War Complexity and Outcomes, 1946-2002

This study on war crises offers an operational index of complexity and spells out four postulates relating issue and structure elements to war outcomes. We expect that wars over territorial issues will end in an accommodative manner (postulate 1), that ethnic wars, though rare, will end in a non-accommodative outcome (postulate 2) and that clash of civilization issues, more than all other issues, will end in a non-accommodative way (postulate 3). Finally, wars with overall low complexity will end in accommodation while high complexity wars will not (postulate 4). Using ICB data, this study of 55 war crises, from 1946 to 2002, compares two situations: Intra-War Crisis (IWC), namely, long ongoing wars that are waged before the crisis begins (17 cases) and regular wars that occur after the crisis starts (38 cases). Findings from the study indicate that not all wars are alike. The substance of issues involved in the confrontation matters and complexity affects accommodation. Overall complexity is coupled, in part, with outcomes and as anticipated, patterns of regular wars and IWCs vary. These findings on war diversity highlight the need for a comprehensive 'multi path' model to war

Crises Press Coverage: Local & Foreign Reporting on the Arab-Israel Conflict

This study analyzes Israeli Haaretz and the American New York Times crisis press coverage on four short Arab-Israel crises, from the early 1950s to the late 1990s. To illuminate the similar and different reporting modes of the press from within and outside a conflict region, the article probes three hypotheses: reporting on the salient crisis events will differ (H1), reporting on conflict related events will differ (H2) and dominant media functions will differ (H3). Findings on most reporting variables examined in both newspapers support these hypotheses. Compared with the NYT, in Haaretz, overall crisis exposure was higher, crisis was addressed more frequently than conflict, use of pictures was negligible and surveillance substituted correlation. But in both papers, similar peaks and lulls were reported for all four short Arab-Israel crises, coverage of crisis was the overwhelming topic and surveillance was the dominant media function

Protracted Conflicts, Crises, and Ethnicity: The Arab-Israeli and India-Pakistan Conflicts, 1947-2005

This study used international crisis as a tool to analyze Protracted Conflicts (PCs). Two core attributes, the compound nature and over all magnitude, were formulated and applied to the Arab-Israeli and India-Pakistan PCs in order to address three theoretical questions. First, how do we measure the compound nature of a PC and do PCs change over time? Second, how do we measure overall PC magnitude and does it change over time? Third, do the compound nature and magnitude of a PC correspond? We found that the concepts of compound nature and overall magni tude are useful and necessary tools for a systematic analysis of the two PCs in the Middle East and South Asia, over the years 1947- 2005. The two PCs are similar in some leading attributes (e.g. colo nial tradition, religious and territorial stakes, nuclear complexity, outbreaks of violence and duration) but differ in others (salience of the ethnic and interstate dimensions, characteristics of ethnic actors, and overall magnitude). Regarding the correspondence between the compound nature and overall magnitude in PCs, we found some cor respondence in both regional conflicts but not to the same degree. Given the importance of delineating PC dynamics, the study found that stability and order in the interstate domain cannot be detached from events that unfold in the ethnic-state domain. While outcomes of crises vary over time, compromise in ethnic-state confrontations was less evident than in interstate ones. The study concluded that a compound nature, or a primarily ethnic characterization of a conflict, not only prolongs the confrontation but also diminishes the prospects of conflict resolution. Notwithstanding the importance of territory, nuclear spread, and religion as core aspects in PCs, the study draws attention to ethnic actors and issues as salient aspects in international crises and conflicts, the heart and core of world pol itics