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Andrey Sushentsov: Models of the Russian Federation Conduct in International Conflicts of the 1990-2000s Назад
Andrey Sushentsov: Models of the Russian Federation Conduct in International Conflicts of the 1990-2000s
By A. A. Sushentsov[1]

The article specifies the author`s typology of conflict conduct, offers classification of the most significant international conflicts of the 1990s-2000s with Russia`s involvement, and presents the results of the profound analysis of Georgia-South Ossetia conflict of 2008 and Georgia, Russia and US conduct in that conflict.

The conflict conduct theory, being a branch of the general theory of international relations, acquired the truly academic status in the mid-1940s-1950s, when a group of US scholars initiated applied system studies on the theory of political analysis and conflict research, which in formed the branch of security studies. Development of the theory of state`s conflict conduct was an important result produced by the school of security studies. In the Russian historiography, conflict conduct is understood usually as the mode of action, and the conflict is perceived as and really becomes the main instrument to attain the set goal[1].

The term "security", which has become a key component in the contemporary theory of international relations, was introduced in the academic vocabulary in the 1920-1930s. One of the most frequently applied definitions of security offered by J. Findling, an American researcher says that security is the state of being protected against a possible hazard, and the ability to contain or fend off hazardous impacts as well as to rapidly recover the caused damage[2]. This broad interpretation of the security phenomenon is a result of multiple theoretical debates among representatives of the US school of cross-disciplinary security studies that developed fruitfully owing to such factors as:

3/4 first, since the mid-1940s, the US establishment has been keenly interested in developing fundamental cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary studies and political studies, as there was a growing need to predict conduct of the Soviet Union, the main post-war rival of the US. For both powers, the security issues were the top priorities of their policy-planning agendas. Therefore, war studies produced many books mainly on security studies. Researchers of this school proceeded from the premise on the real possibility of armed confrontation between the powers and argued that military force had a strong influence on the society and state.

Security studies can be defined also as the school analyzing the threat of use, the use and control of armed forces[3].

In this connection, the school of security studies is involved in:

 - exploring the conditions, under which the use of force would be the most probable;

- analyzing the impact of military force (threat of its use, etc.) on human individuals, society and state; and,

- analyzing the state policy of war preparations and prevention of the use of force against the given state;

- second, in the bipolar confrontation of the second half of the 20th century the "superpower" conflicts were growing under the permanent threat of nuclear war. This factor dramatized the process of foreign-policy decision-making and, by implication, introduced dramatic tones in theoretical works on international security as a whole. Appearance of mass destruction weaponry whipped up the arms race again and brought it to the qualitatively different level. Since then, huge funds were spent for modernization of national military industrial complexes and, in view of the possible entire mutual annihilation, for development of intellectual weapons to fight the adversary.

Security studies as a stream of research came to directly service the US official foreign policy course and were financed in compliance with this status. These factors contributed to formation of the national politico-academic complex[4]. The activities of research groups in those years resulted in appearance of such theories as rational deterrence; broad-scale military and political confrontation supported by existence of and possibility to use nuclear weapons; stability and local nuclear clash, etc.;

- third, in the mid-20th century, owing to the influx of talented analysts from Europe who supplemented the group of civilian experts in security issues, the US "intellectual sovereignty" in the given sphere strengthened considerably. The remarkable features of the security studies school include: open publication of a large number of intellectual products, massive circulation of books and articles, as well as broad proliferation of the school concepts in the US politico-academic complex, mass media and public consciousness. The comparable R&D projects undertaken in the Soviet Union fell under the competence of special research institutions and intelligence agencies, and remain classified until now[5].

Major private foundations (Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, John Olin Foundation, McArthur Foundation and Smith-Richardson Foundation) played the leading role in the then US system of financing the international security studies (business - government - NGOs - research institutes). Thus the defense and business elites of the US, while planning the national foreign policy and, inter alia, deciding, if necessary, on the need to apply military force, were able to change a wide range of civilian specialists.

The contemporary form of the theory of international relations is shaped to a significant extent by the synthesis of two vectors, that happened in 1960-1970s, - i.e., security studies and social sciences - which resulted in transformation of applied studies into a social-science discipline. The security studies school focused on identification of logical prerequisites and conditions for the use of force in international relations. Since then, the practical theory was developed in three steps: formulation - approbation - application, while the main task of the entire school became to attain the fullest possible knowledge of the military force role in international relations[6].

As the research content of applied studies was widening, the theoretical base of security studies - the paradigm of political realism was interpreted anew[7]. Unlike the liberal theories that were popular in the years of dёtente, neorealism of Kenneth Waltz highlighted the everlasting importance of the force factor in international relations and the existence of objective limitations for the use of force. This helped to develop new understanding of the main regulators of state conduct, such as the archaic nature of international environment and its derivative, the permanent threat of war.

The dimensions for development of the modern science of international relations, with its doctrinal meagerness and attention to the global stability issues, were set in the 1940-1950s by a group of American historians and political scientists who were designing the methods for effective realization of the post-war US advantage in terms of power confrontation with the Soviet Union. As the civilian experts participated in analysis of bilateral nuclear confrontation, defense `agenda` was extrapolated to the young civilian discipline of international relations. At the juncture of the 1960-1970s academics realized that the military confrontation between the superpowers would lead nowhere but to the blind alley. The discipline of international relations started to undergo evolution towards analysis of the states` conduct so that to make the main process of the epoch - international conflict - more controllable and better manageable.

Synthesis of sciences and humanities brought about many provisions of psychology to the theory of international relations. One of the most successful borrowings is seen in application of the theory, developed by American psychologist Abraham Maslow. In his book Motivation and Personality, first published in 1954, Maslow introduced two categories of biological motivations for activity. The first category emanated from the sense of shortage or deficit of something that was considered necessary for survival of the respective actor, while the second one was fuelled by the actor`s pursuit of abundance, growth or self-proliferation.

Further on, the article addresses the deficiency and abundance motivations - or, motivations of deficit and abundance. The former are interpreted in literature as aimed at reduction of tension caused by dissatisfaction of one of the actor`s basic needs, while the latter are aimed at self-mobilization for the purpose of finding and experiencing new exciting feelings. There are all the reasons to assume that the resource of rational impact on behavior based on the deficiency motive is less than on the behavior led by the abundance motivation. The imbalance parity between two world leaders in the bipolar confrontation period set an example for the latter. With conduct based on the deficiency motive, conflict management would be more difficult as the actor is concentrated on the goal perceived thereby as vitally important. In this case conflict can be managed mainly by freezing or, on the contrary, indefinite escalation through to annihilation of the conflict source.

The previous works on the conflict conduct models presented the basic points of the approach to analysis of international conflicts in terms of state`s conduct therein[8]. We have identified the four motivational types of contemporary international conflicts, such as resource-based, game-playing, demonstrational and deviant. The subtype of conflicts for leadership being understood as a comprehensive resource was included in the group of resource-based conflicts. The group of demonstrational conflicts was subdivided by penitentiary, protest and affective subtypes, while the group of game-playing conflicts included the subtype of provoking conflict conduct. Classification of international conflicts by types and motives of the involved actors` conduct is summarized in the following analytical table:



The herein offered typology of conflict conduct makes it possible to undertake profound applied analysis of international situations. The Georgia - South Ossetia conflict of 2008 serves a good example for approbation of our model, and it appears worthwhile to see behavior of the given conflict actors at different stages.



In the course of the observed period, Georgia`s conflict conduct was marked by high rate change of condition. Prior to the conflict Georgia abided by the openly provoking behavior, did not hesitate to breach directly the signed agreements on peaceful settlement, and resorted to armed provocations. Seeking to gain such resource as public support, Saakashvili`s regime was fanning up anti-Russian sentiments. On the night of August 8, 2008 Tbilisi issued the order to start the armed operation against South Ossetia.

While the conflict was unfolding, the actions of Georgian leaders were featured by random affective behavior, which, initially motivated abundantly, by the end of the active phase of confrontation was gradually replaced by deficiently motivated conduct. One year later the bigger part of the Georgian society shared pathological disfavor of Russia, while some public forces used to express protest against incompetent and unsuccessful actions taken by the government during the August conflict.

The behavior of the Russian Federation in the Georgian-South Ossetic conflict was relatively more consistent and stable. Prior to the conflict Russia protested against Georgia`s provoking actions. For example, in his telephone talk with Mikhail Saakashvili on June 18, 2008 Dmitry Medvedev stated that it was "inadmissible" to unleash provocations against Russian peacekeepers who were acting in compliance with the international commitments[9].

Besides, the Russian Government sought to demonstrate its preparedness to actively stand counter Georgia, even to use force, if necessary (this was signaled by the destruction of Georgian intelligence aircraft in the air space of South Ossetia and off-schedule military exercises of troops in the North Caucasian Military District). Upon the start of the conflict`s active phase Russia did not defer its military retaliation to the Georgian aggression, while the "peace enforcement" operation was realized in compliance with the principle of "reasonable sufficiency" of enforcement measures (that is, Russia managed to evade the affectively motivated actions). Upon the end of the conflict, the Russian leadership did not step back from the active offensive position and implemented a complex of political and international-law measures for demilitarization of the South Ossetic and Abkhazian conflict knots, meanwhile resolutely promoting its vision of the situation internationally.

In that context the US actions in the conflict of August 2008 appear as a quite original type of conflict conduct quite unusual for administrations of George Bush Jr. There is an impression that while generously funding the military development of Georgia for the purposes of joint operations under the aegis of the "voluntary coalition" in Iraq and Afghanistan (the Georgian contingent in Iraq - about 2000 personnel - was third largest after the US and British groups), Washington overlooked Tbilisi`s military preparations against South Ossetia. Prior to the conflict the White House administration projected its belief in peaceful nature of Georgia`s intentions (the leadership type). The fact of the started hostilities denoted the White House abashment with regard to the events occurring in the region. Receiving contradictory information on the starting point of the conflict, Washington was fluctuating between the active (Georgian troops shift from Iraq) and passive (keeping aloof from the process of conflict settlement) phases of conduct. Manifested in the course of the August conflict, indetermination of the US (let it be inimical to Russia) was a new phenomenon in the foreign political conduct of George Bush Jr. administration that earlier had been resorting to no other but active offensive forms of conflict conduct.

The games theory ranks this conflict among the classical and currently rare "zero sum" conflicts, in which victory of one side means defeat of the other. Russia attained full prevalence over the adversary and fixed a new status quo in the region. A number of concomitant circumstances that undoubtedly contributed to such development included:

- open Georgia`s aggression;

- US unwillingness to undertake an active role in the region and,

- distraction of international forces, which protested against Russia`s actions, to alleviate the consequences caused by the global financial crisis of 2008.

However, the main role in determining the outcomes of the conflict was played by the Russian leadership`s commitment and consistent actions (that is, stability of penitentiary and leadership-type conduct). Georgia`s behavior, on the contrary, was marked by sharp fluctuations with the general trend of descending from the abundant to deficient motivation. The further settlement and resolution of the conflict was impeded by unwillingness of the two governments to deal with each other as well as by the prevailing and ill-motivated Georgia`s disfavor of Russia. Inertia of the latter factor will cause its adverse impact for quite a time.

The US foreign policy in the current situation, too, does not contain any new decisions. The Democratic administration of the White House, although less willingly than before, continues to support the Georgian government and meanwhile shares the Moscow`s view that the "Georgian affairs" are located in the periphery of Russia-US relations. At the same time, the Russian Federation, too, has limited the freedom of maneuver - it was constrained to take measures that caused direct damage to Georgia`s vital interests and thus reduced the already weak readiness of Georgians for a compromise.

In the given situation Russia staked at consolidation of the regional status quo that was a result of the regional conflict. Even if the domestic political developments in Georgia happen to be most favorable for Russia, the Abkhazian and South Ossetic issues will remain on the agenda of bilateral relations for the foreseeable future.

 

Models of the Russian Federation Conduct in International Conflicts of the 1990-2000s. By A. A. Suschentsov

 The article specifies the author`s typology of conflict conduct, offers classification of the most significant international conflicts of the 1990s-2000s with Russia`s involvement, and presents the results of the profound analysis of Georgia-South Ossetia conflict of 2008 and Georgia, Russia and US conduct in that conflict.

 

Key words

 International conflict, Russian foreign policy, theory of international relations, conflict conduct, conflict studies

 Notes

 [1] Andrey Andreevitch Sushentsov - Ph.D. (Political Science), lecturer, Department of Applied Analysis of International Problems, MGIMO (U) of the MFA of Russia. E-mail:asushentsov@yandex.ru

The article has been written within the research on the topic Psychology of international conflict: national models of conflict conduct (the Russian Federation) undertaken within the Federal Target Program of Research and Teaching Staff of Innovative Russia for 2009-2013 (Government Contract No. 16.740.11.0697 of June 08, 2011)

 

_______________

 [1] Sushentsov A.A. Conflict Conduct in the Contemporary History of International Relations (Psychological Aspect)// MGIMO-University Journal. No. 5. 2011, pp. 12-20.

[2] Findling, J.E. (ed.) Dictionary of American Diplomatic History. Second edition. Westport, 1989.

[3] Nye J.S., Lynn-Jones S. International Security Studies: A Report of a Conference on the State of the Field // International Security. Vol. 12. 1988.

[4] Morgenthau H. J. A New Foreign Policy for the United States. For the Council on Foreign Relations. N.Y., 1969

[5] Kosolapov N. A. Theoretical review of International relations // World Economy and International Relations. М., 1998.

[6] Walt, S.M. The Renaissance of Security Studies // International Studies Quarterly. Vol. 35, #2. 1991.

[7] Waltz, K.N. Theory of International Politics. Boston, 1979.

[8] Sushentsov A.A. Typology of International Conflict Conduct // International Processes. Vol. 8. No. 3 (24). September-December 2010, pp.. 70-84; Idem. Conflict Conduct in the Contemporary History of International Relations (Psychological Aspect) // MGIMO-University Journal. No. 5. 2011, pp. 12-20.

[9] D. A. Medvedev`s telephone conversation with Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili. June 18, 2008. URL:http://kremlin.ru/news/470 



Док. 662240
Перв. публик.: 28.06.13
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