Conflict reduction by mutual disengagement

Abstract

This study attempts to discover what variables, if any, will induce opponents to cooperate. The author isolated 12 independent variables and grouped the first five together in his refined model as variable 6. The remaining variables are: worthlessness, supervision, conspicuousness, previous neutralization, absence of internal segmentation, military potential, and tradition as a neutral. Analysis was limited to bivariate relationships between the independent and dependent variables (i.e., possible outcomes). Cases tested included examples from the outbreak of World War I to the present. The author discovered that disengagement would most likely succeed in a geographically and ideologically distinct Country, one previously neutralized, that had little military value, a politically organized population, and some military capacity. The most unpromising candidate would lack clearcut ethnic borders, internal homogeneity, and political unity. Disengagement, while no panacea, offers the advantage of many opening moves in a conflict reduction situation.