International Crises, Crisis Management

1
International Crises, Crisis Management the
Media

• Lecture 1
• Introduction the nature of international crises
• Prof. Philip M. Taylor

2
International Crises

• What are they?
• What are their characteristics?
• Have these changed since the end of the Cold War
  or after the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)?
• Can they be managed?
• What is the role of the media in reporting them?

3
Instruments of International Relations - the old
world
Diplomacy
Economics
NATIONAL POLICY OBJECTIVES
Military
(Information)
4
Instruments of International Relations

• Political
• Economic
• Military
• Informational

National Policy Objectives
5
Instruments of International Relations - the new
(post-Cold War) complexity
Political/ Diplomatic
Economic/ Political Economy
NATIONAL POLICY OBJECTIVES
Military War-fighting/ Peacekeeping
Information / Perception Management
6
National Policy Objectives

• Have they changed in a post nuclear-threat age?
• Globalisation and the triumph of free market
  capitalism
• Collapsing states/Rogue states/axis of evil
• From a bi-polar world to the threat of WMD
  proliferation post 9/11
• Humanitarian crises
• Nation Building

7

The 21st CENTURY ENVIRONMENT?
TERRORISM
POPULATION GROWTH RESOURCE SCARCITY War over
Food, Water, Fish
Changing ALLIANCES IMPACT OF THE EURO ECO-ASIA

Global Warming / Ecological disaster
Creeping Deserts
Virtual States
Sub-National Groups Russian Mafia, FARC,
INFORMATION WARFARE
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
ETHNO- Religious PAN-NATRIONALISM
CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS
IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY
More GNP More Defense Spending
DISEASE (AIDS PANDEMIC MALARIA, EBOLA)
GLOBAL ECONOMICINTERDEPENDENCE
ASYMMETRIC WARFARE
8
How did we get here?

• Diplomacy was once the sport of princes with
  public opinion largely irrelevant
• Total War mass involvement meant either mass
  participation or mass slaughter the triumph of
  democracy over dictatorship
• Cold War and the triumph of free-market liberal
  capitalism the belief that nation-states
  preferred trade to war
• 9/11, asymmetric warfare and weapons of mass
  communication

9
The result? Variety of International Crises

• Invasion of Kuwait and Desert Storm
• Humanitarian intervention in Northern Iraq and
  Somalia
• Reluctant involvement in collapsing Yugoslavia
• Non-involvement in Rwanda (and elsewhere)
• Restore Democracy in Haiti
• Kosovo the war of the wests guilty
  conscience
• East Timor, Macedonia, Sierra Leone

10
Why involvement in some and not others?

• Sudan
• War of the Great Lakes
• Guinea Bissau conflict
• Algeria
• Liberia
• Cambodia
• Etc etc..

11
Its the media, stupid (or is it?)

• The Media as microscope
• Political leadership sensitivities to media
  effects
• The medias ability to cover the crisis (and
  real-time capability)
• The militarys ability to do something

12
Crisis Management key questions

• What can governments do to affect the media
  agenda on foreign policy issues?
• To what extent are governments influenced by
  media coverage and how do they balance this
  pressure against national interests?
• Do the media influence policy or vice versa?

13
What can governments do?

• Democratic vs. state control
• In democracies, why bother about the media?
• So how do they influence the media agenda?
• Media management, agenda setting, specialised
  information

14
Why not crisis prevention?

• Whose business is it anyway?
• Diplomacy without force/Coercive diplomacy
• UNs role
• Regional organisations
• NGOs
• Media interested in war not diplomacy

15
Where are we heading? Increasing drift to cities

• Half of world population now is urban two
  thirds by 2025
• 27 mega-cities (10M) by 2015, 24 in less
  developed world
• Of 325 cities of 1M today, 213 are in less
  developed world
• By 2025, Latin America 85, Africa 58 and Asia
  53 urban

16
Asymmetrical Population Growth

• 5.7 billion current population will double in our
  lifetime
• 4.5 billion live in poor countries (average per
  capita GNP about 1K)
• 35 of population under age 15
• Population in LDCs up 143 by 2025
• Population under age 15 may exceed 50 in some
  countries

17
From C2W to C4I to C5I

• Command
• Control
• Communications
• Computers
• Intelligence and
• CNN(.com)