SOURCES OF CONFLICT

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE MANAGING CHAOS CONFERENCE

G. M. TAMÁS

SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON

Identity and Conflict

ROBERT KAPLAN

JESSICA TUCHMAN MATHEWS

“The Coming Anarchy” and the Nation-State 

under Siege

UNITED STATES

INSTITUTE OF PEACE
CONTENTS

Key Points v

Preface 1

1 Identity and Conflict 3

G. M. Tamás

Samuel P. Huntington

2 “The Coming Anarchy” and the Nation-State 7

under Siege

Robert Kaplan

Jessica Tuchman Mathews

Epilogue 13

Contributors 14

Managing Chaos Conference Agenda 16

About the Institute 22
IDENTITY AND CONFLICT

G. M. Tamás

The New Nationalism

= The East European revolution of 1989 was history’s first revolutionary movement that did

not offer a utopian alternative to replace the

old order. Rather, 1989’s revolution was really

a mass rejection of tyranny, which was perceived as a universal condition of politics. As

such, it was also a rejection of the liberal Western idea of political community itself.

= Soon after their victory in this “antipolitical”

revolution, East Europeans were compelled to

find a social organizing principle for their societies. Ethnicity supplied such a need in short

order. 

= Classic nineteenth century nationalism did

not propose absolute dividing lines between

nations and peoples: The superiority of one’s

own group was justified on the basis of universal criteria which could find acceptance among

minorities. Similar claims of superiority in the

new nationalism, by contrast, are absolute and

based entirely on whether one is perceived as a

member of the group or as alien to it. Those

who are perceived as different are encouraged

to get out.

= The revolutionaries of 1989 fought against a

common enemy: an overbearing, centralized

state. In rejecting conformity, loyalty, and obedience to law as elements of yet another dictatorship, they have since discovered that the

real enemy is anarchy.

= In Eastern Europe, there is no consensus on

the common good. People want the “good,”

but they don’t want the “common.” Countries

are seen as tribes with flags, and states as

gangs with charters. Communities that are defined either culturally or racially are unfortunately the only legitimate ones in the East European mind.

= The fragmentation of countries and national

identities into a myriad of smaller ethnic

groups is not confined to Eastern Europe. Indeed, the ethnic conflict plaguing Southern

California shows how difficult it is for ethnic

groups of all sorts to identify with values outside those of their own group. Instead of providing an alternative social and political order

free from tyranny, the reliance on ethnicity has

merely broken up tyranny into smaller tyrannies. 

Samuel P. Huntington

The Clash of Civilizations?

= When we examine relations between states

these days, we are really looking at two worlds:

one of growing economic development and integration, and one of increasing ethnic conflict, instability, and global chaos. These two

worlds are not separate and exclusive; they coexist and overlap. In fact, the forces of global

economic development and integration are

also generating much of the chaos that exists

in the world today.

v

KEY POINTS
vi

= Much of this chaos is also attributable to a

“global identity crisis” brought on by the end

of the Cold War and the loss of national purpose. In such a milieu, people have turned

away from irrelevant ideological distinctions

and are relying on more traditional sources of

identity—cultural groups such as tribes, ethnic

groups, religious communities, and nations. 

= The global manifestation of this fundamental

change in local and regional identities is the division of the world into civilizations. Consequently, the world’s main divide has shifted

eastward—from the Iron Curtain to a historical

line that separates the civilizations encompassed by Western Christendom from those of

Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam. 

= Conflict does indeed occur between nationstates and peoples within the same civilization.

Yet such conflict, so gruesomely exemplified

by tribal warfare in Somalia and Rwanda, has

fewer chances of escalating into much wider

and more profound conflagrations than do

clashes between civilizations (such as in the

Caucasus and Yugoslavia).

= Confucian and Islamic societies are attempting

to expand their own economic and military

power to resist and balance the West. Witness

the challenges posed to the West by the economically powerful nations of East Asia. “The

central axis of world politics,” Huntington

maintained, “is and will be the interaction of

Western power and culture with the power

and culture of non-Western societies.”

“THE COMING ANARCHY” AND

THE NATION-STATE UNDER SIEGE

Robert Kaplan

“The Coming Anarchy”

= Traditional political boundaries between

countries are becoming increasingly irrelevant,

while ties between similar groups in different

countries grow stronger. The small middle

class in Pakistan has more in common with

middle-class Americans than with other Pakistanis. 

= Of the more than 170 nation-states in the

United Nations, failures in just a few of them

are enough to create a critical mass that could

quickly engulf us in global chaos. Conflict in

three small countries—Rwanda, Somalia, and

Haiti—resulted in major international instability and the expenditure of huge amounts of

money. Imagine what might happen if three

were to become six. Moreover, many large regional states that are internally weak and unstable could easily throw world politics into

chaos if just one of them were to collapse.

= Large states will not necessarily be as important in the future. We shouldn’t assume, for example, that China and India will retain their

present geographical and political contours as

secessionist movements in these and other

large states acquire more significance in international politics.
vii

= Too much money is spent on quick fixes—such

as short-term military interventions—for sporadic, violent outbreaks of complex international conflicts. As a result, long-term solutions

to conflict, such as investment in development

projects, continue to be neglected. 

= Much of the world’s violence is caused not by

poverty and economic stagnation but by economic success. Conflict seems to occur more

in states that are experiencing unprecedented

economic growth than economic decline. Such

growth has been tremendous but uneven.

While life gets better for some, it gets worse for

many more. 

Jessica Tuchman Mathews

Demographic and 

Environmental Forces

= Between 1950 and 1990, our planet has undergone more environmental change than in the

entire period before 1950. For the first time in

our history, we are now able to alter the planet’s physiology.

= The increase in massive population shifts

within and across regions will lead to more

cases where states are able to use migration as

a weapon in foreign policy. With greater and

greater frequency, states will be asking the

question: “Can walls be built high enough to

keep [immigrants] out, and what are the implications for our values in this country?”

= Overpopulation and its consequences could

be a major source of global instability and conflict in the very near future. Lack of jobs and

looming natural resource crises will have a

sharp impact on global politics. Exponential

population growth that continues to outstrip

the planet’s resource base will lead to larger

and more frequent waves of refugees and more

intense and destructive conflicts over water

and arable land.

= Fifteen percent of the population is responsible for 70 percent of global consumption. As

developing countries grow, the need to greatly

expand our food supply will become crucial.

= As these demographic trends accelerate, we

will be compelled to divert scarce funds to disaster relief. Meanwhile, prospects for preventive strategies to alleviate resource and population crises remain bleak. U.S. spending on

development has already declined by onefourth, and the UN spends five times more on

refugees and peacekeeping operations than on

economic development. 
On November 30 and December 1, 1994,

the United States Institute of Peace convened a major conference to address the

vexing problem of how to manage post–Cold War

international conflict. In an effort to stimulate discussion, the event was titled “Managing Chaos:

Coping with International Conflict into the

Twenty-First Century.”

The choice of the term “chaos” could hardly be

regarded as a choice beyond controversy. The

choice was made in part to acknowledge the debate surrounding the term that surfaced during

1994 and continues apace. Spurred primarily by

events in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Rwanda (and

the international community’s less-than-perfect responses to them), this debate centers on the question of whether the forces of order in the world are

not in fact being overwhelmed by increasing and

increasingly novel forces of disorder.

In a Washington Post opinion piece on July 31,

1994, U.S. Agency for International Development

Administrator J. Brian Atwood stated what many

who feel overwhelmed see as the problem:

Increasingly, we are confronted by countries without leadership, without order,

without governance itself. The pyre of failed

states is being fired by common fuels: longsimmering ethnic, religious, and territorial

disputes; proliferating military stockpiles

built dangerously high during the Cold

War; endemic poverty; rapid population

growth; food insecurity; environmental

degradation; and unstable and undemocratic governments.

Atwood argued that “we must forge the tools

and policies needed to meet a threat that can be

best summarized by the word ‘chaos.’”

To cite Atwood’s use of the term is not to credit

him with being the first to apply it. However, his

willingness to use it was an indication that, by the

summer of 1994 at least, the term and what it implied were under wide consideration. Indeed,

shortly after Atwood’s article appeared, Jeremy

Rosner of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was moved to complain that this way

of thinking had got out of hand. The focus of his

Washington Post piece of August 14 was the enthusiasm of Clinton administration officials—particularly Atwood and Undersecretary of State for

Global Affairs Tim Wirth—for the views of journalist Robert Kaplan, author of a long article in the

February 1994 Atlantic Monthly titled “The Coming Anarchy,” which, incidentally, was the product

of a United States Institute of Peace grant. To Rosner’s mind, the “chaos” view made the state of the

world more dependent on nature and history than

on human will and suggested “a foreign policy that

glossed over great power relations, ignored the

morality of foreign regimes, undervalued democracy, and assumed American decline.” According

to Rosner, “Those who are flirting with the chaos

doctrine are flirting with disaster.”

Despite the protestations of Rosner and others,

the specter of chaos had, if anything, grown greater

by the time of the Institute’s “Managing Chaos”

conference. The Washington Post’s Stephen

Rosenfeld noted in a column on November 25 that

chaos was increasingly in the thoughts of seriousminded people, although he properly noted that it

was still debatable whether the idea of chaos—described in a manner similar to Brian Atwood’s

above—is of central significance for those who

search for peace and orderliness in the post–Cold

War era. Rosenfeld asked, in effect, whether the

cataclysms in Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, Rwanda,

and Haiti—and the overflow effects from them—

represent a widening tendency that will be beyond

our means to manage unless we dramatically

change our way of doing business in the world, or

1

PREFACE
whether they represent problems that we are more

or less in the process of solving—albeit largely by

hit-and-miss methods and not without mistakes so

far.

In its “Managing Chaos” conference, the United

States Institute of Peace meant to answer both

“yes” and “no” to the question of chaos—notwithstanding (and perhaps in response to) the fact that

the Institute had facilitated Kaplan’s “The Coming

Anarchy.” In the Institute’s view, the fear of chaos is

most certainly not unfounded. There is no question that we have problems like failed states, endless civil wars, politically induced famines, burgeoning refugee populations, and genocides,

which, although they have occurred before, are

now occurring with increased frequency. That increase in frequency by itself might well raise the

specter of chaos. There is also no question that

some problems—like the environmental nightmares in the former communist states of Eastern

Europe and the dubious viability of many of the

new states of the former Soviet Union—are unprecedented and whose complexity defies managing with traditional methods and resources.

On the other hand, the evidence is not sufficient

to conclude that we are doomed, that our future is

simply determined, as Rosner would say, by

nature—as in the case of environmental threats—or

by history—as in the case of ethnic and religious

conflict. If we believe that our future is determined,

we would also have to believe that significant natural calamities and historic enmities have not been

successfully managed in many recent cases. The

Institute’s presumption is, then, that we are indeed

threatened with chaos but are not without the ability to imagine the new resources and means to deal

with it.

What the Institute hoped to do in its “Managing

Chaos” conference, then, was not to bring the

chaos debate to closure, but to offer something

much more down to earth: to survey and understand both new and enduring sources of international conflict and to consider both established

and new ways of dealing with them. In doing so,

we involved speakers who represent a range of

views that relate to the chaos issue and otherwise

offer wisdom and insight into sources of conflict

and how to think about them in innovative ways.

This report summarizes the remarks of a number of conference speakers who address new and

abiding sources of conflict. The order of presentation here does not correspond to the conference’s

order, as we have grouped the summaries topically

to bring out the resonances between the presentations. Samuel P. Huntington and Robert Kaplan

spoke together on a panel chaired by Paul Wolfowitz, dean of the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. G. M. Tamás and Jessica Tuchman Mathews spoke on a panel chaired by Jeane

Kirkpatrick.

Special thanks are due to Institute program officers Patricia Carley and Scott Snyder for their conference reportage and contributions to this report.

The views represented here are those of “Managing Chaos” conference presenters and do not

necessarily represent those of the United States Institute of Peace.

KENNETH M. JENSEN

DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL PROGRAMS

AND CONFERENCE COORDINATOR

2
This report begins with the views of two

thinkers for whom current and future conflict revolves around newly developing

senses of identity among nations and peoples. In

each case, their conceptions of identity have roots

in the past. Nonetheless, new content is being

poured into old forms. More than this, their perspectives are intentionally provocative: If their

analyses prove to be correct, the world will have

much to reconsider in order to meet the challenge

of twenty-first century conflict.

Hungarian philosopher and political figure 

G. M. Tamás speaks to the subject of “the new nationalism” as it manifests itself particularly—but

not exclusively—in post-communist countries. He

is followed by Professor Samuel P. Huntington, of

Harvard’s Center for International Studies, who

speaks to the subject of “The Clash of Civilizations?,” the topic of a Summer 1993 Foreign Affairs

article that remains the subject of intense debate

internationally. 

G. M. TAMÁS

THE NEW NATIONALISM

Political philosopher G. M. Tamás addressed the

challenges accompanying new conceptions of nationalism in the post-communist states of Eastern

Europe. Contrary to Samuel Huntington’s projection of a world in which nation-states will be overshadowed by conflicts among civilizations,

Tamás’s analysis envisions the demise of civilizations, nation-states, and communities as concepts

around which to build political life. According to

Tamás, rigid definitions of community that identify

members along ethnic lines have begun to replace

the liberal ideal of communities of free and equal

individuals on which Western politics has been

based since the French Revolution.

The Velvet Revolution as 

Freedom from Political Community

The Velvet Revolution of 1989 that brought an end

to communism in Eastern Europe was “the first

revolution in history that didn’t have a utopia,” according to Tamás. The destruction of communism’s utopian order, however, claimed another 

casualty as well—the very essence of political community itself. Tamás recalled that the idea that citizens should work together for the common good,

or for the sake of institutional loyalties, has been

associated traditionally with personal interest. The

new idea of freedom in East Europe, he said, is that

of the individual as an actor to be free from political community, not the freedom of the individual

to exercise rights and duties under law in common

cause with others in a political community.

According to this view of freedom, which Tamás

asserts is not confined to Eastern Europe, individuals are not rational agents; rather, they are beings

whose essence resides in their emotions and private desires. One important desire among Eastern

Europe’s revolutionaries in 1989 was to be free

from tyranny, which was perceived as part of the

political condition itself. Accordingly, the Velvet

Revolution was an uprising against not only political rule but against the liberal Western idea of political community as well. However, Tamás contended, as soon as Eastern Europe’s revolutionaries

3

1IDENTITY AND

CONFLICT
were finally free from politics, they suddenly realized that some sort of social organizing principle

had to be found for their local communities. Ethnicity, he contended, was the one organizing principle at hand that had not been compromised in

the struggle for freedom. That it has come to play

such a great role is, therefore, understandable.

Nationalism: The Old and the New 

“Nationalism” as we are accustomed to thinking of

it, is the nationalism of the nineteenth century,

Tamás observed. The term is associated in our

imagination with strength and support for a strong

state and with accompanying images of authority

and discipline. In contrast, the new, post-communist nationalism in Eastern Europe is anarchistic,

apolitical, and even antipolitical. It refuses to recognize any overarching idea of social morality beyond, say, common decency.

According to Tamás, the old-style, liberal nationalism of the nineteenth century had two main

strategies: conquest

and assimilation. If a

majority wanted to

assimilate minorities,

he said, that majority

would have to believe

that there was something in common between the majority

and minorities that

would allow them to

be assimilated. Proponents of this older form of

nationalism did not believe in absolute dividing

lines between nations and peoples; they justified

the superiority of one’s own group on the basis of

universal criteria. Such criteria permitted them to

claim that their superiority could be recognized

and accepted by minorities who would benefit

thereby. In contrast, said Tamás, the criteria for

claims of superiority under the new nationalism

are parochial and absolute, based entirely on

whether one is perceived as a member of the group

or as alien to it.

Accordingly, Tamás continued, the old and new

nationalisms have dramatically different implications for the nation-state. The struggle among

southern Slavs in the nineteenth century was for

the unity of all peoples, for Yugoslav citizenship. In

contemporary Bosnia, however, there is no foundation for a “superethnic” citizenship on which a

nation-state can be constructed. Classic liberal nationalism advocated assimilation, but the new nationalism breaks up the state into small, ethnicbased units. According to Tamás, the destruction

of the state arises not from a primordial compulsion to destroy, but from doubts about whether

political community of any kind beyond the ethnic

group is just another form of personal subjugation

to omnipotent political power.

The New Enemy: 

The Reign of Small Tyrannies

Recalling his experience as one of the leaders of

the Velvet Revolution, Tamás described the dawning of the realization that beyond providing the rationale for destroying the communist state, the major strains of East European revolutionary thought

in 1989 had paid little attention to proposing institutions that could replace the

state as the basis for political organization: “We all thought that

the enemy was the overbearing,

bureaucratic, centralized, tyrannical state. And within a few

months, we found out that our

enemy was anarchy, and that

our conditioning under years of

the communist regime to be

suspicious of hands-on government—to be suspicious of any great emphasis on

conformity, on loyalty, on obedience to the law,

etc.—all these things were seen by my generation as

pretexts for dictatorship,” Tamás recalled. “And

while we were quite successful in destroying all basis for legitimacy of an unelected, tyrannical government, in the process we destroyed the basis for

politics as such.”

As a result, Tamás argued, individuals feel that if

particular laws are disadvantageous to individual

interests, there is no obligation to follow them. The

attitude that one should obey the law even if one

doesn’t happen to like it is seen as a “servile, conformist, Bolshevik mentality.” In this environment,

according to Tamás, “People want the ‘good,’ but

they don’t want the ‘common.’” Countries are seen

4

I

n contemporary Bosnia . . .

there is no foundation for a

“superethnic” citizenship on which

a nation-state can be constructed.
5

as tribes with flags, and states as gangs with charters, he said. 

The attitudes of “the new nationalism,” Tamás

noted, are not confined to post-communist societies in Eastern Europe: Southern California is a

stark reminder that Eastern Europe is not the only

example of countries based on legal, political, and

moral principles fragmenting into ethnic-based

communities. In Southern California, too, said

Tamás, there is no higher-level appeal against the

values held by these groups. Instead of providing a

means of escaping what is perceived as tyranny,

the assertion of ethnicity as a social organizing

principle that supersedes our broader, traditional

notion of political community is “simply breaking

up tyranny into smaller tyrannies.”

According to Tamás, critics have not yet been

able to develop an adequate or dignified response

to this new nationalism. In thoroughly rejecting

the tapestry of cultural and religious traditions that

determine whether people can coexist reasonably

within a political structure, the new nationalism

defies reasoned analysis. Yet, it can be said that, unlike the old nationalism that was based on

strength, the new nationalism is the nationalism of

weakness. Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Tamás noted, doesn’t even have discipline

over his own political group. The Zhirinovskys

and Karadzics (i.e., Bosnian Serb leader Radovan

Karadzic) of the world “are only helping ‘chaos’ to

be even more engulfing.”

The waning interest among his fellow East Europeans for the rule of law and for the rights and

duties that are required under a democratic system, Tamás said, has robbed him of his enjoyment

as a revolutionary. Their view that democratic principles don’t work (or are accepted as only a slight

improvement over the worst) doesn’t mean that

his countrymen are headed back toward a new

communist dictatorship: “People don’t want communism and people don’t want the guarantees

against it. And this is why the new nationalism is

so peculiar. . . . This is why it is so dangerous. Its

weakness, indeed, can be as dangerous as

strength.”

SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON

THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS?

Chaos and the Search 

for New Sources of Identity

The world Tamás describes is quite different from

the one Samuel Huntington envisions. While

Tamás predicts anarchy resulting from the steady

erosion and fragmentation of the nation-state as

both a source of self-identity and an organizing

principle in international society, Huntington sees

the same process transforming world politics

along cultural and civilizational lines, where the

new actors in the international arena are agglomerations of individual nation-states that share similar

attributes of language, religion, and culture. 

To the observer of contemporary international

affairs, the world has become a rather schizophrenic place: There is a prosperous world of

growing economic development and integration;

but there is also a world of increasing nationalism,

ethnic conflict, instability, and global chaos. For

Huntington, the crucial point is that both of these

worlds are real: The world of global economic integration coexists with a world of chaos, and these

worlds are interrelated. In fact, and perhaps somewhat ironically, “the forces of economic development and integration are also generating much of

the chaos that exists in the world.”

Yet another source of conflict reflects a much

more fundamental change in global society

brought about by the end of the Cold War and the

sudden disappearance of ideological reference

points. At the core of their beliefs, people identify

most strongly with cultural groups; that is to say,

tribes, ethnic groups, religious communities, nations, and, at the broadest level, civilizations. In

short, the most important distinctions among peoples today are not ideological but cultural.

Global Politics: 

Fault Lines between Civilizations

For Huntington, nation-states will remain the principal actors in world affairs. However, the largest

groupings will no longer be the blocs of the Cold

War era but the “seven or eight major world 
civilizations.” For forty-five years, Huntington continued, the most important dividing line in the

world was the Iron Curtain. Now, that dividing line

has moved hundreds of miles east—to the line separating the Christian West, on the one hand, and

the Orthodox (Christian) and Muslim East on the

other. 

The rivalry of the superpowers has been replaced to some extent by the clash of civilizations,

and these civilizations’ “core states” will gradually

replace Cold War–era superpowers as managers of

the international order. Until then, military conflicts among less-developed countries over borders, natural resources, and transnational ethnic

politics will be more prevalent.

People who were once separated by ideology

but united by culture are now coming together,

and Huntington offered as examples the two Germanys and the push for reunification between the

two Koreas and the two Chinas. Societies that are

united by ideology or historical circumstance but

divided by civilization either come apart, as did the

Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, and Ethiopia, or

are subject to intense strain, as is the case with

Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Sudan, Nigeria, Sri Lanka,

and others. 

Without a doubt, said Huntington, tribal wars

and ethnic conflicts occur within their own civilizations. Conflict stemming from economic competition will become even more acute among Western democracies within the same civilization.

However, the violence between states and groups

from different civilizations—as is the case in

Bosnia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Kashmir—

carries with it the potential for greater escalation,

as other states and groups that share the same civilization rally to support their ethnic and cultural

kin. In the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Russia

has provided considerable diplomatic support to

the Serbs, while Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Libya have

provided funds to the Bosnians. “It is precisely situations like these, where the battle lines between

societies and groups coincide with fault lines between civilizations, that are the most dangerous

ones for the future,” Huntington said.

Though the West will remain without a doubt

the most powerful civilization for years to come,

according to Huntington, its power is declining

relative to other civilizations. As the West tries to

assert its values and protect its interests, non-Western societies face a choice. Some may desire to emulate the West, and others may be ambivalent. Still

others, primarily the Confucian and Islamic societies, are attempting to expand their own economic and military power to resist and balance the

West. Witness the challenges posed to the West by

the economically powerful nations of East Asia.

“The central axis of world politics,” Huntington

maintained, “is and will be the interaction of Western power and culture with the power and culture

of non-Western societies.” 

6
The second set of summaries leaves the realm

of the search for new identities to look at

what Brian Atwood would refer to as other

“common fuels” that fire “the pyre of failed states.”

Journalist Robert Kaplan spoke from the perspective of new experiences gathered abroad over the

past year on the themes of his “Coming Anarchy”

argument. Elaborating on this perspective, he challenges us both to acknowledge new forces of disorder and to alter our way of thinking about states

and traditional interstate relationships. Similarly,

Jessica Tuchman Mathews of the Council on Foreign Relations asks us to acknowledge that enduring problems in the world’s demography and its

environment are reaching a level of acuteness that

demands considerable thinking about priorities

aimed at stemming international disorder.

ROBERT KAPLAN

“THE COMING ANARCHY”

Harsh Realities

By way of providing an example of his contention

that the current world political system is tending

toward chaos, Robert Kaplan described some current realities in Pakistan today. On one hand, there

is the view of a multinational corporate executive

who visits the country regularly. On each trip, the

executive might see more computers, more fax machines, and more mobile phones in use. The executive might also see an excellently run state airline,

more and more designer restaurants, and, most

important, a growing middle class to enjoy them—

a middle class whose culture increasingly resembles that of the Western executive. The spread of

such middle-class amenities to a Third World

country might cause the executive to wonder why

the doomsayers keep predicting impending chaos

in the world.

The problem is, Kaplan continued, that what

the global executive sees in Pakistan is only part of

the picture. Another part is that every year,

540,000 more people are added to the city of

Karachi alone. In 1947, the population of Pakistan’s largest city was 400,000; today, Karachi’s

population is over nine million. Of that nine million, less than one-quarter has garbage collection,

and that number is decreasing. There is frequently

no water or electricity for days at a time and unemployment is at 25 percent. Approximately one million of that nine million live in what can only be

called shantytowns. In southern Pakistan, there

are an equal number (i.e., one million) of drug addicts. Without a doubt, the world of fax machines

and VCRs exists in Pakistan, but increasingly they

are run on private generators. Similarly, the water

and electricity in the country’s fancy hotels are

supplied by private wells and generators because

the municipal water and electricity systems are

breaking down. These conditions, according to Kaplan, are not necessarily new in Pakistan, but they

are new for Islamabad, the country’s capital, and

especially for the city’s wealthy districts. In recent

decades, people have been migrating into the city

from the deforested hillsides, building their own

makeshift shelters in the shantytowns, and 

7

2“THE COMING

ANARCHY” AND

THE NATION-STATE

UNDER SIEGE
tapping into the city’s water system; ultimately,

such migration causes problems for everyone.

The increasing deterioration in public order is

not confined to Pakistan’s urban areas, Kaplan explained. Vast areas of the country are controlled by

drug gangs, which also serve as a metaphor for the

country’s political gridlock. But unlike the political

gridlock Americans are familiar with in Washington, Pakistan’s is frequently divided along ethnic

and regional lines; and it is, Kaplan suggested, “far

nastier.” Added to

these developments are some

demographic and

geographic realities. Every two to

three years, the

equivalent of the

population of

Karachi is added

to Pakistan. By the year 2010, the amount of arable

land per rural inhabitant in Pakistan will decrease

by one-half, and one-quarter of that will be unusable due to salinity and soil degradation. The

country has witnessed such an exponential increase in the numbers of its youths that no future

educational or employment system can be expected to absorb them.

The bottom line, according to Kaplan, is that regardless of who the political leaders are, governing

Pakistan is becoming an increasingly desperate enterprise. To someone who might argue that Pakistan is a particularly desperate case, Kaplan

pointed out that two-thirds of the states in sub-Saharan Africa rate lower on the 1994 United Nations scale of human development. Yet, the middleclass “bubble” in Pakistan continues to expand. It

has very nearly formed its own private state, with

an army of private security guards protecting its

“borders.” The financial wellspring of the country’s

middle class—the Karachi stock market—continues

to expand. 

As Kaplan explained, Pakistan is an example of

two phenomena that are currently reshaping

global society. “Vertical” state boundaries—the visible borders separating states that we see on maps—

are, in fact, withering and becoming less relevant.

In their place, “horizontal” boundaries are forming—ties among groups, or classes, that cut across

nation-state borders. The small middle class in

Pakistan, he posited, has more in common with

most Americans than with other Pakistanis. “The

traditional nation-state is weakening,” Kaplan asserted, “and new forms of community are coming

into being.”

To provide a fuller explanation of this phenomenon, Kaplan described the concept of “economic

regions” as suggested by geographer Bruce Bayer,

referring to the development of economic regions

that are more cohesive than the currently recognized nation-states they encompass. In traveling through the

Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan, it is clear that if the Pakistani state were ever to wither

away, the Hunza Valley may in

fact do better on its own. Another

example is the Senegal River valley, which may also do better on

its own than split between Senegal and Mauritania, as it is currently. Yet another

successful economic region is the Mekong River

valley, which is an extension of greater Thailand

economically, into which Laos is gradually being

absorbed. The result is that the Mekong River valley region is developing more of an identity—and

becoming more of a reality— than the “nation-state”

of Laos.

The Role of “Swing States”

Kaplan turned to the other realities of instability in

today’s state system. Citing Paul Kennedy’s term

“swing states,” referring to significant regional

powers that are in danger because of internal institutional disorder or deterioration, Kaplan suggested that many large regional states are in exactly this position, including Nigeria, Iran, Egypt,

and Pakistan. Is it the case that these swing states

are only going through a difficult and unwieldy

transition period, or will one or two of them possibly fail outright?

There are, said Kaplan, 173 nation-states on the

membership roster of the United Nations. To propel the world system into a state of genuine chaos,

it may not require the failure of a majority—or even

half—of these states. All that is needed, he argued,

is a “critical mass” of nation-state failures, a small

minority of crises that would be just enough to

8

Asmall minority of crises . . .

would be just enough to

overload the agenda of 

the world’s decision makers.
9

overload the agenda of the world’s decision makers. One need only look at the way in which the

failure of just three relatively small, marginal countries—Rwanda, Somalia, and Haiti—resulted in not

only substantial political upheaval and instability

but also the commitment of huge amounts of financial resources to these crises. Imagine, he said,

what would be involved were that three to become

six, or were the next failed state a regional power

such as Nigeria or Pakistan. Kaplan stated that he

is not certain that the policy-making elite would be

able to cope, or that it has any ready solutions to

such potential crises.

The Growing Irrelevance 

of Large States

The largest states in the international arena will

not necessarily be the most important ones in the

future, Kaplan continued, adding that he does not

agree with those who claim that China and India

will be major regional powers. These two countries

are in fact decentralizing and regionalizing in a

way that is making their central governments benign and obsolete in a great power sense. Similarly,

Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang increasingly talk about

separating from the People’s Republic of China. It

should therefore not be assumed that in the future

China will retain the same borders it has today.

There could be a “greater China,” but there could

be a “lesser China” also. In any case, a “greater

China” would be a “benign China” because it will

not be centrally controlled—it will be more of a cultural and economic force than a centrally controlled great power. The same is true for India,

where much of what is happening throughout the

country is occurring outside of the state network.

In the country’s southern state of Carola, for example, New Delhi is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

In the case of these two large, regional powers—

and perhaps in others as well—it is their smaller entities that are becoming more and more important.

The Increase in World “Stunts”

In the early 1990s, Kaplan continued, the United

Nations staged an election process in Cambodia. It

was declared a success, the media left, and the

world forgot about it. Since then, however, conditions in the country have deteriorated once again.

It is now unclear, Kaplan claimed, whether the UN

“success” in Cambodia was simply a very expensive “stunt,” or whether it was a pivotal exercise in

what will ultimately be a success story. What many

are now saying is that perhaps the UN should have

spent that money on building Cambodia’s infrastructure, that it is the development of roads and

deforestation projects more than the staging of

elections that will drive out the Khmer Rouge. Today, the Khmer Rouge controls 20 percent of the

country; and of the 80 percent that is controlled by

the government, only half is fully secure or safe for

travelers.

Kaplan’s main point is that “we seem to be engaged in expensive ‘stunts’ around the world.” In

Haiti and Somalia, the United States spent a great

deal of money in the hope of going in quickly and

getting out after only three or four months. If

things collapse three or four years later, the politicians hope only that no one will notice. This is an

increasingly dangerous mode of operation in view

of the reality of an increasingly isolationist public.

All that is needed, Kaplan maintained, is the noticeable failure of one of these “stunts” to drive the

public into an even greater isolationist stance.

Rather than “stunts” that seek to “solve” such complex conflicts in a few short months, Kaplan suggested that resources could better be spent on less

“dramatic” but more long-term solutions, such as

women’s literacy and family planning programs

and reforestation projects. Such projects are more

valuable in the long run, and only then can there

be hope of gradual, incremental improvements

that will enable democracy to grow on its own. The

“expensive stunts,” Kaplan said, are of limited

value.

Echoing Huntington, Kaplan noted the irony

that most violence in the world today is caused not

by poverty and economic stagnation but by global

economic success and development. Mass violence (in India, for example) has visited itself more

upon countries that have boasted of recent economic achievements than among failed states and

regions. “We are in a gawky, awkward, pubescent

stage in human development,” he asserted. Because capitalism cannot be controlled, the more

growth there is, the greater the disparities become.

Global economic growth has been tremendous of
late—but it has been uneven, and it is the unevenness that is causing the problems. While life gets

better for some, it unfortunately gets worse for

many more. 

Ours remains a world of “yearning,” said Kaplan, and “everyone wants to be a player.” Yet the

reality is described better by a statistic noted in the

Atlantic Monthly that by the year 2000, some

40–70 percent of North African youth will have no

possibility of finding employment. The current

system is producing a new “sub-proletariat of

young people” without jobs. It is true, Kaplan conceded, that he has focused mainly on places that

are in a “downward spiral”; yet, this describes a

large section of the world. It is important to keep

in mind, he said, that 90 percent of the babies born

today are being born not in places like Singapore,

but in the kind of places he has been describing.

The question remains: “Is democracy going to be

up to the job? Is democracy going to create wealth

in those places?”

Elections often do not provide the answer, since

in some societies a dictator will engage in more

“civil” behavior than a democratically elected

leader. On the other hand, corporatist neo-authoritarianism, such as the variety found in Singapore,

is not a universal model either. It may work in Singapore, but it cannot be a model for others.

Kaplan offered Thailand as proof of Francis

Fukuyama’s theory that democracy may not

emerge everywhere, but that where it does emerge,

people will be happier. Little by little in that country, the military mafiosos are constrained by an increasingly feisty and sophisticated press, suggesting that democracy is gradually gaining ground.

Thailand is also a good example, Kaplan maintained, of how democracy, economic growth, and

falling birth rates are interrelated. The problem in

Washington, however, is that policy makers view

this crucial interrelationship through its separate

parts, such as demography or democracy. Yet in

those parts of the world the interrelationship between scarcity, corruption, and civil society is clear.

Places where there is land scarcity and high population growth, he said, are not places where good

government is likely to emerge.

In closing, Kaplan noted: “I’m a global optimist.

I just think that the next forty years are going to be

very difficult.”

JESSICA TUCHMAN MATHEWS

DEMOGRAPHIC AND

ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES

Jessica Tuchman Mathews described what in her

view are the environmental, demographic, and

population changes that will pose the greatest

challenge to international order in the future. She

asserted that, to a certain extent, these sources of

conflict have grown up with us during the Cold

War but have escaped our attention. Demographic

and environmental challenges, she said, are not

the only sources, or the key sources, or even new

sources of conflict, but they are the most frequently ignored sources of modern instability.

Overpopulation

In the period between 1950 and 1990, Mathews

noted, there was more change in our environment

than in the entire period before 1950. For the first

time in our history, we have been able to alter the

planet’s physiology. There have been historic

changes and new stresses on our environment as a

result of adding three billion more people to our

human population in the space of only three

decades. We have doubled the amount of nitrogen

on the planet, created a hole the size of a continent

in our ozone layer, and created what biologists call

a “spasm” of species loss at the rate of one per

hour. This means that 10 to 25 percent of our

species will be gone within twenty-five years. During the post-war period, 11 percent of the planet’s

arable land—an area equal to India and China combined—has been degraded, some of it irretrievably.

In addition, water demand has increased by eight

or nine times in this century, and will triple from

present levels by 2050 if the current growth trend

continues. Owing to improvements in infant mortality rates and nutrition over recent decades, there

are more hungry people in absolute numbers on

the planet than ever, Mathews noted. Given the

projected rate of population growth, we can expect

another doubling of population by 2050. 

The challenge of burgeoning population growth

could be a major source of instability in the coming decades, according to Mathews. Echoing a concern of Robert Kaplan’s, she argued that the need

10
11

for new jobs to meet the needs of the working-age

population in developing countries by 2025 will

be larger than today’s total number of workers

worldwide. This population will create a gigantic—

possibly unsatisfiable—demand for jobs, and will

create greater pressures for massive population

shifts through internal and external migration

among nations. 

As population growth continues, Mathews

noted, we will face new inequities in resource use that will grow more stark as

the developing world continues to expand faster than the industrialized

world. We will need to triple both our

energy use and agricultural production

in the next fifty years—at a time when

all the “easy” measures for increasing

our food supply have already been exhausted. For instance, rice yields in

China in the 1970s grew at about 4 percent annually; but in the 1980s, annual yield increases were

only 1.6 percent, a rate that is only barely sufficient

to stay ahead of population growth. In addition,

there is a severe crisis in global fisheries, all seventeen of which are at or beyond their sustainable

yield.

In a few crucial regions, potential conflict surrounds the disparity between available water

sources and consumption. By 2050, one-quarter of

all river water will be used to meet human consumption needs. In the Middle East, where there is

3 percent annual population growth, water resources are already in severe deficit. To state the

obvious, water and food are the basic elements for

survival. As such, they are the most obvious

sources of conflict in regions, like the Middle East,

where there are both a shrinking per capita resource base and historical and ethnic rivalries.

This type of conflict can quickly transform once

peaceful communities into vengeful ethnic cauldrons.

Migration

Mathews projected that population growth in the

next fifty years will result in an increase in internal

migration and rapid urbanization, with concomitant internal political instabilities. The number of

refugees has grown ten-fold in the past twenty-five

years, she noted. If one includes internally displaced

people who are refugees within their own countries, we currently have fifty million migrants and

refugees, a number that will inevitably continue to

rise. This unprecedented population growth,

Mathews asserted, has forced people to use land in

ways that it was not meant to be used. As a result,

our vulnerability to natural disasters increases.

The number of natural disasters, according to Red

Cross figures, has grown from three to twenty per

year during this century. From 1987 to 1992, $53

billion in losses have been recorded as a result of

“natural” disasters that are now partially manmade because more people are moving to areas

not suited for permanent habitation.

According to Mathews, an indirect consequence

of population growth and the pressure of migration is the continuing use of excess people as a

weapon (as in Haiti and Cuba). This poses a great

challenge for Western democracy by forcing its

representative governments to compromise its

most cherished values; for instance, by asking

Cuba to prohibit its citizens from emigrating. “The

increase in migration will lead to more cases in

which it will be possible to use excess people as a

weapon [in foreign policy],” states Mathews. “The

pressure of migration will upset relations with

continuing frequency. . . . Can walls be built high

enough to keep [immigrants] out, and what are the

implications for our values in this country?”

More Relief, Less Development

Mathews argues that all these trends are creating

humanitarian crises that divert scarce resources

from productive investment to unproductive but

morally compelling uses. Financial resources

spent on peacekeeping or humanitarian assistance—such as the $3 billion spent on Somalia—

are funds that could have gone to areas ripe for 

The increase in migration will lead to

more cases in which it will be possible

to use excess people as a weapon . . . .
12

economic growth. The portion of the UN budget

devoted to humanitarian relief and peacekeeping

increased from 25 to 45 percent between 1988

and 1992. The UN will spend five times more on

peacekeeping than economic development this

year, a trend that is reflected in the national budgets of its individual member-states.

According to Mathews, parallel stresses of dwindling arable land, global warming, and population

growth are leading to coastal crowding and pressure on fisheries. The interaction of population

growth, poverty, and environmental stress is a

toxic combination, as we have seen recently in

Rwanda and Haiti. In the telecommunications age,

it will be impossible not to know how everyone

else lives, and pressure on governments to open

up will increase. Not all governments will succumb to such pressure, however, especially those

on the verge of developing the capacity to build biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons to enhance their international prestige. Without the requisite security measures, these countries may

become unwitting accomplices in supplying these

weapons to outlaw states and international crime

groups. Avoiding that outcome, said Mathews, will

require unprecedented international cooperation.
As Professors Huntington and Tamás suggest in their presentations, the search for

“identity” is a key feature of the post–Cold

War era. That search extends beyond the uncertainties facing formerly oppressed nations and

peoples to the reconceptualization of the relationships among states and the institutions that serve

them. As Ambassador Jack Maresca said during the

Institute’s “Managing Chaos” conference, we

ought to acknowledge that “chaos” may reside in

our thinking about the world these days rather

than in the world itself.

The reader may have noticed that some of

Robert Kaplan’s assertions contradict Professor

Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations?” theory.

While the latter sees inevitable conflict between

civilizations, Kaplan suggests that the lines between peoples are not based on civilization, but on

class or even lifestyle. As Kaplan notes, there is a

sense in which, despite the differences in religion,

history, and culture, middle-class Pakistanis have

more in common with middle-class Americans

than with their fellow countrymen who live in

shantytowns. This remark may put Kaplan—the reputed author of “chaos theory”—closer to the

global optimist Francis Fukuyama than to Samuel

Huntington. Fukuyama, of course, argues in “The

End of History?” that democracy and the free 

market will triumph universally. One supposes he

would square his argument with Kaplan’s by saying that the forces that segment Pakistani society

and threaten to rend social cohesion will eventually be overcome when Pakistan (and the world)

becomes more “bourgeois.” The debate on post–

Cold War identity issues is obviously complex 

and is being joined by exponents of a wide variety

of views. 

Regardless of one’s reaction to various concerns

about “identity” and to the claims of commentators like Kaplan and Jessica Mathews regarding the

ultimate effect of demographic and environmental

forces of disorder, it can hardly be disputed that

the nation-state system is under considerable

stress and cannot be expected to continue unchanged in the coming decades. The task before

the international community is not deciding

whether change is for better or worse, but how to

galvanize the proponents of freedom, justice, order, and peace into responding appropriately to

change. Wide-ranging and creative thinkers like

Huntington, Tamás, Kaplan, and Mathews provoke our thinking—and in ways that are clearly vital to our ability to meet the challenge of international change.

13

EPILOGUE
Samuel P. Huntington is Eaton Professor

of the Science of Government and director

of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic

Studies at the Center

for International Affairs, Harvard University. In 1977–78, he

served as coordinator

of security planning for

the National Security Council. Huntington’s association with Harvard University dates from 1950.

He was also associate director of the Institute of

War and Peace Studies at Columbia University

from 1959 to 1962. In 1970, he was among the

founders of the quarterly journal Foreign Policy, of

which he was coeditor until 1977. He has been a

fellow or guest scholar at numerous universities

and research institutes, including the Brookings

Institution, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London,

and All Souls College, Oxford. He was a member of

the Council of the American Political Science Association (1969–71), and served as the association’s

vice president (1985) and president (1986–87).

He has also served as a member of the Presidential

Task Force on International Development

(1960–70), the Commission on United

States–Latin American Relations (1974–76), and

the Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy

(1986–88). Huntington is the author or editor of

over a dozen books and ninety scholarly articles

on issues involving military politics, strategy, and

civil-military relations; American and comparative

politics; and political development and the politics

of less-developed countries. His most recent book,

The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late

Twentieth Century (1991), received the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

He is also author of “The Clash of Civilizations?,”

which was published in Foreign Affairs in the summer of 1993. Huntington received a B.A. from Yale

University, an M.A. from the University of Chicago,

and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Robert Kaplan is the

author of “The Coming

Anarchy,” which appeared in Atlantic

Monthly, where he is a

contributing editor. 

Kaplan is the author of

four books: Surrender

or Starve: The Wars

Behind the Famine

(about the Horn of

Africa), Soldiers of

God: With the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, Balkan

Ghosts: A Journey Through History, and The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite. He has

written for The New Republic, Condé Nast Traveler, and the editorial pages of the New York Times

and the Washington Post, among other publications. He is currently working on a new book entitled Remapping the Earth. 

Kaplan graduated from the University of Connecticut. He has lectured at the Army Staff College at

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the World Economic

Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the Wharton

School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, among many other places. In 1993, the editors

of the New York Times Book Review named

Balkan Ghosts one of the fourteen “best books” of

the year, while also naming The Arabists a “notable” book of the year.

14

CONTRIBUTORS
15

Jessica Tuchman

Mathews is a senior

fellow at the Council on

Foreign Relations and a

columnist for the

Washington Post. In

1993, she was deputy

to the undersecretary

of state for global affairs. In 1982–83,

Mathews was vice president of the World Resources Institute, a policy research center working

on the management of national resources and the

environment. Mathews was also the Institute’s research director from 1982 to 1988. From 1977

through 1979, Mathews was the director of the Office of Global Issues on the staff of the National Security Council. Her responsibilities included nuclear proliferation, conventional arms sales policy,

chemical and biological warfare, human rights,

and international environmental issues. She has

served on many study committees of the American

Association for the Advancement of Science, the

congressional Office of Technology Assessment,

and the National Academy of Sciences, including

the latter’s Committee on the Policy Implications

of Greenhouse Warming. She is a member of the

Advisory Committee of the Institute for International Economics, and a distinguished fellow of

the Aspen Institute. She is currently a member of

the board of Radcliffe College, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inter-American Dialogue (vice chair),

and the Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace. She has previously served on the boards of

the Joyce Foundation, the Population Reference

Bureau, and the Federation of American Scientists.

Mathew’s Washington Post column appears nationwide and regularly in the International Herald

Tribune. She has also written for the New York

Times, Foreign Affairs, and other scientific and foreign policy journals. She holds a B.A. from Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in molecular biology

from the California Institute of Technology.

G. M. Tamás is a

reader in philosophy at

the University of Budapest and formerly a

member of the Hungarian parliament. He is

also director of the Institute of Philosophy of

the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and,

since 1990, vice president of the Hungarian

Philosophical Society. He emigrated to Hungary

from Romania in 1978, at which time he was appointed senior lecturer and senior research fellow

in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Budapest (ELTE). Tamás’s open association with dissidents resulted in his dismissal from the university, and he was unable to gain employment again

until 1989. During that time, he published widely

in samizdat publications on issues of political philosophy, and broadcasted regularly for the Hungarian Section of the BBC World Service and for

Radio Free Europe. In 1986, he received permission to travel abroad and taught at Columbia University, the Polytechnic of Central London, and the

École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in

Paris, among many other universities in Europe

and North America. In 1988, he participated in the

demonstrations against communist rule in Hungary and was arrested several times. That same

year, he founded the Alliance of Free Democrats

and, in December 1989, became the first dissident

member of the Hungarian parliament. Tamás remains chairman of the National Committee of the

Free Democrats. In parliament, he was a member

of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and vice

chairman of the Interparliamentary Group. In

1989, Tamás wrote Idola Tribus, a book on nationhood, tradition, and values, which was originally

published in Hungary and will be released in an

expanded version under the title Tribal Concepts

by Open Court Press next year. Tamás writes regularly for international periodicals, including The

Spectator, the Sunday Telegraph, The Times, the

Daily Telegraph, The European, the Review of

Politics, the American Scholar, the Journal of

Democracy, Social Research, and the Times Literary Supplement. At present, he is at work on a

book on authority to be published by Basic Books.
Coping with International

Conflict into the 21st Century

November 30 – December 1, 1994

The Changing Character 

of International Conflict

NOVEMBER 30, MORNING

Welcoming Address Chester A. Crocker, Chairman, Board of 

Directors, United States Institute of Peace

Session 1

The Character of A conceptual assessment of the changing 

Twenty-First Century Conflict character of international conflict designed 

to advance today’s awareness of change and 

the breakdown of institutions created in the 

Cold War era.

Moderator Paul D. Wolfowitz, SAIS, The Johns 

Hopkins University

Speakers Samuel P. Huntington, Center for 

International Affairs, Harvard University

Robert D. Kaplan, author of “The Coming 

Anarchy” and Balkan Ghosts

Session 2

A New Look at Key A focus on known and anticipated sources 

Sources of Conflict of conflict in the coming decades, including 

the resurgence of ethno-religious nationalism; 

environmental and related threats; and the 

proliferation of weapons of mass destruction 

and the persistent threat posed by certain 

closed societies.

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16

MANAGING CHAOS

CONFERENCE AGENDA
17

Moderator Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, American 

Enterprise Institute

Speakers G. M. Tamás, Institute of Philosophy, Hungarian 

Academy of Sciences

Jessica Mathews, Council on Foreign Relations

Lee Hongkoo, Deputy Prime Minister and 

Minister for Unification, Republic of Korea

NOVEMBER 30, LUNCHEON

Challenges to the U.S. Military 

in Post–Cold War Peacekeeping 

and Humanitarian Interventions

Speaker Les Aspin, Former Secretary of Defense 

and Congressman

NOVEMBER 30, AFTERNOON

New Institutions of 

Conflict Resolution

Session 3

NGOs: The New Conflict Managers? An examination of the changing roles of 

nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) across 

the broad spectrum of conflict-related activity. 

The evolving relationships among NGOs, governments, and international organizations in 

managing international conflict will also be 

addressed.

Moderator Allen Weinstein, Board of Directors, 

United States Institute of Peace, and 

Center for Democracy

Speakers Phyllis E. Oakley, Assistant Secretary of 

State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, 

and Migration

Jan Eliasson, Permanent Undersecretary 

of State for Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of 

Sweden

Julia Taft, InterAction

Vesna Pesic, Visiting Fellow, United States 

Institute of Peace, and Center for Anti-War 

Action, Belgrade 

Session 4

NGO Burdens and Needs This session will ask leaders from various 

as Conflict Managers parts of the NGO community to assess the 

increasing burdens upon—and opportunities 

for—NGOs in managing international conflict 

directly. The speakers will discuss the extent to 

which—and how and why—NGOs with other 
18

mandates and expectations have been called 

upon to be direct conflict managers. Finally, 

speakers will survey their evolving needs as 

international actors, both under their traditional 

mandates and new ones.

Moderator W. Scott Thompson, Board of Directors, 

United States Institute of Peace, and Fletcher 

School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Speakers John Paul Lederach, Eastern Mennonite 

College

Lionel Rosenblatt, Refugees International

Andrew Natsios, World Vision

Vivian Lowery Derryck, African-American 

Institute

DECEMBER 1, MORNING

Session 5

Key Challenges in International Part 1: Case Study Sessions

Conflict Management (three simultaneous panels)

Panel A

Averting Chaos: Preventive Drawing from preventive diplomacy efforts in East 

Diplomacy in Eurasia and Africa Europe, Asia, and Africa, this panel will explore the 

roles that the UN, the U.S. government, regional 

organizations such as the OSCE and OAU, and 

nongovernmental organizations are playing and 

can play in early warning and preventive action in 

potential crisis spots.

Moderator Michael Lund, Senior Scholar, United States 

Institute of Peace

Speakers John Marks, Search for Common Ground

John J. Maresca, former U.S. Ambassador 

to OSCE

Linda Perkin, Deputy Director for East Asia 

and Pacific Affairs, United Nations

Harold Fleming, Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

State for International Organization Affairs

Panel B

NGO Conflict Resolution, Relief, This breakout will examine NGO conflict 

and Rebuilding Activity in resolution, relief, and rebuilding activity in former 

Former Yugoslavia Yugoslavia, with a focus on Bosnia, Croatia, and 

Serbia. Special attention will be given to the 

question of NGO, government, and international 

organization support for the Muslim-Croat agreement in Bosnia. Indigenous NGO activity will be 

discussed along with the activities of those from 

abroad.
19

Moderator Patricia Carley, Program Officer, United 

States Institute of Peace

Speakers Hugh Hamilton, Deputy Coordinator, East 

European Assistance, U.S. Department of State

Max Primorac, Croatian Democracy Project

Nadia Diuk, National Endowment for Democracy

Robert DeVecchi, International Rescue 

Committee

Vesna Pesic, Visiting Fellow, United States 

Institute of Peace, and Center for Anti-War Action, 

Belgrade

Panel C

Bringing Peace to Sudan: The Roles This panel will examine the full range of activity—

of NGOs, Governments, and Regional including the roles of NGOs, governments, and 

Organizations regional organizations—that has been involved in 

efforts to bring peace to Sudan. The panel will also 

assess the prospects for coordinated activity in the 

future, including the relationships between 

internal actors and international actors. Among 

activities to be surveyed will be advocacy, 

mediation, Track II diplomacy, relief work, conflict 

resolution training, and support for mediation. 

Moderator David Smock, Director of the Grant Program, 

United States Institute of Peace

Speakers Francis Deng, Brookings Institution

John Prendergast, Center of Concern

Session 5

The Future of Intervention Part 2: Plenary Session

in Violent Internal Conflicts This session focuses on the recent experience of 

NGOs, governments, and international 

organizations in intervening in violent internal 

conflicts. Focusing on what has actually been 

done in humanitarian, political, and military 

efforts, the speakers will address the future 

prospects of such interventions.

Moderator Denis McLean, Distinguished Fellow, United 

States Institute of Peace

Speakers James Schear, Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace

J. Brian Atwood, Administrator, U.S. Agency for 

International Development (remarks presented by 

Nan Borton, Director, Office of Foreign Disaster 

Assistance, USAID)

Joseph Kennedy, Africare

John J. Maresca, former U.S. Ambassador 

to OSCE
20

DECEMBER 1, LUNCHEON

An Interactive Forum on the

Global Information Revolution

Speaker Ted Koppel, Anchor and Managing Editor, 

ABC News

DECEMBER 1, AFTERNOON

The New Diplomacy and New

Tools for Conflict Management

Session 6

“The New Diplomacy” Presupposing the need for innovation and 

creativity in diplomacy, this session will examine 

the potential efficacy of new techniques and means 

while evaluating the continuing applicability of 

more traditional tools. The speakers will assess 

whether an international consensus is building, or 

can be built, regarding the future of national and 

multinational intervention in regional conflicts. 

They will also examine the possible utilization of 

the experience and techniques of the NGO and 

business communities by governments and 

international organizations.

Moderator Chester Crocker, Chairman, Board of Directors, 

United States Institute of Peace, and School of 

Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Speakers Chester Crocker

Robert Zoellick, Executive Vice President, 

Fannie Mae

Mohamed Sahnoun, International 

Development Research Centre, Ottawa

Thomas R. Getman, World Vision

Session 7

Conflict Management Tools (three simultaneous panels)

Panel A

International Conflict Resolution This panel will focus on the contribution 

Skills Training (ICREST) negotiation training and conflict resolution skills 

training can make to better prepare international 

affairs professionals (from the diplomatic, military, 

or NGO sectors) to undertake complicated new 

assignments.

Moderator Lawrence P. Taylor, Director, National Foreign 

Training Center, U.S. Department of State

Speakers Hrach Gregorian, Director of Education 

and Training, United States Institute of Peace

Steve Pieczenik, Consultant, United States 

Institute of Peace
21

John Paul Lederach, Eastern Mennonite College

Lewis Rasmussen, Program Officer, United 

States Institute of Peace

Panel B

Cross-Cultural Negotiation This panel explores the impact that culture has 

upon international negotiation and how awareness 

and skills training in national negotiating styles can 

make negotiators more effective.

Moderator Richard H. Solomon, President, United States 

Institute of Peace

Speakers John Graham, University of California, Irvine

Jean Freymond, Centre for Applied Studies in 

International Negotiations, Geneva

Chas. W. Freeman, Jr., Distinguished Fellow, 

United States Institute of Peace

Jerrold Schecter, Peace Fellow, United States 

Institute of Peace

Panel C

Information and Data Management This panel will explore the current and potential 

use of various software programs, informationand data-management systems, and the information highway during negotiations as aids to 

general policy analysis and as tools for early 

warning and preventive action.

Moderator William Wood, Geographer, U.S. Department 

of State

Speakers Lance Antrim, International Negotiating Systems

Chad McDaniel, Center for International 

Development and Conflict Management, 

University of Maryland

John Davies, Center for International 

Development and Conflict Management, 

University of Maryland

DECEMBER 1, DINNER

Perspectives on Diplomacy

in the Twenty–First Century

Speaker Henry Kissinger, Former Secretary of State
ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan federal institution created by

Congress to promote research, education, and training on the peaceful resolution of international conflicts.

Established in 1984, the Institute meets its congressional mandate through an array of programs, including

research grants, fellowships, professional training programs, conferences and workshops, library services,

publications, and other educational activities. The Institute’s Board of Directors is appointed by the

President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.

Chairman of the Board: Chester A. Crocker

Vice Chairman: Max M. Kampelman

President: Richard H. Solomon

Executive Vice President: Harriet Hentges

Board of Directors

Chester A. Crocker (Chairman), Distinguished Research Professor of Diplomacy, School of Foreign Service,

Georgetown University

Max M. Kampelman, Esq. (Vice Chairman), Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson, Washington, D.C.

Dennis L. Bark, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University 

Theodore M. Hesburgh, President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame

Christopher H. Phillips, former U.S. ambassador to Brunei

Elspeth Davies Rostow, Stiles Professor of American Studies Emerita, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public

Affairs, University of Texas

Mary Louise Smith, civic activist; former chairman, Republican National Committee

W. Scott Thompson, Professor of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts

University

Allen Weinstein, President, Center for Democracy, Washington, D.C.

Harriet Zimmerman, Vice President, American-Israel Public Affairs Committee

Members ex officio

Ralph Earle II, Deputy Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Toby Trister Gati, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research

Ervin J. Rokke, Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force; President, National Defense University

Walter B. Slocombe, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Richard H. Solomon, President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)

22
Also available from the Managing Chaos conference:

Keynote Addresses by Les Aspin and Ted Koppel (Peaceworks No. 3)

Peaceworks No. 4. First published August 1995.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors or conference participants alone. 

They do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace.

United States Institute of Peace

1550 M Street NW, Suite 700

Washington, DC 20005-1708

Phone: 202-457-1700

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Internet: gopher.usip.igc.org 7001
UNITED STATES

INSTITUTE OF PEACE

1550 M Street NW

Washington, DC 20005 Peaceworks No. 4