Robert C. North

Measuring Affect and Action in Inter National Reaction Models

The Cuban crisis of October 1962 may be analyzed from several perspectives. The investigator may focus his attention on the unique characteristics of the situation and sequence of events which are outlined here. The analyst of international relations may, as is suggested in this paper, examine these events so as to permit relevant comparisons with other crisis situations, both those resolved by war and those eventually resolved by non-violent means. The conceptual framework for this analysis is a two-step mediated stimulus-response model in which the acts of one nation are considered as inputs to other nations. Such psycho-political variables as perceptions and expressions of hostility are traced over time by means of content analysis of documents to test the consistency of the model. In the Cuban crisis, both sides tended to perceive rather accurately the nature of the adversarys actions and then proceeded to act at an appropriate level. Efforts by either party to delay or reverse the escalation toward conflict were generally perceived as such, and responded to in like manner.

Dynamics Of International Conflict: Some Policy Implications of Population, Resources, and Technology

International conflict has been accounted for in many different ways—in terms of aggressive “instincts,” territoriality, population growth, the search for basic resources or seaports, the protection of trade routes, psychopathological deviations, plunder and profit, a drive for imperialist control, and so forth. Some theorists have considered grievances, competition, anxieties, tension, threat, and provocation to be of special importance. Others have laid heavy emphasis upon national power or capability, military preparedness, strategic considerations, and the competition for dominance. 1 No doubt most if not all of these variables are relevant, but this recognition does not help much in the development of a theory of war, its dynamics, and contributing causal networks. In the long run all factors need to be pulled together in some systematic way. A serious difficulty emerges from the fact that the various “causes” that contribute to war tend to be highly interactive, that is, they affect each other in various ways and often in many different directions. The problem is to find out, if possible, which variables are contributing most to international violence and in what proportion. The purpose of this paper is to take an early step in this direction by reporting on some empirical research currently under way and by presenting some tentative findings which suggest partial explanations and some implications and difficulties for national policies.

Toward a Framework for the Analysis of Scarcity and Conflict

This article distinguishes between scarcities resulting primarily from entropic processes and those which appear to be more immediate outcomes of social, economic, and political processes. The discussion then proposes the linking of two Lasswellian propositions; Maslows hierarchy of needs; and the cybernetic concept of motivation as “felt gap” between an actors perception of an existing state of affairs and a preferred state. In responding to gaps emerging from changes in physical and social environments, the actor is seen as tending to alter these environments and then adjusting future behaviors in order to cope with such changes as perceived. But whereas response choice tends to be influenced by each actors perception of capabilities, of which perceived resource availabilities (or scarcities) are an element, response outcomes are likely to be constrained by the “real” capabilities (including resource availabilities) of the actors. Over time, responses involving changes in population and technology (knowledge and skills) contribute to changes in the resource availability and other variables.

Economic and Political Factors in International Conflict and Integration

In earlier efforts to explain international conflict and integration, the central focus was upon national attributes and decisionmaking as crucial to understanding the actions of states in war- and peacemaking. Recently, however, we have begun to critically reconsider these assumptions. In the face of their inability to fully account for the actions of states in international conflict and cooperation, we have sought out a more basic, disaggregated approach to these questions. We believe that the concept of leverage may serve as an important explanatory factor in theories of interstate relations. Here we offer some preliminary arguments concerning leverage and bargaining among domestic and international actors, fleshing out some of the possible relationships between economic and political behaviors and their effects on the war- and peacemaking activities of states in the international system.

International Relations: Putting the Pieces Together

Modern physical science and applied technology have released unmeasured potentials of power and destruction. Space has been opened for human transit, and machines are taking over more and more of the repetitive aspects of mans labor. Yet neither through their innate judgments, values, discriminations and instinct for survival, nor through their social sciences have human beings yet learned how to use these vast new powers safely or wholly constructively. We do not know how to control our potentials for destruction. We have yet to consider seriously the ordering of our activities in space. We are even now pushing headlong into automation and possibly a partially cybernatic society without adequate thought for precautions or consequences. We are even multiplying our own numbers without sufficient forethought and planning. Technologically man has become extraordinarily sophisticated, but in general his knowledge of himself remains highly subjective and undisciplined. He is strongly inclined toward believing of himself and his fellows whatever it suits him to believe at any given moment. In view of the awesome weapons we now have at our disposal, it is no longer sufficient to learn about individual human behavior in the laboratory of the experimentalist or on the psychiatrists couch. What we need desperately is a unified theory of human behavior?and the testing of its various hypotheses by many means. We need to know about the behavior of man in all kinds of groups, but perhaps in political groups particularly. We need to know more about man organized into nations and about how nations behave?and why. We need to be able to study the behavior of Khrushchev?or Hitler or Castro or Nehru or Kennedy?as rhe behavior of an individual and also as the head and major spokesman of a state.

Wright on war

accomplish as much in a full career as Quincy Wright did after his formal retirement. This essay, then, might well focus on his later accomplishments, but one way to take the measure of a man is to weigh-not what he is doing today or what he did last year or the year before-but what he was doing a decade or two decades or a half a lifetime ago. How have these earlier accomplishments withstood the test of time? As one approach to answering this question about Quincy Wright, we present here a brief review and modest assess-

The Chinese Communist Elite

nese People’s Republic in October 1949, the Chinese Communists achieved a unique position within the world Communist movement. As de facto rulers of China, they controlled an area more than seven times larger than all the Soviet satellites put together, and a population nearly two and a half times that of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics itself. The Chinese Communist Party, with a membership of more than three million, was then second in size only to that of the Soviet Union, and its generals commanded a victorious army of a reported five million regulars. This army, moreover, had driven from the mainland a government with recognized great-power standing, and Communist leaders consequently claimed an equivalent status, with accompanying perquisites, for their Chi-