form to this day.

The complexity of conflicts, the interweaving of their causes, the multiplicity of their parties, and their varying nature across different contexts and geographical regions have given rise to a range of concepts aimed at exerting control over conflict as a phenomenon in international relations. This control seeks to either contain the conflict or at least adjust it in favor of one party, a desire encapsulated in the term “conflict management.” This management requires specific mechanisms and means aimed at achieving defined goals through well-studied strategies. This introduces the central issue of our research, articulated as follows: Research Questions:

• How can we understand international conflict management as a subject and reality in international relations?
• Does international conflict management employ a single mechanism or multiple mechanisms?
• Are there strategies that countries adopt in managing conflicts?

Hypotheses:

• If conflict management involves dealing with the conflict, it includes a mix of coercion and persuasion tools.
• Conflict management strategies vary depending on the nature of the conflicts, the participating parties, and the size of the gains sought by each party.

Methodology: The nature of the topic determines the methodology. For our research on defining conflict management concepts and elucidating its mechanisms and strategies, we will employ a descriptive methodology, as this type offers a larger repository of essential information and data relevant to the phenomenon under study. This aids in the development of new studies and research based on what is reached using this methodology. Our reliance on this methodology aims to achieve the following objectives:

• Understanding the process of international conflict management and providing data and facts about it.
• Identifying the elements, mechanisms, and strategies of this process.
• Studying models and stages of international conflict management.

With this methodology, we will organize the information presented in our research as follows:

I – Defining Concepts
II – Principles, Mechanisms, and Strategies of Conflict Management
III – Conflict Management from 1945 to Present
Conclusion

We will aim to explore the concept of conflict management without delving deeply into theoretical foundations, which will be the subject of future research.

I. Defining Concepts:

1. The Concept of Conflict: International conflict refers to a situation arising from conflicting viewpoints between two or more states or the clash of their interests regarding a particular topic or issue. While these matters may initially appear contradictory, if rapprochement occurs, the disagreement can be settled amicably and diplomatically. Disputes often arise over territory; for instance, one party claims rights over a piece of land while another party contests those rights.

Parties present evidence and arguments regarding their claims on the disputed land, supported by documents and proof pertaining to their rights. Many conflicts focus on borders, waters, resources, energy, minerals, fishing, farming, trade, investment, and issues of rights, freedoms, justice, equality, representation, self-determination, and other ethnic and sectarian disputes.

The concept of international conflict is defined, as per the Permanent Court of International Justice, as a “dispute between two states over a legal matter, a specific incident, or due to conflicting legal positions or interests.” Thus, two categories of international disputes can be distinguished: legal disputes (usually resolved through legal means) and political disputes (resolved through diplomatic means).

Conflict is a complex phenomenon primarily due to its numerous dimensions, intertwined causes, and varying outcomes. Despite this complexity, conflict is a natural aspect of international relations. Conflict emerges from the diversity of states and their differing goals, interests, and characteristics. It acts as a mechanism that drives the evolution of international relations, encompassing structures, organizations, relationships, and inadequate laws, ultimately leading to a move to better conditions.

The notion of conflict is complex; scholars divide into two groups: The first group investigates the causes and considers how the parties interact with each other. The second group, in addition to the first, seeks solutions to these conflicts, highlighting the varying definitions of conflict.

• Objective Conception: This perspective perceives conflict as a real situation, focusing on the behavior of the parties involved and their patterns of actions. For instance, Thomas Schelling defines it in his book “The Strategy of Conflict” as when everything that can be done is being managed and directed. According to this view, “conflict is a confrontation in which each party strives to achieve profit,” describing the adversaries’ behavior using terms like intentional, rational, refined, indicating that individuals in this confrontation search for rules that ensure the greatest chance of success.
• Subjective Conception: This perspective views conflict as a pathological condition that can be treated through possible resolutions. According to this view, its resolution begins once the parties change their perceptions, as the belief that the conflict is zero-sum is the root cause.

John Burton posits that the conflict revolves around objective differences in interests that can transform into a positive-sum situation for the parties, provided the parties reconsider each other in a way that fosters functional cooperation to exploit the contested resources.

Despite the differences between the two perceptions, conflict is a confrontation between specific wills; thus, it is a general form of human behavior. It can also be defined as a “clash of different trends or an incompatibility of interests between two or more parties, which drives them directly to reject the status quo and attempt to change it.”

Conflict and Other Concepts:

1. Tension: This appears as doubts and fears regarding disparities in interests or a desire for control and retribution but remains within this realm without escalating into actual and explicit conflict. Tension often accompanies disputes and may be a cause or result of them. Marcel Merle defines it as “situations of dispute that do not lead us to the resort of force; it suggests that tension differs from conflict, which involves fears and doubts concerning differing interests among the parties.”

• Tension precedes conflict.
• Tension does not necessarily suggest doubts about interests.
• Conflict is actual, while tension is based on uncertainties.
• Tension does not exclude cooperation when it occurs, but conflict negates cooperation from the moment it arises.

2. Crisis: This is a more advanced stage than tension and Charles Hermann defines it as “a major and sudden threat within a short period.” The crisis is characterized by numerous events and occurs over a brief duration, and if not managed adequately, it may lead to war. Crises differ from conflicts in their brief duration (a conflict may span ten years while a crisis may last a few days).
3. War: This is the highest level of conflict, where two or more parties clash militarily. Essentially, conflict entails tension, crises, and war. War inherently involves violence and hence is an armed conflict; however, not all conflicts necessarily lead to war. Bertrand Russell defines it as “a conflict between two groups trying to kill, maim, or disable as many members of the other group to achieve a specific goal.” Marcel Merle describes war as a situation characterized by clarity in at least two aspects, particularly regarding armed conflict between two states.
4. Conflict: Conflict occurs when opposing wills or powers among two or more adversaries collide, with each party striving to decimate the other entirely or partially, controlling the opposing will and aiming to end the conflict in favor of their objectives.

• It represents a social situation that arises when two or more parties strive to achieve conflicting or unsynchronized objectives. Conflict can be observed in international relations, manifesting as war—a potential threat and tangible reality, reflecting behaviors of bargaining that nearly lead to violence.
• Hostile positions stem from aware elites and masses through psychological dispositions such as aggression and suspicion. It carries the same meaning as conflict, just articulated differently across languages (with struggle in English being equivalent to conflict in Arabic).

2. The Concept of Conflict Management: Before defining “conflict management,” it is necessary to clarify the terms management, resolution, and solution related to conflict.

• Management (Conflict Management): This term refers to any situation where a conflict occurs that involves mitigating or softening its worst aspects. The objective of conflict management is to avoid or end violence among the parties.
• Resolution (Conflict Resolution): This term has a dual meaning concerning the end or termination of a state of conflict—conflict may be resolved through the victory of one side over another.
• Solution (Conflict Solution): This approach involves a high degree of challenges in analyzing the causes and solutions of conflict situations. Unlike “conflict resolution” methods, solutions lean heavily toward academic approaches rather than diplomatic ones.

Negotiations are a core aspect of conflict management that involves multiple parties engaging in dialogue, consultation, discussions, and negotiations to reach an agreement about their interests.

The definition of “conflict management” has historically meant “confaining conflicts,” indicating that conflict management involves dealing with issues in such a way that escalation does not occur into armed confrontation.

Hugh Mail highlights that conflict management content distinguishes between “subjective” and “objective” perceptions, focusing on the latter: it is not about solving but merely managing. Studies by Bendou Oceany and John Malarry in 1994 regarding “Ethnic Conflicts” classified what they termed “ethnic conflict regulation” into two types: “conflict management” and “conflict termination.”

This distinction indicates their effort to delineate all means to integrate and resolve conflicts along with efforts aimed at successful regulation and resolution. In summary:

• “Conflict Management” signifies all efforts to manage (contain) the conflict, meaning dealing with it in a manner that prevents it from escalating into armed form. However, to terminate conflict, each party strives to eliminate differences entirely.
• According to objective perspectives, “conflict management” involves addressing the conflict and thus extends beyond mere management of disputes.

John Burton differentiated between conflict resolution and conflict solution, where resolution constitutes a result of one party over another while solution presupposes an outcome favorable to both sides.

However, current discussions in conflict theory emphasize all efforts aiming to resolve conflicts, including containment, resolution, termination, peacemaking, and peacebuilding.

Simple Definition of Conflict Management: Conflict management involves addressing conflict situation elements using a combination of bargaining pressure and conciliatory tools that achieve international goals while preserving national interests. It is also an attempt to apply a set of innovative procedures, rules, and principles that transcend conventional structures and recognized management practices for the purpose of controlling and directing conflict according to state interests.

Ultimately, “conflict management” concerns unstructured or institutionally unregulated disputes occurring within a chaotic international environment. Management is often linked to escalation and contradiction phases as it aims to transition the conflict into a phase of stability, leading to conclusion and resolution.

These four phases are connected to a series of factors: conflict intensity, geographical limits, number of parties involved, resource volume, and the types of weapons employed in the conflict.

As per John Burton, international conflict management must be proactive because “in this chaotic world, we are more concerned with managing conflicts than eliminating them,” sustaining conflicts of functional value needing monitoring to prevent their capacity from eradicating those functions that harm specific groups.

Positive functions for individuals, decision-makers, communities, and interest groups can be summarized as follows:

• For individuals: victory in wars generates pride and self-esteem.
• For decision-makers: strengthening leadership positions.
• For communities: enhancing cohesion among groups.
• For interest groups: achieving their interests, with military complexes being the primary beneficiaries of conflicts.

The anarchic school argues that conflict follows two paths:

• Competitive Path: This leads to conflicts of a zero-sum nature, where the interests of the two parties are wholly contradictory.
• Cooperative Path: Transforming the conflict through escalation mechanisms: threats of escalation, diplomatic pressure, or inducements from one, several, or the international community sometimes.

This transition from either path can ultimately achieve stabilization.

For example, in Western Sahara, France is the only party capable of exerting pressure. The theories all focus on these means: mechanisms and strategies for shifting conflicts from zero-sum situations. Managed international conflicts are typically unstructured or institutionalized, indicating difficulty in subjecting them to preventive, solution, and legal resolution methods (such as arbitration and international courts). Hence, some propositions advocate structuring international conflicts to subject them to the same methods as domestic disputes.

On the other hand, conflicts that can be institutionalized mix contradictory elements with those of cooperation and mutual benefit, generally characterized by a process of ebb and flow and bargaining between the parties involved (bargaining and negotiation).

II – Principles, Mechanisms, and Strategies of Conflict Management:

Principles of Conflict Management:

A. Setting Goals: For management to be effective, each party must acknowledge that they cannot achieve all their utmost goals. This principle was observed during the 1962 Cuban crisis when the United States did not insist on the complete withdrawal of Soviet presence in Cuba or the ousting of Fidel Castro. Instead, the U.S. outlined security demands, namely dismantling Soviet missile platforms in Cuba, while the Soviet Union agreed to abandon the benefits of having those missiles, in exchange for the U.S. lifting the blockade and committing not to attack Cuba in the future.

B. Gradual Application of Military Force: If we assume the defense of state interests is non-negotiable, the involved party may need to resort to gradually and progressively employing force. However, options for peaceful solutions should not be completely shut off.

C. Maintaining Communication with the Other Party: In earlier periods, before the nuclear age, the role of diplomats diminished against the use of weapons, leading to minimal communication, which would only resume after military confrontations to negotiate ceasefire or surrender agreements. Nowadays, decision-makers maintain contact, and any interrupted communication is often leveraged to enhance military positions or advance forces to gain a tactical advantage in negotiations. Signals exchanged during crises should not be limited to verbal means as misinterpretations can lead to grave complications.

D. Seeking Support: This principle is crucial when the party in conflict resorts to military action, prompting them to seek broad support for their plans from other states, whether material or moral. However, this principle is not universally applicable, as rapid, urgent situations may prevent consultation with close allies.

Mechanisms of Conflict Management: Conflict management necessitates mechanisms that differ according to the conflict’s circumstances, participating parties, and severity level. The mechanisms include:

A. Bargaining Mechanism: This mechanism comes into play when interests diverge; each party seeks an agreement based on concessions. There are two possible outcomes: a) When coercion fails, the bargaining party may resort to threatening escalation or war.

b) The other party accepts the negotiator’s terms considering potential short- or long-term benefits. The fundamental form of bargaining can be summarized as follows:

The bargaining process starts with defining a benefit for one party in negotiation with others, influenced by geopolitical positioning and resources.

A defined timeline is essential for the bargaining process.

The presence of a third party as a mediator can be critical, given their influence on both parties.

The bargaining context is affected by regional dynamics determined by units and powers shaping a specific international region, such as Europe, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia. The effectiveness of this context correlates with the conflict’s impact on regional influence-struggle.

Bargaining, as a mechanism for managing conflict, is one of the prominent frameworks employed to address current disputes and mitigate their consequences.

B. Game Mechanics: This mechanism is employed in disputes with measurable stakes. Used within three environments: a) Certainty: Characterized by complete, reliable information regarding alternative decisions and outcomes. b) Uncertainty: Choices are based on alternatives believed to produce optimal results, assessed using four standards: – Average standard, used when information is minimal, basing decisions on the statistical probability of outcomes. – Best of the worst: Decision-makers evaluate each option based on the least favorable consequences. – Best of the best: This relies on identifying the most favorable outcome for any alternative and selecting it. – Least regret: Decisions are made to minimize the potential negative consequences of selected choices. c) Risk Environment: A realm between certainty and uncertainty, where issues of rational decision-making and available information are engaged.

2. Alliance Mechanisms: Alliances become mechanisms in managing conflict to achieve military power equilibrium against threats, serving one of the following purposes: A. Consolidation: Transforming adversaries into allies while considering the extent of goal integration, thereby fostering relationships that ease conflicts and create neutral grounds concerning aims. B. Strengthening Military Capabilities: Involves anticipating and evaluating potential conflicts, recognizing the likelihood of a dispute occurring shortly or in the future alongside its expected consequences.

The mechanisms of alliances play a critical role in conflict management, as they may either lead towards de-escalating conflicts through mutual power balancing or escalate them through the formation of coalitions. Here, bargaining may have significant implications in administering and evolving the conflict.

These three mechanisms, while varying in frequency of application, remain fundamental methods in shaping the conflict management process, which can be effectively realized through multiple means and strategies.

Conflict Management Strategies: These strategies vary based on the position and capacity of each party, but can generally be summarized within two categories:

1. Defensive Strategies:
   • Commitment Strategy: Defined by compelling adversaries, convincing them of the credibility of intentions through various methods, like asserting resilience while leaving the next move to the opponent.
   • Reconciliation Strategy: A strategy focusing on de-escalation based on mutual concessions aimed at containing disputes and lowering conflict levels toward resolution.
   • Pulse Checking Strategy: This involves an initiative from one party toward either escalation or de-escalation to gauge the reaction of the other party and push them to soften their stance toward resolution.
   • Time-buying Strategy: Signifying procrastination and engaging in sideline negotiations regarding secondary issues to buy time, either to gather military or diplomatic support or for military preparations to resume the conflict for territorial gains.

In essence, the time factor is crucial for managing conflicts favorably in terms of state interests, enhancing the outcomes of negotiations or confrontations.

2. Offensive Strategies:
   • Escalation Strategy: A common means of managing international disputes beginning with modest commitments followed by increased threats to force compromise and prevent parties from advancing to higher stages of escalation.
   • Step-by-Step Strategy: This is characterized by a gradual approach where specific gains are achieved or demands are made upon the other party, and any compliance or progress incentivizes further demands for additional gains.
   • Tight Pressure Strategy: This entails narrowing the opponent’s maneuverability within defined borders and attempting disconnecting them from their geographical environment through boycotts, blockades, and moving other nations to impose sanctions.
   • Facts on the Ground Strategy: This strategy urges the opposing party to accept the consequences of the dispute, which usually work against them, fostering an atmosphere where the opponent feels unable to resist or counteract (as with Israel in 1967).
   • Threat-based Extortion Strategy: This involves compelling the opponent into concessions conditioned upon threats of refusing outcomes. Often, this positions the opposing party slightly disadvantaged, compelled to submit to concessions due to threats, typically revolving around military force or economic sanctions (Example: Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005).

Collectively, these strategies express the flexibility that characterizes state policies in managing various conflicts, guiding their choice of strategy based on the idiosyncrasies of the dispute, international circumstances, and anticipated outcomes.

III. International Conflict Management Since 1945

Conflict management will be reviewed in two phases:

1. Cold War Phase: Conflict management during the Cold War was primarily governed by the dichotomy of relations between the two superpowers, where each sought to protect what it considered essential interests, militarily, economically, and ideologically. This led to a surge in various conflicts threatening global security, particularly during major crises like the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Meanwhile, most Third World countries opted to align under the Non-Aligned Movement, adopting policies of positive neutrality while trying to minimize conflict sources and foster understanding and trust between the two blocs. The international community, represented by the United Nations, chose the following approaches for managing international conflicts:

• Preventing international disputes.
• Resolving international disputes.
• Suppressing international disputes.

These three methods, outlined in the UN Charter, collectively form an integrated system for managing international conflicts. The first paragraph of Article 33 of the Charter stipulates various methods for managing disputes to achieve resolution or mitigate their impact, while the Security Council is empowered to intervene on behalf of the international community in cases of aggression, threat to peace, or disruption thereof.

The Charter aims to equip the Security Council with powers and authorities enabling it to effectively handle all disputes. The Cold War impacted the UN’s role in conflict management due to both superpowers’ influence and veto usages. Notably, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed, or at least negotiated strategies for addressing emergent disputes, containment was feasible; however, competing approaches from both parties exacerbated risks and tilted conflicts towards violent confrontations, akin to the Korean War (1950-1953).

The Cold War’s conclusion ushered in a new global context, ending bipolar competition with the USSR’s collapse and disintegration of the socialist bloc—representing a radical shift in enmity and alliances worldwide, coupled with reevaluation of threats and disputes away from previous frameworks prevailing since World War II.

Against this backdrop, U.S. military power grew, particularly after the Gulf War, as it sought greater global dominance in the absence of equal competitors. Frameworks were established for managing international conflicts based on a triad:

1. Interest Framework: The U.S. pushes for the settlement of disputes and cessation of their causes, engaging in ethnic and sectarian reconciliation while applying pressure for conflicting parties to transcend their grievances—evident in the Balkan conflict (1992-1995), which the U.S. managed successfully, culminating in the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement.
2. Confrontation Framework: This consists of escalating disputes to higher levels, applying continuous pressure on the adversaries, threatening force use, and attempting to embroil them into military engagements favoring U.S. interests—similar to the conflict with Iraq in 2003 and attempts against Iran and Syria.
3. Cooperation Framework: Involves striving to bypass ideological and sectarian divides while forging coherence in interests through consensus, maintaining caution to avoid escalation or sending negatively perceived signals to the opponent regarding their security concerns—illustrated in U.S. relations with Russia and China.

Tracking U.S. strategies for managing various international disputes reveals an overarching intent to solidify its influence while underscoring the UN’s failures regarding global peace and security maintenance—profoundly through:

• Stifling Security Council action through repeated vetoes.
• Dominating resource-rich regions and strategic pathways, reinforcing phenomena of facts on the ground, and establishing American-led notions of legitimacy, justice, democracy, terrorism, and security.
• Maintaining control over NATO, directing it per U.S. agendas.

However, U.S. approaches post-Cold War do not exclusively represent conflict management, as this period heralded the absence of Soviet power and loss of oversight that fomented numerous internal disputes, exacerbated by burgeoning threats of terrorism, organized transnational crime, illegal immigration, ethnic conflicts, civil wars, and refugee crises worldwide.

This new reality necessitated a reevaluation of conflict management concepts and strategies, especially amid emerging theories pointing towards ideological threats, particularly Islamic armed movements supplanting the challenges posed by communist and leftist threats epitomized during the Cold War—foremost among these theories is Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.”

For example, the European Union endeavored to enhance communication among its members, formulating a unified defense and foreign policy to contain conflicts within Europe or the Mediterranean basin, evidenced in the Kosovo War (1999), which, with American support, led to compelling Serbia to comply with international demands and soften its stance towards Kosovo Albanians.

Also, conflict management in the Caucasus showcases Russia’s firm stance against conceding to separatist pressures, parallelling Turkey’s stance against disputes with the Kurds. Israel’s approach in its conflicts with neighbors and Palestinians manifests through obduracy, procrastination, and military responses, particularly exhibited in its conflict with Hezbollah in 2006.

In summary, the post-Cold War environment has established a more intricate and intertwined circumstances surrounding conflicts, especially with the emergence of cross-border terrorism, culminating in an evolution of conflict management’s content, strategies, and mechanisms in addressing the new conditions.

Conclusion: After reviewing conflict management as a concept, mechanism, and set of strategies, we conclude the following results:

• The changing nature of conflict, particularly with the emergence of weapons of mass destruction and shifting power dynamics, has positioned conflict management as a critical necessity for containing threats to global peace and security, striving to mitigate any negative impacts on stability and security.
• The adoption of mentioned mechanisms is selective and depends on the nature of the conflict, where a range of mechanisms—seemingly contradictory at first—are employed based on long-term decision-makers’ objectives determining timing and effectiveness.
• Conflict management has evolved alongside international relations, transitioning from one power structure to another, influencing states’ desires to maintain the status quo or create new realities that serve their interests.
• Engaging new non-state actors, either as parties to conflicts or as instigators—such as armed groups driven by religious or national objectives—has necessitated a heightened focus in conflict management to effectively address these parties and curb their threats to global peace, especially as these organizations have gained international activity due to the informational revolution facilitated by globalization.

As a general outcome, the complexity of conflicts and the intertwining of their causes in the post-Cold War era have led to an intensified focus on managing conflicts both among states and within states, aiming to tackle transnational terrorism and the emerging threats posed by ethnic conflicts which have evolved in their content and risks to global peace.

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