The Structure of the Crisis

Abstract

Crisis, crisis management and the relationship between force and bargaining, have been exhaustively studied in the literature of international relations. Much of the theoretical analysis of the dynamics of crisis, and the strength of the evidence from case studies, argues that miscalculation by decision-makers is common and that resort to force always threatens to develop a momentum which political leaders will find difficult if not impossible to control. From this perspective crises are defined as highly unstable states hovering between peace and war, while crisis management is regarded as a monumentally difficult task whose prospects of maintaining peace are severely constrained by the structure of the crisis and the stressful impact it has upon decision-making. The Falklands example confirms these arguments and provides yet another illustration of the power of the logic of conflict. There was little in the episode which would have surprised students of bargaining like Schelling or Young,¹ or analysts of the classic communication problems involved in international relations, such as Iklé, Wholstetter and Jervis.² A great deal of this literature, however, is concerned with superpower relations and the nuclear environment, and some of it makes quite unwarranted assumptions about the decision-maker’s capacity to control the use of force.³