The Acute International Crisis

Accounts of the acute crises of international politics occupy a substantial place in the diplomatic history of the past hundred years. These compounded events have been interpreted as manifestations of international rivalries among the Great Powers. Intermittently, they have drawn intense public attention and have generated heavy anxieties over the possibility that they may lead into general warfare. After the fact, they have become subjects of historical reconstruction, with students and commentators attempting to describe “what really happened.” Thus, both scholarly and popular interest has persisted in the “inside stories” of the several crises belonging to three historical periods: from 1870 to World War I, the interwar period, and the era since World War II. There is, consequently, a large descriptive literature of the crises, mainly connected with the diplomacy of opposing coalitions and of interstate conflicts during these three periods. The depth and quality of this literature vary greatly, most often according to the recency of the events and the amount of available and relevant historical documentation. The Moroccan crisis of 1905 and the circumstances of the Anschluss of 1936 are, quite naturally, better known and more firmly established factually than the inner details of the Suez crisis of 1956. However, the accumulated knowledge of the series of crises of the post-World War II period, uncertain and impressionistic as it still is, has a great deal to do with our understanding of current international affairs. Take away the facts and meanings commonly associated with the crises of Berlin, Korea, Indochina, Suez, Quemoy, the Congo, and Laos and, obviously, the usual estimates of the scope, intensity, and workings of the Cold War will greatly change. Despite this fact, acute crises have not often been made the focus either of theorizing or of intensive analytic research. Students of international relations have not found it important or necessary to consider these events as if they constituted a significant class of phenomena in the international field. The reasons for passing over the acute international crisis as a focus of explanation are worth consideration.