Crises in World Politics

Book excerpt: Crises in World Politics: Theory & Reality presents the study of international conflict. This book discusses the danger of crises to global and regional stability. Organized into eight chapters, this book begins with an overview of the key concepts of the inquiry, conflict, crisis, and war. This text then explores the four phases of an interstate crisis, namely, onset, escalation, de-escalation, and impact. Other chapters consider the unified model of crisis, which is applied to the Gulf Crisis-War of 1990–91. This book discusses as well the most intense military-security crisis in the 20th century, the dynamics of the process, and how the actors coped with their crisis. The final chapter summarizes the primary findings about models and concepts, and about each phase and its corresponding period at the actor level, namely, pre-crisis, crisis, end-crisis, and post-crisis. This book is a valuable resource for historians, policy makers, and social scientists.