Literature Review On Frozen Conflict

War is not a common phenomenon anymore after the post cold war era. According a research conducted on active armed conflict across the world at the Uppsala University in Sweden, of all the 101 active armed conflicted between the late 80s and mid 90s, only six were actually between two different states (Solenberg &Wallensteen, 1997). These statistics clearly indicates that the conflict in today's world is more internal and ethnic based.

With the end of World War II (WWII) in 1945 began the Cold War, an international conflict that lasted from 1947–1991 and plagued nations across the globe. As the post-war negotiations were deliberated by three of the strongest world powers, the United States (US), Britain, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), disagreements arose that created tension between the US and the USSR and ultimately instigated the infamous “Fifty Years War” (Crockatt 64). But was this conflict avoidable, or was the Cold War simply inevitable? In order to effectively answer to this issue, the origins and conflicts leading to the Cold War must be evaluated with reference to the post-war territorial

Similarities are found within the basic aspects between traditional and critical security studies. The use of historical studies on issues such as nuclear crises and US grand strategies through military and diplomatic means have still been used on security studies to understand and identify challenges in for the state. (Walt 1991, Pg. 218) Conventional warfare and the challenge to rational deterrence theory which sets territorial boundaries for states are also unescapable concepts.

Despite the high costs of war both in monetary value and in terms of potential life and infrastructure lost states and their actors despite their supposed rationality still seek war at times. Sometimes war is unavoidable given the situations that actors find themselves in. States prior to war will attempt several options such as bargaining and it is that failure in bargaining that tends to result in conflict or war. Especially following the events of the Cold War numerous scholars have given their reasons as to why conflict is sometimes beyond prevention.

They focus on how business interests and bureaucratic elite affect U.S. foreign policy for their benefit. Historians who identify U.S. economic interests as the origin of the Cold War normally make two similar yet distinct arguments. Noam Chomsky argues that the U.S. involvement in the Cold War was meant to control the vast resources in Eurasian nations, more specifically the middle east. For this reason, he describes the U.S. crusade as a “crusade against independent development outside of the structure of the global system of exploitation organized under the umbrella of U.S. power after World War II.” One in which foreign policy decisions were not made to promote foreign nations democracy and economy. Instead, Chomsky writes: “the U.S. ‘dilemma…involved Western European capitalist nations rather than Russia.’” Chomsky explains that the civil war in Greece and the fall of Turkey were used by the U.S. to generate foreign policy theories, such as containment, that promoted the interests of the business elite in the U.S.. Such policies allowed the U.S. to intervene and gain control over nations that they believed were susceptible to Soviet expansion. In doing so, the U.S. put themselves in a prime position to exploit Eurasian resources. Chomsky furthers that by labeling the Soviet Union as an existential threat to American freedoms the government was able mobilize support for

Security Dilemma is a term referring to the process of situation that occur when a state or coalitions make actions to increase its security such as strengthening their military, which causes or leads other states and alliances to respond with similar actions that overall increases conflict and tensions. Often, security dilemma is introduced as either a cause or a factor that facilitates war in concrete situations. Security dilemma has been developed both mathematically and qualitatively to deal with problem instability amongst nations of states and anarchy. The means of security, refers to at a minimum, the deterrence of defeat. The means of security are like the means of exchange or the means of production, as they are typically military force and force projection capability, but can also be economic assets like oil emerges, territory and population. The issue is how these different components interact in a situation where one can assume every state wants to maximize its security if nothing else and what the incentives may be that lie behind these issues. The incentives can range from purely defensive to an offensive capacity to expand. This works best in a balance of power, an unstable balance of power creates rising and declining power, when a power balance tends to destabilize, rising and declining powers take steps to guarantee or maximize security. The process of unstable balance of power or rising and declining of power cause an endless cycle of issues and conflict.

The Crimea Peninsula, located between Kherson of Ukraine and Kuban of Russia, is a major land mass almost completely surrounded by the Black Sea, providing it an extremely important geopolitical position in Eastern Europe. Because of its special geopolitical position, Crimea always has strategic significance to Russia. In history, Crimea was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1783 and, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, became a republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the USSR. It became the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within newly independent Ukraine in 1991. As a result of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Russia annexed Crimea through a combination of military occupation and democratic procedure, leading to a serious crisis in international relation. The crisis has caused the most serious tension between Russia and the Western World since the end of Cold War and brought profound and lasting influence to international society. A deep understanding of Crimea Crisis is an

The crisis in Ukraine and Crimea’s recent accession to Russia are events that clearly highlight the underlying sources of conflict in global politics. While Russia sees its actions in Crimea as a “reunification” and the respect for the right of self-determination, the West views it as a threat to European security and a violation of territorial integrity. Crimea has been a debatable topic from the time it came under the control of the Russian Empire in 1783 during the reign of Catherine the Great. The justification then was similar to the reasoning being used by Vladimir Putin today. Catherine declared that she was protecting ethnic Russians in the region from the Ottoman Empire, much as Putin is claiming to protect Russians from Ukrainian

However, this definition was found inaccurate since the terms such as “violence” and “political unit” were not explicitly defined. Further, if states were considered as the “political units” in this definition, recent years have seen an increase in intra-state wars, wars between the government and non-state actor, to be simple. Therefore, this definition is relatively vague and does not define modern armed conflicts after the Second World War. Though the definition by Clausewitz, as aforementioned, is rather abstract, another definition repeatedly appears in his book Vom Kriege was that “war is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse” (Clausewitz, 2008, pp.: 87). This explains the great political impacts on military confrontations, but ignores modern warfare, like ethnic conflicts. Correlates of War Project (COW) provides a most accepted definition that “a military conflict waged between (or among) national entities, at least one of which is a state, which results in at least 1000 battle deaths of military personnel” (Singer and Small, 1972, pp.: 31). The scope of this definition is limited, as it describes only inter-state war but does not include the intra-state war, which resulted from the enormous change of the characteristics of war itself (Heywood, 2014, pp.: 241). Therefore, it is clear that the proliferation of intra-state war cannot be ignored. Modern intra-sate conflict is “a contested

The functioning of an international order refers to the “rules of the game” that delineate how states act toward each other. These rules or governing arrangements are intentionally constructed by states to promote their goals and interests (Bull 1977: 8) These rules may be formal, operating through mechanisms like international law, international treaties and alliances, and international organizations, or they may be informal, based on more nebulous concepts like norms, principles, and values regarding acceptable or legitimate behavior. These rules of the game identify the rights and obligations of states, and they provide mechanisms for regulating conflict among states. The post-1945 international order comprises a large number of

Simmering dissension burst into flames when the Georgian military rolled into South Ossetia on Aug. 7 in response to Russian troop movements near the border. The Russian army crossed into the region the next day. President Dmitry Medvedev challenged Georgia’s sovereignty by sending troops onto foreign, though familiar, soil. The Russians maintain their presence is to preserve Ossetian autonomy. Vigorous land and air assaults, coupled with encroachment further south beyond South Ossetia’s border, imply more complex political motives.

In times of conflict, it is important to note the four phases of conflict. These four phases being, pre-violence or the buildup period. Second, is armed conflict. Third is a ceasefire and lastly, comes the post agreement. The first two phases of conflict are not hard at all to achieve or attain. Certain nations around the world are almost always engaged in some form of conflict with other ethnic groups or secessionist/ revolutionary forces. “For a certain subset of nations, civil war appears to be a chronic condition.” (Quinn, et.al. 2007) The last phases of conflict, ceasefire and post agreement are certainly much harder to attain and sustain than the first two phases. For this short essay, I have chosen the post agreement phase as being the most difficult to attain and uphold. I will discuss the reasons I believe this phase is the hardest to achieve, why or if it’s even important and also briefly compare it to the preceding phases of conflict.

(Maiese, 2003) In her article discussing causes of political conflict put these conflicts under the category of “ intractable conflicts “ because under her analysis these remain unresolved for longer periods of time and eventually become stuck with vulnerable intensity and destructiveness. These conflicts involve many parties and concern an intricate

Russia- Starting in late February after the Ukrainian Revolution, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has occupied the farthest eastern part of the Ukraine, Crimea. Since then he has argued that Crimea should be occupied to protect Russian citizens. Now, Crimea has succeeded and is now a state of Russia. Russia is currently in a build up of soldiers and weapons near the border. As Russia does not look like it will budge or withdraw its troops

National security is arguably the primary objective of political leaders and yet conflict and war seems an inevitable aspect of international politics and thus a dominant theme in IR scholarship. The security dilemma or so-called spiral model is frequently used to explain the escalation of conflict and onset of war in international politics, particularly paralleling the sequence of events that prompted World War I and the super power arms race during the Cold War. The question remains, however, as a theoretical model, does the security dilemma trigger war? Perhaps a more salient question given the rise in ethnic conflicts and security threats from non-state actors since the Cold War is can the security dilemma literature provide policy-relevant guidance of how to deal with these sub-state threats to regional and perhaps international stability?