Crisis Management: the Soviet Approach

Abstract

While the terms ‘crisis prevention’ and ‘crisis resolution’ are frequently encountered in the Soviet international relations literature, one finds there no term corresponding to ‘crisis management’. ‘Crisis management’ is a concept which was elaborated in the 1960s by US civilian strategists concerned with the manipulation of military ‘signals’ in crises to achieve favourable outcomes without falling over the brink of war. This whole approach to crisis as a special coercive form of diplomatic intercourse is rejected by all Soviet analysts as unrealistic, metaphysical and provocative. To see why this is so and to grasp the nature of the Soviet approach, we must first clarify the meaning of ‘crisis’ in its Soviet, as opposed to American, usage.