Fragmented Conflict: Handling the Current World Disorder
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Author | I. William Zartman |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12679 |
Fragmented Conflict: Handling the Current
World Disorder
I. William Zartman
School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
The current context of increasing entropy in international politics characterizes actions and relations on many levels: interna-
tionally among leading regional states, and domestically, within states. Following a few decades of progress in conflict man-
agement after the bipolar system. Major regions of the world have seen dedicated attempts to bring conflicts under control
in the current decade failing for lack of ripeness, tradeoffs, reframing, mediation and support. New structures of world order
embodying high values such as the UN/World Bank sustainable peace are good to keep in mind but in the meanwhile there
is a need for smaller, immediately feasible measures, procedural and structural, to build and channel interim responses until
the disorder of the system can be overcome. Examples are offered here, focusing on regional conflict, coalition of the willing
responses, but also on building state capacity and legitimacy.
Principles
The 21st century, and particularly its second decade, has
been on a slide to international, and on some occasions
domestic, entropy. A System of World Disorder has
emerged, as blocs have disappeared, alliances have become
fluid and institutions fragile, countries large and middle-
sized have become single-shooters. Norms have been tram-
pled, the UN has been hamstrung, and ‘low level’conflicts
have pursed their own intractable disorder, attracting con-
flict supporters oblivious of attempts to establish order in
the neighborhood. Internal conflict brings state collapse,
and vice versa, circularly. There are plenty of well function-
ing states, an increasing number of them democratic or
democratizing, although frequently with popularistic results,
and the world economic system and its national pieces are
growing apace, even if unequally internally. But the overall
characteristics of disorder still remain, in contrast. The shape
and functioning of the system and its pieces is markedly dif-
ferent from the bipolar structure of the Cold War or the
unipolar structure of its immediate aftermath, so that not
only is deadly conflict rife but the structure and practice for
handling it is also in disarray. Fires are breaking out and the
fire department is playing cards and doing rifle practice.
It is the challenges of current World Disorder analysis to
make sense of these characteristic uncertainties and disabili-
ties. In a world that has gone beyond polarities, bi, uni, or
multi, and that has lost its norms and ideologies to guide and
contain it, new characteristics are present at all levels—inter-
national, regional and local. No doubt, the current disorder is
a system in transition, as are all systems, and a new order of
greater normative and institutional coherence will emerge at
some point. But the challenge lies in the ‘meanwhile’, not just
to bring about that new order but to handle conflicts,
negotiations and relations under current conditions. That is
the situation that this work addresses. The present Introduc-
tion will discuss the characteristics of the World Disorder Sys-
tem, examine attempts at negotiation and conflict
management by region and analyze reasons for failure, and
make initial suggestions. Other approaches and fuller devel-
opment will be given in the articles in the rest of this volume.
Levels of disorder
Entropy is gaining differently on different but related levels
—in international and regional relations, and in states. The
international level is currently structured to pursue conflict
rather than resolve it, making management a wary distrac-
tion for upper level states which are normally the agents of
conflict reduction. These pursue their conflicting engage-
ments while taking care that they do not escalate out of
hand. The regional level of states mirrors the same charac-
teristics, with positional advantage dominating regional
order. Each level has its specific characteristics.
A multilevel state system with non-ideological power plays
is the result of the power and ideological vacuum created
by the breakdown of the Cold War bipolar system and
the retreat of the last remaining superpower from its pre-
ponderance, accompanied at the same time by the feisty
rise of the two former and future superpowers in the P5,
Russia and China. There are no blocs, unlike the Cold
War, and no hegemonies, unlike the post-Cold War.
Abrupt status drops are always a risky process, giving rise
to rambunctious efforts to return to prominence; the rapid
growth of a superpower in gestation also creates a situa-
tion of tension (Doran, 2008; Hampson and Troitskiy,
2017). The best strategy of the ‘last superpower’(for the
moment) under these conditions is a legitimate matter of
©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2019) 10:Suppl.2 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12679
Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue Supplement 2 . June 2019
6
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