Conflict And Conflict Prevention Strategies

Sean Ryer
Examining the Effectiveness of Conflict and Crisis Prevention Strategies
The 20th century saw the fall of great empires; The USSR, Japanese Empire, The Third Reich, all crumbled under the weight of the incoming new world. Links in this new world were no longer formed based on political or economic systems but rather in terms of their civilization and culture. The fault lines of conflict began to shift from a dichotomy between states to a dichotomy between cultures. We now see conflict between groups as the predominant influence behind global politics, however, the strategies utilised to manage these conflicts are outdated and ineffective. Modern crisis and conflict prevention strategies are useful primarily for interstate conflict,

The inability of foreign actors to concentrate on aiding groups, and instead focusing on aiding the state, resulted in a genocide. This raises the question as to whether current conflict and crisis prevention strategies need to be rethought, or disposed of completely. It is a possibility that modern conflict and crisis prevention strategies should focus less on control of state function and more so on addressing immediate contentions and grievances of the parties involved. The limited effectiveness of modern strategies on groups such as ISIS, The Muslim Brotherhood, ABNES and Al Badr begs to question if these strategies are indeed effective in terms of conflict prevention or if they are only effective at delaying

Lund explores the gap between the promise of conflict prevention and its more deliberate pursuit. The author examines new conflict where a peaceful equilibrium prevailed for years but fundamental social and global forces have managed to produce new controversies, tensions and disputes. The article analyses several instruments for crisis and conflict prevention: direct and structural instruments as well as ad hoc and a priori instruments. The main issue with the instruments examined is that they can only be used by states against other states. This article fails to notice that fundamental social and global forces that have produced new controversies are coming about due to cultural clashes between groups. Furthermore, these cultural clashes are starting due to a lack of tools necessary to resolving the conflicts. Edward N. Luttwak’s article, Give War a Chance suggests that perhaps conflict is unavoidable and if so maybe the solution to the burning flame of conflict is to allow it to extinguish itself. The author writes “War is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace…The key is the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence”. Perhaps new crisis and conflict prevention strategies should focus on methods of allowing civilizations to destroy each other without the war