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  APPROACHES TO INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT:
SOME PRACTICAL GUIDELINES FOR THE CLASSROOM
(Print as PDF file.)

Dr. Laurence Michalak

1. GET YOUR FACTS IN PLACE
To understand a situation of conflict or potential conflict requires understanding geographical settings and historical backgrounds. For example, understanding the US-Iraq conflict requires understanding Iraq's geopolitical setting and history, as well as the history of US involvement in the Middle East.

2. AVOID THE GURU MODEL OF EDUCATION
Students sometimes tend to want the teacher to know it all and explain it all - the "guru" model of education. However, we don't know it all, we don't understand it all, and even if we did, our role as teachers is NOT to know and explain it all. Our educational role is to teach critical thinking and information gathering, to make students into autonomous citizens.

3. AVOID LOADED TERMS, SEEK NEUTRAL TERMS
Sources of supposedly neutral information often have bias built into them through loaded terms. Teach students to be alert for and critical of terms such as "terrorist," "freedom fighter," "collateral damage," "smart bomb," "6-Day War," "Ramadan War," "pre-emptive strike," "jihad," "crusade," etc.

4. CAUSE AND EFFECT AND MULTICAUSALITY
Be wary of cause and effect statements. Just because B happens after A doesn't mean that A caused B (the "Sacrificing of the Virgin" fallacy). And be wary of monocausal explanations (the "Tastes Better" / "Less Filling" fallacy). Some causes are more likely than others, but an effect can be the outcome of more than one cause.

5. BEYOND "WHO IS RIGHT AND WHO IS WRONG?"
Some people approach conflicts in moral terms, looking for good guys and bad guys. In fact, sometimes there ARE "very good" and "very bad" parties to a conflict. But more often conflicts are complicated. Often in conflicts about power, control, and resources, the parties in conflict mask their true motives by clothing themselves in moral arguments.

6. WHAT IS IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST?
American foreign policy - in fact, the foreign policy of any nation - is supposed to be in the national interest. The late 19th century diplomatic tradition was based on interactions and alliances among countries openly pursuing their national interests. Sometimes national interest may involve conflicts with morality.

7. WHO IS ALLIED WITH WHOM?
International relations are based not only on individual countries, but on alliances and oppositions of groups of countries. One should ask, "Who is allied with whom about what?" Also, alliances change. Be attentive to historic shifts in the world system: European and American alliances, Cold War bipolarity, American hegemony, polycentrism.

8. FOREIGN POLICY AS DOMESTIC POLICY
Some would argue that there is no such thing as foreign policy, that foreign policy is only an extension of domestic politics. Leaders is "democratic" countries tend to engage in foreign policies that are to their (and their parties') electoral advantage, and which please their electoral constituencies.

9. THE USE OF FORCE
All other things being equal, peace is obviously better than war. However, an unjust peace has costs and, in the long run, can be untenable. War, especially modern war, can have terrible costs, but perhaps cannot always be avoided. At on extreme is pacifism, and at the other is the view that war is merely the pursuit of diplomacy by other means.

10. WHO IS WEAK AND WHO IS STRONG?
The more powerful tend to dominate the less powerful, both internationally and domestically. The more powerful side usually wins, though power is not the only factor. One way to look at a conflict is to ask, "Who is more powerful and, therefore, more likely to prevail?" And, of course, might doesn't always make right except in the movies.

11. WHAT ARE THE SCENARIOS?
One way of analyzing international conflicts is to look at the different possible futures of disputes. It is possible to discuss the different outcomes that might happen in the future, and which outcomes are more or less desirable, and more or less likely. This is a useful prelude to discussing which are the best possible policies to promote the most desirable outcomes.

Dr. Laurence Michalak, ORIAS. University of California/Berkeley, 3/03