An international crisis is a crisis

Crisis

A crisis is any event that is, or expected to lead to, an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community or whole society...

 between states. There are many definitions of an international crisis. Snyder "...a sequence of interactions between the governments of two or more sovereign states in severe conflict, short of actual war, but involving the perception of a dangerously high probability of war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

".

Types

Lebow gives a breakdown of three types of international crises:

• Justification of Hostilities. One of the nations decides, before the crisis starts, to go to war
  War
  War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
  
   and constructs a crisis to justify it. The pattern of justification is almost always the same: Rouse public opinion, make impossible demands, try to legitimize the demands, deny your real intentions then employ the rejection of the demands as a reason for war. A recent example, commonly employed by critics of George W. Bush
  Public image of George W. Bush
  George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, has elicited a variety of public perceptions regarding his policies, personality, and performance as a head of state. In the U.S. and elsewhere, journalists, polling organizations, and others have documented the expression of an evolving...
  
  , is the Iraq disarmament crisis
  Iraq disarmament crisis
  The issue of Iraq's disarmament reached a crisis in 2002-2003, when U.S. President George W. Bush demanded a complete end to what he alleged was Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq comply with UN Resolutions requiring UN weapons inspectors unfettered access to areas those...
  
  , which precipitated the Iraq War.
• Spinoff Crisis. The nations are involved in a war or crisis with another nation or nations and this precipitates another crisis, e.g. the Lusitania
  RMS Lusitania
  RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. The ship entered passenger service with the Cunard Line on 26 August 1907 and continued on the line's heavily-traveled passenger service between Liverpool, England and New...
  
   incident in 1915.
• Brinkmanship. Intentionally forcing a crisis to get the other side to back down. The Cuban Missile Crisis
  Cuban Missile Crisis
  The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
  
   of 1962 is a well-known example of brinkmanship
  Brinkmanship
  Brinkmanship is the practice of pushing dangerous events to the verge of disaster in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome...
  
  .

With the exception of a justification of hostilities, the study of international crises assumes that neither side actually wants to go to war, but must be visibly prepared to do so. In the words of Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...

, "Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it".

Strategies

George's book presents an overview of the process and conflicting goals of crisis management

Crisis management

Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a major event that threatens to harm the organization, its stakeholders, or the general public. The study of crisis management originated with the large scale industrial and environmental disasters in the 1980's.Shrivastava, P....

 as well as many examples. He discusses a number of strategies, including:

Offensive strategies

• blackmail
  Blackmail
  In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
  
  
• limited and reversible response
• controlled pressure
• attrition
  Attrition
  Attrition may refer to:*Physical wear*Attrition warfare, the military strategy of wearing down the enemy by continual losses in personnel and material*Loss of personnel by Withdrawal...
  
  
• fait accompli
  Fait Accompli
  Fait accompli is a French phrase which means literally "an accomplished deed". It is commonly used to describe an action which is completed before those affected by it are in a position to query or reverse it...
  
  

Defensive strategies

• coercion
  Coercion
  Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way...
  
  
• limited escalation
  Conflict escalation
  Conflict escalation describes the escalation of a conflict to a more destructive, confrontational, painful, or otherwise "less comfortable" level; in particular, it is concerned with how persons or forces can be controlled or subdued in conflict...
  
  
• tit-for-tat
• test of capabilities
• "drawing a line"
• Buying time strategy
• Conveying commitment and resolve to avoid miscalculation by the adversary

List of defused crises

International crises tend to result in war, almost by definition; they are then remembered best not as crises but as causes of wars

Casus belli

is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...

. For information on international crises that resulted immediately in war, see List of wars.

Given the above, some of the crises that are best-known as crises were defused. The following crises did not immediately provoke large-scale violence, but set of anger in countries:

• Anglo-Portuguese Crisis (1889-1890)
• Fashoda Incident
  Fashoda Incident
  The Fashoda Incident was the climax of imperial territorial disputes between Britain and France in Eastern Africa. A French expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile sought to gain control of the Nile River and thereby force Britain out of Egypt. The British held firm as Britain and France were on...
  
   (1898-1899)
• First Moroccan Crisis
  First Moroccan Crisis
  The First Moroccan Crisis was the international crisis over the international status of Morocco between March 1905 and May 1906. Germany resented France's increasing dominance of Morocco, and insisted on an open door policy that would allow German business access to its market...
  
   (1904-1906)
• Bosnian crisis
  Bosnian crisis
  The Bosnian Crisis of 1908–1909, also known as the Annexation crisis, or the First Balkan Crisis, erupted into public view when on 6 October 1908, Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Germany and France...
  
   (1908-1909)
• Agadir Crisis
  Agadir Crisis
  The Agadir Crisis, also called the Second Moroccan Crisis, or the Panthersprung, was the international tension sparked by the deployment of the German gunboat Panther, to the Moroccan port of Agadir on July 1, 1911.-Background:...
  
   (1911)
• Åland crisis
  Åland crisis
  The Åland crisis was one of the first issues put up for arbitration by the League of Nations on its formation. The Åland Islands' population's demand for self-determination was not met and sovereignty over the islands was retained by Finland, but international guarantees were given to allow the...
  
   (1916-1920)
• Remilitarization of the Rhineland
  Remilitarization of the Rhineland
  The Remilitarization of the Rhineland by the German Army took place on 7 March 1936 when German military forces entered the Rhineland. This was significant because it violated the terms of the Locarno Treaties and was the first time since the end of World War I that German troops had been in this...
  
   (1936)
• Anschluss
  Anschluss
  The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
  
   (1938)
• Sudetenland Crisis
  Munich Agreement
  The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
  
   (1938)
• Iran crisis (1946-1947)
• Berlin Blockade
  Berlin Blockade
  The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first resulting in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied...
  
   (1948-1949)
• Cuban Missile Crisis
  Cuban Missile Crisis
  The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
  
   (1962)
• Pueblo incident
  USS Pueblo (AGER-2)
  USS Pueblo is an American ELINT and SIGINT Banner-class technical research ship which was boarded and captured by North Korean forces on January 23, 1968, in what is known as the Pueblo incident or alternatively as the Pueblo crisis or the Pueblo affair. Occurring less than a week after President...
  
   (1968)
• Damansky Island Crisis (1969)
• Axe Murder Incident
  Axe Murder Incident
  The axe murder incident was the killing of two United States Army officers by North Korean soldiers on August 18, 1976, in the Joint Security Area located in the Korean Demilitarized Zone which forms the de facto border between North and South Korea...
  
   (1976)
• Beagle conflict
  Beagle conflict
  The Beagle Conflict was a border dispute between Chile and Argentina over the possession of Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands and the scope of the maritime jurisdiction associated with those islands that brought the countries to the brink of war in 1978....
  
   (1978)
• Iran hostage crisis
  Iran hostage crisis
  The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian...
  
   (1979)
• Able Archer 83
  Able Archer 83
  Able Archer 83 was a ten-day NATO command post exercise starting on November 2, 1983 that spanned Western Europe, centred on the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Headquarters situated at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons. Able Archer exercises simulated a period of conflict...
  
   (1983)
• 2001 Indian Parliament attack
  2001 Indian Parliament attack
  The 2001 Indian Parliament attack was a high-profile attack by Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists against the building housing the Parliament of India in New Delhi...
  
   (2001)
• November 2008 Mumbai attacks (2008)

Ongoing crises

• World food price crisis
  2007–2008 world food price crisis
  World food prices increased dramatically in 2007 and the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2008 creating a global crisis and causing political and economical instability and social unrest in both poor and developed nations. Systemic causes for the worldwide increases in food prices continue to be the subject...
  
  
• Global economic crisis
  Global economic crisis
  Global economic crisis may refer to:*Economic events of the late 2000s:** Financial crisis ** Late-2000s recession*A global recession*Earlier global economic events, such as:...
  
  
• 2011 energy crisis
• North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
  North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
  North Korea has declared that it has nuclear weapons and is believed by many to have nuclear weapons. The CIA assesses that North Korea also has a substantial arsenal of chemical weapons...
  
  
• Islamic Terrorism
• Darfur Genocide
• Iran and weapons of mass destruction
  Iran and weapons of mass destruction
  Iran is not known to currently possess weapons of mass destruction and has signed treaties repudiating the possession of weapons of mass destruction including the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
  
  

See also

• Diplomacy
  Diplomacy
  Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
  
  
• International relations
  International relations
  International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
  
  
• Negotiation
  Negotiation
  Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties, intended to reach an understanding, resolve point of difference, or gain advantage in outcome of dialogue, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, to craft outcomes to satisfy...
  
  
• Crisis
  Crisis
  A crisis is any event that is, or expected to lead to, an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community or whole society...
  
  
• Crisis management
  Crisis management
  Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a major event that threatens to harm the organization, its stakeholders, or the general public. The study of crisis management originated with the large scale industrial and environmental disasters in the 1980's.Shrivastava, P....
  
  

External links

• International Crisis Behavior Project's Data Viewer Searchable analyses of 447 crises from 1918-2005