Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T18:53:36.542Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Acute International Crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Charles A. McClelland
Charles A. McClelland
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Get access

Extract

Accounts of the acute crises of international politics occupy a substantial place in the diplomatic history of the past hundred years. These compounded events have been interpreted as manifestations of international rivalries among the Great Powers. Intermittently, they have drawn intense public attention and have generated heavy anxieties over the possibility that they may lead into general warfare. After the fact, they have become subjects of historical reconstruction, with students and commentators attempting to describe “what really happened.” Thus, both scholarly and popular interest has persisted in the “inside stories” of the several crises belonging to three historical periods: from 1870 to World War I, the interwar period, and the era since World War II.

There is, consequently, a large descriptive literature of the crises, mainly connected with the diplomacy of opposing coalitions and of interstate conflicts during these three periods. The depth and quality of this literature vary greatly, most often according to the recency of the events and the amount of available and relevant historical documentation. The Moroccan crisis of 1905 and the circumstances of the Anschluss of 1936 are, quite naturally, better known and more firmly established factually than the inner details of the Suez crisis of 1956. However, the accumulated knowledge of the series of crises of the post-World War II period, uncertain and impressionistic as it still is, has a great deal to do with our understanding of current international affairs. Take away the facts and meanings commonly associated with the crises of Berlin, Korea, Indochina, Suez, Quemoy, the Congo, and Laos and, obviously, the usual estimates of the scope, intensity, and workings of the Cold War will greatly change. Despite this fact, acute crises have not often been made the focus either of theorizing or of intensive analytic research. Students of international relations have not found it important or necessary to consider these events as if they constituted a significant class of phenomena in the international field. The reasons for passing over the acute international crisis as a focus of explanation are worth consideration.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 14 , Special Issue 1: The International System: Theoretical Essays , October 1961 , pp. 182 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See, for example, quoted passages in Fay, Sidney B., The Origins of the World War, 2nd ed., New York, 1935, 1, pp. 31Google Scholar, 205, 290, 336, 435, 451, etc.

2 Bernard, Jessie, “The Conceptualization of Intergroup Relations with Special Reference to Conflict,” Social Forces, XXIX (March 1951), pp. 243–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bernard, Jessie, “The Theory of Games of Strategy as a Modern Sociology of Conflict,” American Journal of Sociology, LIX (March 1954), pp. 411–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stouffer, Samuel, “An Analysis of Conflicting Social Norms,” American Sociological Review, XIV (December 1949), pp. 707–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mack, Raymond W. and Snyder, Richard C., “The Analysis of Social Conflict—Toward an Overview and Synthesis,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1 (June 1957), pp. 212–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 For example, Marshall, George C., “Assistance to European Economic Recovery,” Department of State Bulletin, XVIII (January 18, 1948), pp. 71–72.Google Scholar

4 Lenin, V. I., Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, New York, 1940.Google Scholar

5 Speech at Smolensk on August 13, 1958, New York Times, August 24, 1958.

6 Strausz-Hupé, Robertet al., Protracted Conflict, New York, 1959.Google Scholar See also Smiddy, Harold F., “Manageability and Crises,” General Electric Defense Quarterly, IV (January-March 1961), p. 23.Google Scholar

7 Morris, Jacob, “Profit, Automation, and the Cold War,” Science & Society, XXIV (Winter 1960), pp. 1–12Google Scholar; and Institute for the Study of the USSR, Soviet Affairs Analysis Service, “Reference Paper,” No. 16, pp. 1–3Google Scholar, and No. 17, p. 4 (1960/61), mimeo.

8 Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations, 3rd ed., New York, 1960, p. 428.Google Scholar

9 Wright, Quincy, A Study of War, Chicago, 1942, 11, p. 127–211.Google Scholar

10 Lasswell, Harold D., “Inevitable War: A Problem in the Control of Long-range Expectations,” World Politics, II (October 1949), p. 6.Google Scholar

11 Aron, Raymond, The Century of Total War, Garden City, N.Y., 1954, p. 226.Google Scholar

12 Deutsch, Karl W., “Mass Communications and the Loss of Freedom in National Decision-making: A Possible Research Approach to Interstate Conflicts,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1 (June 1957), p. 200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Freymond, Jacques, The Saar Conflict, 1945–1955, London and New York, 1960, p. xiv.Google Scholar

14 Snyder, Richard C. and Paige, Glenn D., “The United States Decision to Resist Aggression in Korea: The Application of an Analytical Scheme,” Administrative Science Quarterly, III (December 1958), pp. 341–378CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whiting, Allen, China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War, New York, 1960Google Scholar; Cohen, Bernard C., The Political Process and Foreign Policy, Princeton, N.J., 1957.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Deutsch, , op.cit., pp. 200–11.Google Scholar

16 Schelling, Thomas C., The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge, Mass., 1960, pp. 5–6, 21–80.Google Scholar

17 See Thomas C. Schelling's paper in this symposium; Guetzkow, Harold, “A Use of Simulation in the Study of Inter-Nation Relations,” Behavioral Science, IV (July 1959), pp. 183–91.Google Scholar

18 Boulding, Kenneth E., “Organization and Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1 (June 1957), p. 132.Google Scholar

19 Rapoport, Anatol, Fights, Games, and Debates, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1960, pp. 88–99.Google Scholar

20 Freymond, , op.cit., p. xvii.Google Scholar

21 Snyder, Richard C.et al., Decision-making as an Approach to the Study of International Relations, Princeton, N.J., 1954.Google Scholar

22 Bosc, Robert, “La sociologie américaine des relations internationales,” Revue de I'action populaire, CXLV (February 1961), pp. 207–14Google Scholar; McClelland, C. A., “The Function of Theory in International Relations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, IV (September 1960), pp. 323–26 and references.Google Scholar

23 Ross Ashby, W., An Introduction to Cybernetics, New York, 1957, chs. 2 and 6Google Scholar, in particular; Rosen, Robert, “A Relational Theory of Biological Systems, 1,” General Systems Yearbook, V (1960), pp. 29–35Google Scholar: first published in Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics, XX (1958), pp. 245–60. See also Cadwallader, Mervyn L., “The Cybernetic Analysis of Change in Complex Social Organizations,” American Journal of Sociology, LXV (September 1959), pp. 154–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Ackoff, Russell L., “Systems, Organizations, and Interdisciplinary Research,” General Systems Yearbook, V (1960), pp. 1–8.Google Scholar

25 The arrow direction indicates output from a block. The “receiving” block at the arrowhead stands for an action-in-response (i.e., “it” processes the output and sends its related, “answering” input—the latter indicated by the outgoing arrow). The numbers in the blocks correspond to numbered items in a chronology of events. “A” diagram items are from the writer's “Chronology of Events in the 1948 Berlin Crisis,” SFIS 60–17 (ditto), and the “B” diagram uses materials from Vatcher, William H. Jr, Panmunjon: The Story of the Korean Military Armistice Negotiations, New York, 1958, pp. 20–25.Google Scholar The relevant chronology items are as follows:

For A—(461a) General Clay requests withdrawal of Soviet repatriation mission at Frankfurt by March 1, 1949. (461b) Soviet Military Governor protests that the mission is still needed and that Clay has no right to order its withdrawal. (464) Soviet note protests Clay's order for removal of Soviet repatriation mission as violating the Crimea agreement on the matter. (466) US authority announces that if Soviet repatriation mission does not leave at once, the premises will be blockaded and the utilities disconnected. (467a) Soviet repatriation mission headquarters blockaded and utilities turned off. (467b) Sokolovsky protests that the action is illegal and breaks repatriation agreements. (468) Soviet authority announces that it has ordered the repatriation mission to leave Frankfurt but, as a reprisal, has cancelled the permits of two US search teams looking for war graves in the Soviet Union.

For B—(1) Yakov Malik broadcast on June 23, 1951, suggesting discussions between Korean War belligerents on cease-fire and armistice. (2) Truman challenges Soviet Union to make Malik's suggestion an official proposal. (3) Truman announces that the United States is prepared to join in talks on peaceful settlement in Korea. (4) Dr. Rhee demands withdrawal of the Chinese and a guarantee of the unification of Korea as prior conditions of an armistice. (5) Dr. Rhee declares against a cease-fire at the 38th Parallel, (6) UNC Commander-in-Chief, General Ridgway, by radio, proposes a meeting with the Communist command in Korea on Danish ship, Jutlandia. (7) Generals Kim II Sung and Peng Teh-huai, North Korean and Chinese commanders, agree to meeting but counter with proposal to meet in the area of Kaesong. (8) General Ridgway agrees to Kaesong site to expedite end of fighting and to show good faith. (9) Meeting of liaison officers of both sides at Kaesong on July 8, 1951, to prepare for full meeting.

The foregoing interaction sequences are very simple, brief, and of little independent significance and are included here only for the purpose of illustrating the technique.

26 See Morgenthau, , op.cit., pp. 4–5Google Scholar; and his “Another Great Debate: The National Interest of the United States,” American Political Science Review, XLVI (December 1952), P. 972.

27 Plato, Republic, Book 11.

28 Winslow, E. M., The Pattern of Imperialism, New York, 1948Google Scholar; Knorr, Klaus, “Theories of Imperialism,” World Politics, IV (April 1952), pp. 402–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hei-mann, Eduard, “Schumpeter and the Problem of Imperialism,” Social Research, XIX (June 1952), pp. 177–79.Google Scholar

29 Aron, Raymond, War and Industrial Society, London, Oxford University Press, 1958.Google Scholar

30 Schumpeter, Joseph, Imperialism and Social Classes, New York, 1951.Google Scholar

31 Seton-Watson, Hugh, Neither War nor Peace: The Struggle for Power in the Postwar World, New York, 1960Google Scholar; Black, Cyril E., ed., The Transformation of Russian Society: Aspects of Social Change Since 1861, Cambridge, Mass., 1960CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bendix, Reinhard, “Industrialization, Ideologies, and Social Structure,” American Sociological Review, XXIV (October 1959), pp. 613–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boulding, Kenneth, The Organizational Revolution, New York, 1953.Google Scholar A very large literature, beyond the possibility of citation here, exists in recent sociological, anthropological, and economics writings.

32 Herskovits, Melville J., Man and His Works, New York, 1948, pp. 542–49.Google Scholar

33 Deutsch, Karl W., in “Shifts in the Balance of Communications Flows: A Problem of Measurement in International Relations,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XX (Spring 1956), pp. 143–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows data for relative shifts of intake-output ratios which lend support to our general hypothesis of progressive self-concentration of advanced modernizing societies.

34 Conservatism is intended to refer here to behavior toward policies, lines of action, and preferred values which supports and reinforces “time-tested” social practices, frame works, and objectives. It is an outlook which tends to resist variation from familiar content or established routine but which, under the pressure of power, persuasion, or innovation, may tend to yield to compromise or a modus vivendi. In this sense, conservatism is only a type of conduct, characterized neither by a systematic “falling behind the times” nor by a relationship to a particular political ideology or public philosophy.

35 March, James and Simon, Herbert, Organizations, New York, 1958, p. 140.Google Scholar

36 Huizinga, Johan, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-element in Culture, Boston, 1950, ch. 5Google Scholar; Speier, Hans, “The Social Types of War,” American Journal of Sociology, XLVI (January 1941), pp. 445–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 See above, p. 188.

38 Sjoberg, Gideon, “Contradictory Functional Requirements and Social Systems,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, IV (June 1960), pp. 198–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Bateson, Gregory, Jackson, Don D., Haley, Jay, and Weakland, John, “Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia,” Behavioral Science, 1 (October 1956), pp. 253–56.Google Scholar

40 Wright, Quincy, “The Nature of Conflict,” Western Political Quarterly, IV (June 1951), p. 207.Google Scholar

41 The protagonist who deliberately loses control of his responses in a conflict situation may not be behaving in a wildly irresponsible manner but, rather, may be paying discreet tribute to the underlying reliability and stability of the system he is attempting to exploit by his tactic. See Kahn, Herman, “The Arms Race and Some of Its Hazards,” Daedalus, LXXXIX (Fall 1960), pp. 756–57Google Scholar; and Schelling, , The Strategy of Conflict, pp. 37, 137Google Scholar, and elsewhere.

42 Hoffmann, Stanley, ed., Contemporary Theory of International Relations, Engle-wood Cliffs, N.J., 1960, pp. 177–78.Google Scholar

43 A field of study as future-oriented as international relations might be expected to give much attention to the bases of prediction, whether by officials, commentators, or scholars, but little is, in fact, given to the matter. For a discussion, see Toch, Hans H., “The Perception of Future Events: Case Studies in Social Prediction,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XXII (Spring 1958), pp. 57–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar