International Crises: A Note On Definition

NE prominent feature of the recent postwar period is the occurrence of international crises. While Korea, Berlin, Cuba, Vietnam, and the Middle East immediately come to mind, these few examples hardly exhaust the list of such events. Despite the frequency of these crises in the current international system, relatively little is known about the crisis process. In fact, only within the last ten to fifteen years have there been efforts to gain systematic empirical knowledge about this phenomenon, and only more recently have there been attempts to synthesize such knowledge.1 Part of the reason for the lack of cumulative knowledge can be attributed to the complexity of the phenomenon and the recency of its investigation. But part of the difficulty also lies in the failure of researchers in this area to define clearly what situations constitute international crises. Different situations are labeled "crises"