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http://jcr.sagepub.com/content/16/2/183Theonline version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/002200277201600204
1972 16: 183Journal of Conflict ResolutionEdward E. Azar
Conflict escalation and conflict reduction in an international crisis: Suez, 1956
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Conflict escalation and conflict reductionin an international crisis: Suez, 1956
EDWARD E.AZAR1
Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Introduction
Conflict research has already advanced
some very useful conceptual and empiricaldiscoveries concerning the structure and
process of international conflict escalation.
Some of the more basic findings suggestthat when two parties involve themselves
in a conflict situation, they tend to escalatethe intensity, scope, and frequency of their
negative signals; they tend to make more
visible or even possibly compound theirareas of incompatibility; they tend to raise
the intensity of their mutual images; and
they tend to engage in or increase the rate
of a potentially destructive arms race
(Boulding, 1%1; North, 1963; Richardson,
1960; Singer, 1962; Smoker, 1966; Wright,
1965).Conflict reduction on the other hand is
less well understood. However there is
enough empirical and theoretical work on
which further research may be based. For
example we know that motivating an oppo-nent to clarify his signals extremely well
may produce favorable responses, reduce
the chances of further negative signals, and
probably induce conflict reduction (Quester,1970). There is some evidence that the pres-sure of national and international opinionon decision-makers can induce a loweringof hostile activities
(Randle, 1970;Rothstein,
1970). Carrolls (1968) work on how wars
end, Timasheffs (1965) work on the transi-
tion from war to peace and from revolution
to order, Osgoods (1962) work on GRIT,and the variety of gaming research on condi-tions for producing higher proportions of
cooperative responses provide us with use-
ful concepts, ideas, and findings about the
movement from high levels of conflict to
reduction of hostilities. OConnors (1969)study of modern war suggests that conflict
reduction resides in the parties ability to
contain their hostilities through a willful ef-
fort to combat the pathological and other
forces which maintain a hostile situation.
The present study aims to contribute to
the understanding of conflict reduction in
international crises. It focuses on the level
andtype
of interaction manifested
bythe
signals exchanged between conflicting par-ties and the role that these signals play in
generating or deterring future hostilities.
1My thanks go to the Department of Political
Science, the Institute for Research in Social
Science, and the University Research Council atthe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hillfor their supportand to Thomas Goins, David
Pansius, Louise Richey, Thomas Sloan, and Rob-ert Taylor for their assistance. I am indebtedto Joseph Ben-Dak, Barry Blechman, Davis Bo-brow, Nazli Choucri, Paul Conn, Robert North,
and J. David Singer for their criticisms and help-ful comments. I am especially grateful to ClintonFink for his invaluable guidance which helpedme write this paper.
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Some general assumptions and definitionsare introduced, and descriptive hypothesesconcerning escalation and deescalation in in-
ternational crises are presented. These hy-
pothesesare then tested
usingevents data
from the Suez Crisis of 1956. Finally a sug-gested set of correlates and determinants
of conflict reduction are posited and dis-
cussed.
Inter-nation Interaction:Assumptionsand Definitions
International actors tend to express their
policies towards one another in the formof verbal and/or physical signals.An in-ternational signal is an inter-nation event
which has the following characteristics: on
a specific date a specific actor directs an
activity towards a specific target regardingan issue of mutual concern. The date is
the day on which the signal is reported bya reputable and publicly available source;actors and
targetsare
nations, organizations,or movements which have attained interna-
tional or regional significance; activities are
verbal or physical actions, reactions, and
interactions; and issue-areas include the
items about which actors and targets interact
or signal one another (Azar, 1970). Interna-
tional signals are units of overt behavior
which international actors receive, interpret,and act upon. They vary in frequency and
content intensity and are scaled either impli-citly or explicitly by an international actor
in order to better assess his own behavior
as well as that of his target.
The frequency and level of friendliness
or hostility of inter-nation signals are partly
dependent on the frequency and intensityof previously exchanged signals, since some
have the capability of generating others. The
entire sequence of antecedent andconse-
quent signals therefore establishes a patternwhich can be studied longitudinally. This
is not to argue that one inter-nation signal
strictly causes another but rather that cer-
tain signals tend to flow or occur simulta-
neously and that some nonzero level of in-
terdependence exists between international
signals.We do
suggesthowever that the
process of event-generation depends on the
interaction situation itself as well as on the
decisions made by the parties to the conflict
and that a nations decisions are affected
not only by its responses to stimuli providedby the other nation, but also by the signalswhich it or its own subsystems previouslygenerated.Over a period of time any two nations
establish between them an interaction rangewhich they perceive as &dquo;normal.&dquo; This nor-
mal relations range (NRR) is an interaction
range (on a scale from very friendly to very
hostile) which tends to incorporate most of
the signals exchanged between that pair and
is bound by two critical thresholds-an up-
per and a lower threshold. The upper critical
threshold is that level of hostility above
which
signalsexhibited
byeither member
of the interacting dyad are regarded as unac-
ceptable to the other. Interaction above the
present upper critical threshold (or present
upper tolerable limit) for more than a veryshort time implies that a crisis situation has
set in. The lower critical threshold on the
other hand is that level of friendliness
beyond which signals between the members
imply that some integrative shift in their
relations-the inverse of a crisis-has oc-
curred.
Changes in the level of a dyads NRR
may occur (albeit slowly) due to changesin each actors domestic and international
situation, attributes, or behavior.Althoughit would be useful to study the conditions
under which these shifts occur, and the time
it takes to bring them about, for the presentwe
simplifyour
task by assumingthat a
dyads NRR does not change significantly
during a relatively short period of time, such
as six months to one year.
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Conflict escalation is the movement of
a dyad to an interaction space above the
upper critical threshold of its present NRR.
Conflict reduction is the movement of that
dyad toan
interaction space below its imme-diate upper critical threshold. This space
can be within its previous NRR or some-
where below it.Although it is very impor-tant to focus on how a dyad moves towardsor even below its lower critical threshold
(i.e., toward the more friendly or coopera-tive end of the scale), we do not explorethat possibility here. This paper is con-
cerned only with those factors which allow
a pair of nations in a crisis to shift their
interactions back below the upper critical
threshold.
The Literature on Correlates and
Determinants of Escalation andDeescalation
MOTIVATION
Nations like other social organizationstend to define for themselves a preferredstate-of-affairs which includes those situa-
tions they wish to attain as well as ones
they wish to avoid (Miller et aL, 1960).These desired states-of-affairs or prefer-ences are established by a nations examina-tion of its strategic situation vis-a-vis its
international targets and can involve the fol-lowing : (a) an inventory and rank-orderingof preferences; (b) an evaluation of the costs
and chances of achieving or approximatingsuch preferences; (c) an assessment of the
type and level of behavior necessary to
achieve or approximate these preferences;and (d) a modification or reranking of pref-erences (preference modulation). It may be
difficult for an observer to discern these
steps, because decision-makers do not
usually make such a process public and be-
cause these are done incrementally. Also
depending on a nations capabilities and do-
mestic and international difficulties, it is
conceivable that some nations might followan ad hoc approach in defining their strate-
gic preferences.
A conflict situation between a pair of na-tions tends to arise from their pursuance
of directly incompatible preferences, where
the success of one would inflict a cost on
the other (Schelling, 1960). Thus in their
attempt to achieve their preferences nation-
states tend to define the saliency of the
issues and the costs they are willing to incur
in order to achieve them.As their prefer-ence incompatibility increases, it is likelythat these nations will intensify the volume
and threat content of their signals in a man-
ner which they feel will allow them to
achieve or approximate their desired state-
of-affairs (Pruitt, 1965).
Wright (1965) has argued that changes in
the level of hostilities between nations are
influenced by the saliency of the issues over
which conflicts arise, and that rather than
occurring by accident war is generally usedas an instrument of policy.As hostile in-
teractions escalate, parties tend to place
higher values on certain issues and tend
to marshall their domestic and international
resources for the purpose of achieving the
goals or preferences they associate with
their salient issues. He found that conflict-
ing nations tend to begin their hostile in-
teractions by applying pressure short of mili-tary force to resolve their perceived incon-
sistencies. If however they fail to achieve
their goals, they tend to intervene militarilyor go to war to dictate a solution.
It is true however that if two nations
find that their costs have been too highwhen compared with their gains or that thereis no possible means of achieving their ob-
jectives, they are likely to (a) lower their
aspiration level and/or (b) reorder their
preferences. These choices are made not
on the basis of a nations own situation
but on the basis of the information it has
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about its targets preference schedule, costs,and past and anticipated behavior. Thus if
interacting nations perceive that their prefer-ences or priorities have been achieved, it
is probable that they will formulatenew
preferences and raise their level of expecta-tions (see Timasheff, 1965, pp. 91-98).
FREQUENCYAND INTENSITY OF
INTER-NATION HOSTILE SIGNALS
Symmetrical and asymmetrical signalling
during conflict escalation and reduction. In
a conflict situation interactions between a
pair of nations tend to contain or implysome level of violence or hostility.Althoughsome inter-nation signals may express a de-
gree of cooperation, when two nations are
locked into an escalatory spiral they tend
to exhibit &dquo;selective perception,&dquo; thus be-
coming more sensitive to the relativelyhostile signals of their opponent than to the
relatively cooperative ones.And the greater
the sensitivity of a nation to threateningsignals in some area, the more likely it is
that that nation will perceive a signal in
that area and will assess the signal as hostile.This may account for the inconsistencyof a nation that perceives two equally hostile
signals directed from two sources as signifi-
cantly different in their hostility content.
It is probable however that this would not
hold true at the extremes of a continuum
of hostile behavior.A very cooperative ac-
tion would most likely be viewed correctlyin most instances, and similarly a highlyhostile action would probably be viewed as
highly hostile.Although ambiguous signals
may be exchanged between two conflictingnations, such ambiguity tends to disappearwhen two nations begin to interact outside
the critical thresholds of their normal rela-
tions range (NRR).In his conflict studies North (1967) has
shown that when inter-nation hostilities
reach crisis proportions (i.e., high levels ofviolent behavior), a tit-for-tat phenomenondevelops-thus producing an increase in the
frequency and relative distribution of in-
teractions. These studies show that as actorsincrease the exchange of hostile verbal mes-
sages towards one another, they are likelyto exchange more hostile physical messagesas well. Thus in terms of our model as
nations begin to increase the rate of their
verbal hostile signals, they are likely to
move towards the upper critical threshold
of their NRR. This escalatory process
depends upon a nations own strategic pref-erences and cost tolerance as well as its
assessment of its opponents signals towards
that nation (Milburn, 1971; OConnor, 1969;
Timasheff, 1965).
Wright has described these inter-nation
escalatory moves and countermoves as
&dquo;mechanical&dquo; conflict behavior or a tit-for-
tat pattern. Thus as a nation becomes threat-
ened due to a sharp increase in the hostile
signals received from its opponent, then thatnation is likely to respond with similar acts.
In other words nations that enter into a
conflict situation are likely to escalate their
hostile interactions symmetrically, and this
symmetry manifests itself in terms of the
frequency and level of hostility.Does this symmetry in hostile interactions
manifest itself during conflict reduction as
well as it does during conflict escalation?
There is limited evidence to suggest that
inter-nation interactions during conflict re-
duction do not follow the tit-for-tat pattern
(Azar, 1970, 1971a). On the other hand we
feel that more knowledge about this phe-nomenon is necessary. For example doesthe asymmetrical pattern of signalling duringconflict reduction hold for nations with a
relatively hostile NRR as well as for those
with a relatively friendly NRR? ff yes, why?How do we explain this phenomenon in
order to understand how conflict may be
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reduced?Although we will not be able to
answer these questions with the 1956 Suez
data alone, we hope to explore some explan-
atory hypotheses towards the end of this
paper for the purpose of definingsome
worthwhile areas of investigation for stu-
dents of conflict reduction.
The first descriptive hypothesis which
emerges from the above discussion is that
when two or more nations perceive them-
selves as parties to a conflict situation and
when these parties begin exchanging hostile
signals such that both nations begin to move
toward or beyond the upper critical thresh-
old oftheir NRR, these nations will exhibit
a symmetrical signalling pattern during the
escalatory phase of the conflict and a slight-ly asymmetrical pattern during the deescala-
tory phase.The temporal distance between hostile sig-
nals in a conflict situation. McClelland
(1961) has shown that as international actors
escalate their hostile interactions to the
point of crisis where they begin to exchangeviolent verbal and physical threats, the
simple volume of their interactions increases
substantially in comparison to their precrisisrelations. From his study of East-West in-
teractions Corson (1969) has found that
since 1945 periods of high tension and threat
tended to be characterized by an increase
in the volume of conflict events.
Conversely Milburn (1971) has found asignificant positive correlation between a na-
tions ability to seek a crisis settlement and
that nations capacity to delay hostile
response to its target nation. Both McClel-
land and Corson have argued that noncrisis
periods tended to be characterized by a re-
duction in the simple volume of interactions
as compared to the crisis periods.These studies suggest therefore that dur-
ing escalation and deescalation there is a
high degree of association between volume
and intensity of hostile signals. They imply
that as the level of signalled hostility in-
creases, the time interval between signalsdecreases (i.e., their frequency per unit oftime increases), and that as the level of
signalled hostility decreases, the time inter-val between signals increases. Thus as the
conflict escalation spiral begins to develop,the length of time (temporal distance) inter-
vening between hostile signals drops signifi-cantly, and as conflict reduction sets in,the temporal distance between hostile sig-nals rises sharply.
In terms of our model, we posit another
descriptive hypothesis, namely as nations
begin to move up towards (or above) the
upper critical threshold of their NRR, the
temporal distance between hostile signals de-
creases. Conversely as nations begin tomove their interactions back towards (or
below) the upper critical threshold of their
NRR, the temporal distance between hostile
signals increases.
Shifts from escalation to reduction of sig-
nalled hostility between nation-states. Al-though conflicting nations can maintainhostile signalling for long periods (as in
lengthy wars), we have enough evidencethat there are forces which more frequentlymotivate them to move their interactions
below the upper critical threshold of their
NRR or even to begin to cooperate after
having experienced a brief period of intense
hostility. Some of these forces or conditionsare (a) frustration or attainment of preferredsituations or responses; (b) sharp increasesin actual or perceived costs; or (c) signifi-cant changes in the domestic or international
conditions (Carroll, 1969; Hermann, 1971;
Milburn, 1971; OConnor, 1969; and Tima-
sheff, 1965). These do not exhaust all the
possibilities and they may differ from one
conflict situation to another.Although wewill not formally test these explanatory hy-
potheses, we will explore them in order to
get behind the signal-exchange data that we
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use to test the first two descriptive hypothe-ses.
Method
For the purpose of testing the above
hypotheses we used 835 signals exchangedbetween Egypt and its opponents (Britain,France, Israel) from July 26, 1956 (the dayNasser nationalized the Suez Canal Com-
pany), through January 11, 1957 (about the
time when all occupying forces had either
withdrawn or were about to withdraw from
Egyptian territory). These signal events were
gathered from eleven publicly available and
reputable sources which comprise part ofthe set of sources we employ at the Conflictand Peace Data Bank (COPDAB) at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(seeAzar, 1971b).
THE HOSTILITY-FRIENDLINESSSCALE
At COPDAB we assume that events are
measurable in terms of some scale and thatevery event contains some degree of &dquo;vio-
lence,&dquo; &dquo;friendship,&dquo; &dquo;hostility,&dquo; etc. rang-ing from very low to very high. The intensityof the violence contained in each of COP-
DABs 100,000 events has been established
by using a 13-point scale which ranges from
very friendly (point 1 on the scale) to veryhostile (point 13).
In Table 1 we reproduce the thirteen
marker-points of our scale, which was de-
vised by conducting a battery of rankingtests and through the use of the paired
comparison technique as described by Tor-
gerson (1958). The reliability and validityof both the coding and scaling procedureswere evaluated and estimated through aseries of several experimental investigationsdescribed inAzar (1970).
ESTABLISHINGTHE NORMAL RELATIONS
RANGE
There are a number of ways to estimate
the NRR of a pair of nations. The problemstems from the lack of universally acceptablecriteria as to what nations will and will not
tolerate or expect from one another. In-
ternational allies for example and nations
with a common cultural base tend to interact
cooperatively and therefore establish for
themselves an NRR towards the more coop-erative side of the scale. On the other hand
nations which have had incompatible prefer-ences and a history of hostile relations tend
to establish an NRR towards the more hostile
end of the scale. Thus signals which would
do very little to damage the relations between
TABLE 1
13 POINT SCALE OF MANIFEST INTER-NATION HOSTILITY-FRIENDLINESS*
*Region II comprises points 7 to 13 and describes the high violence or more hostile region of the scale. RegionI comprises points I to 6 of the scale and describes the low violence or more friendly region.
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nations with a normally hostile NRR would
probably precipitate a crisis for the normally
cooperative nation-states.
We maintain that there are three ways
for estimating the threshold of an NRR for
any pair of nations:
(1) Empirically-by content analyzingstatements of key decision-makers as they
express acceptable or tolerable limits within
which their target nations can behave
towards them without a need for a reassess-
ment of the existing relations between them;
(2) Historically--by inventorying points
preceding the present inter-nation crisis to
determine the kind of event-mix which moti-vates each member of the dyad to engagein more conflictual or more friendly acts;and .
(3) StattsttcaHy―by establishing reason-
able normal distribution curves and continu-
ous updating procedures.In this paper we opted for the statistical
approach and used different time parametersfor
computingthe NRR than were used to
test the hypotheses. We computed the rela-
tive distribution of international signals for
each of the scale values for the months
May-September 1956, and on the basis of
these distributions we established the NRR
for each dyad by employing an arbitrarycriterion-the scale values which comprisethe middle 85 percent of all the signals
exchanged between any pair of nations plustwo scale points, one on each side of this
range.A total of 320 events entered into
these NRR computations, including 240 of
the 835 events used for hypothesis testing.We used data from these five months for
the following reasons:
(1) From February-April 1956, Egypt and
Israel were engaged in a very hostile interac-
tion situation over the fedayeen and other
outstanding problems, but they had movedback to their pre-February &dquo;normal&dquo; level
beginning in May of that year. Thus in order
not to bias the level of their NRR, we decided
to begin in May and continue through Sep-tember or one month before large scale
military activity had set in over Suez. We
felt that the period from May through Sep-tember 1956 tended to portray more ac-
curately that dyads normal pattern of in-teractions.
(2) During these five months British-
Egyptian relations included a variety ofevents ranging from British promises to giveEgypt aid to build theAswan Dam to the
levelling of charges and countercharges overthe nationalization of the Suez Canal Com-
pany. French-Egyptian relations vacillated
between holding meetings to normalize rela-tions and discuss outstanding issues to the
levelling of charges and countercharges over
Egyptian support to theAlgerian Liberation
Movement.
(3) By computing the relative distribution
of events at various levels of hostility duringnoncrisis periods, one can (a) reduce the
chances of contaminating the NRR com-
putation with data from the crisis period,and (b) allow it to detect a crisis by theshifts of the distribution towards a higher
percentage of events at the higher levels
of hostility.
TESTING THE HYPOTHESES
The 835 events for the period July 26,
1956, to January 11, 1957, were coded,
scaled, and grouped into subsets such as
&dquo;Egypts signals towards Israel,&dquo; &dquo;Israels
signals toward Egypt,&dquo; etc. In order to test
the first hypothesis, concerning the sym-
metry and asymmetry of signalled hostilities,we decided to separate inter-nation hostile
signals from nonhostile signals by using the
scale value of each signal. Signals with
values 7 to 13 were labeled &dquo;hostile&dquo; and
grouped in 10-day intervals.We
thencom-
puted a percentage score for each interval
for each dyad based on that dyads total
number of signals exchanged during the
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entire 170-day period. Furthermore we de-
cided to graph these results, visually inspectthese time-series graphs, and address our-
selves to the data. We felt that to compute
correlations between hostile signals ofA
towards B and hostile signals of B towardsA would be a correct statistical procedurebut somewhat unsatisfactory for these events
data. We were very sure that a high degreeof correlation existed because of the nature
of the time-series events data.
We grouped these data into 10-day inter-
vals only as a matter of convenience. We
wanted a reasonable spread of the data over
time so we could detect shifts in the hostilesignalling of our actors, and we found that
10-day intervals produced fewer empty cells
than one-week intervals did and that they
produced a longer spread (n = 17) than
two-week intervals (n = 11). For the pur-
poses of making inferences no interval
widths is necessarily superior to the other.
For testing the second hypothesis con-
cerning the relationship between level of
hostility and temporal distance between
hostile events, we examined the frequenciesof events at each scale value for three
distinct periods: (a) the &dquo;precrisis&dquo; periodfrom July 26, 1956, through October 29-30,1956-the three month period which pre-ceded the actual military intervention of
Israel, Britain, and France; (b) the &dquo;acute
crisis&dquo; period from October 29-30, 1956,
through November 7, 1956-the approxi-mately one-week period of military interven-
tion, ending when the British, French andto a large extent the Israelis accepted the
UN ceasefire resolution; and (c) the periodfrom November 8, 1956, through January11, 1957-the period when conflict reduction
was achieved.
There may be those who would find it
either more convenient or even more appro-
priate to establish a different set of time
parameters for the Suez precrisis or crisis
periods. However the above parameters ap-
pear very useful and satisfactory, given ournotion of the normal relations range.As
the following discussion will show, after
October 29 Israeli-Eqyptian hostile interac-tions had moved above the upper critical
threshold of their NRR ~i.e_, above point10 of the scale) and had maintained them-
selves in that region until the first part ofNovember (roughly November 7 or 8, 1956),British-Egyptian and French-Egyptianhostile relations moved above their upper
critical threshold (above 9) on October 31,
1956, and continued in that region until the
end of the first week of November. While
it is true that some subsequent interactions,such as Egyptian signals towards Britain and
France, moved above the upper critical
threshold, these were only sporadic signalsand did not elicit hostile reactions from either
Britain or France.
Finally for exploring hypotheses concern-
ing the determinants of conflict reduction,we examined the events in relation to other
evidence concerning the preferences, per-ceptions, and changing environments of the
foreign policy decision-makers in these four
countries.
Results
Table 2 presents the distribution of events
exchanged between Egypt and its three
opponents from May through September
1956. As these results indicate, over 90percent of the Egyptian-British and Egyp-tian-French interactions during that periodranged between scale values 6 and 8 and
86 percent of the Egyptian-Israeli interac-
tions ranged between 6 and 9. Therefore
both the British-Egyptian and French-Egyp-tian NRRs were between 5 and 9 on the
13-point scale, and the Israeli-Egyptian NRR
was from 5 to 10. Thus when French and
British interactions with Egypt moved above
9 and when Israeli-Egyptian interactions
moved above 10, these countries had shifted
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TABLE 2
PERCENT HOSTILE SIGNALSAT EACH SCALE VALUE FOR THE PERIOD MAY-SEPfEMBER 1956*
*Percentage figures are rounded off.-
into a crisis situation. On the other hand
when the Egyptian-British and French-
Egyptian interactions moved to below 9 and
when the Israeli-Egyptian interactions
moved below 10, then for that time periodconflict reduction had set in.
The first hypothesis states that hostile
interaction during escalation will exhibit a
symmetrical or tit-for-tat pattern, but that
during deescalation it will exhibit a slightly
asymmetrical pattern. The relevant data are
shown in Table 3, which contains a summaryof the distribution of the hostile scores for
each 10-day interval for each dyad. Thesedata are represented graphically in Figures1-3.
The Suez conflict appears to be a very
good case for the symmetrical exchange of
TABLE 3
HOSTILE SIGNALS OF NATION DYADS PER 10-DAY INTERVALSASA PERCENT OF TOTAL SIGNALSOF DYADS FROM JULY 26, 1956, THROUGH JANUARY 11, 1957*
*Percent of hostile signals = total hostile signals for the dyad per 10-day interval divided by total signals forthe dyad in 170 days multiplied by 100.
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FIG. 1. Hostile signals per 10-day period between Britain and Egypt as a percent of their total
signals from July 26, 1956, through January 11, 1957.
hostile signals hypotheses. Our data show
that from July 26 through November 7, 1956(i.e., the escalation period), Egyptian-Brit-ish, Egyptian-French, and Egyptian-Israelibehavior tended to exhibit a tit-fot-tat pat-tern. The data show that after a series of
verbal threats, accusations, and counterac-
cusations, and at times small border inci-
dents, Israeli-Egyptian interactions moved
above the upper critical threshold of their
NRR on October 29, 1956. This was followed
by British-Egyptian and French-Egyptianinteractions on October 31, 1956. Thus bythe end of October the four nations were
in a crisis situation with plans to increase
the scope and intensity of their hostilesignals. The data show that up to November
7, 1956, all three dyads behaved similarly,
giving hostile responses for hostile stimuli.
After November 8, 1956 (the approximatedate of the parties acceptance of the UN
ceasefire resolution), British-Egyptian sig-nals maintained the same pattern exhibited
during escalation, but the French-Egyptianand Israeli-Egyptian interactions exhibited
a slightly dissimilar stimulus-response pat-tern. For example during the first days of
the conflict Egypt reduced its physical hos-
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FIG. 2. Hostile signals per 10-day period between France and Egypt as a percent of their total
signals from July 26, 1956, through January 11, 1957.
tile signals towards Israel by withdrawingits forces from Sinai in the face of the
better trained and tougher Israeli armed
forces, but Egypt continued its verbal attack
against Israel and encouraged some unsuc-
cessful fedayeen activities against Israel from
the surroundingArab areas of Jordan, Syriaand Lebanon. Also Egypt continued its
defensive actions against Britain and France,who by the first week of November had
destroyedone
major portion of Egypts smallair force and occupied strategic positionsaround the Suez canal area.After November
7 both Britain and France stopped their
military strikes against Egypt and announced
plans to withdraw their armed forces fromthe Suez area. France was not as recep-
tive to the idea of withdrawal before
very clear conditions regarding navigation
rights and compensations to Canal Companyshareholders were publicly accepted byNasser. Furthermore both Israel and France
had other goals beyond the Suez questionto which they wanted Nasser to agree before
bringing the hostilities toa
full end. Francefor example wanted Nasser to stop both
political and military aid to theAlgerians.Israel wanted Egypt to stop encouraging the
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FIG. 3. Hostile signals per 10-day period between Israel and Egypt as a percent of their total
signals from July 26, 1956, through January 11, 1957.
fedayeen raids against Israel, to allow Israelishipping through Suez andAqaba, and to
stop its anti-Israeli activities in the Middle
East and around the world. Obviously some
of these demands were met for the moment
and others were denied and even com-
pounded. Thus Israeli hostile interactionswith Egypt continued for a few days after
British and French hostilities had stopped.In fact Israeli armed forces were the last
forces to withdraw from Egyptian territory.We observed from the data that the pattern
of hostile signalling was clearly symmetrical
during the escalation period (July 26-November 7), but not during the conflict
reduction period. We found that after Egyp-tian hostile signals towards Israel had
dropped below the upper critical thresholdof their NRR, Israel continued its hostile
actions against Egypt for more than three
weeks. We also found that after France
dropped its hostile actions against Egypt,the latter did not lower its anti-French
hostilities in response to French signals.Instead Egypt continued a fairly high level
of anti-French signalling. In both of these
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cases there was a lag between offers of
conflict reduction and responses to these
offers.
The second hypothesis suggests that when
nations are in a crisis situation,they
will
make many more hostile acts per unit of
time, and conversely when they begin to
reduce the hostile content of their signals,
they tend to increase the time intervals
between hostile signals. In very generalterms this hypothesis says that a relationshipexists between the hostile content of signalsand the density of these signals per unitof time.
The data in Table 4 provide a partial testof this hypothesis. The number of eventsin Period C (crisis) divided by the lengthof that period (one week) is clearly much
higher than the same ratios for Periods P
(precrisis) and R (reduction). The mean level
of hostility is also higher in Period C. A
careful inspection of the data reveals this
hypothesis would have to be qualified for
conflict reduction periods.The data show that as these nations cross
the upper critical threshold of their NRR
and establish a state of acute crisis between
them, they begin to behave somewhat dif-
ferently than the hypothesis suggests. For
example Britain and Egypt seem to have
behaved quite similarly in terms of reducingthe temporal distances between their hostile
events during the intense crisis period and
increasing them during conflict reduction.
France and Egypt however behaved dif-
ferently towards one another.As France
began to reduce the temporal distance be-
tween its signals, Egypt began to increasethe distance except toward the latter partof November 1956. On the other hand, from
mid-September through the end of October1956 as Israeli hostile signals increased and
the temporal distances between them de-creased, Egyptian hostile signals seem to
have been reduced and the temporal dis-
tances between the Egyptian signals in-
creased. During the conflict reduction periodEgyptian-Israeli relations exhibited a verysimilar pattern to that of the period between
July 26, 1956, and September 15, 1956. Inother words hostile charges and counter-
charges were used as a bargaining tacticand a lag of two to five days tended to
characterize the distance between an Israeli
hostile stimulus and Egyptian hostile
response. The following discussion is an
exploration of the reasons for the differen-
tiated behavior of these four nations.
Why did the four participants in the Suez
crisis reduce their hostilities? We have sug-
gested earlier that nations who are involvedin a crisis situation will probably reduce
their hostilities and move to their precrisisNRR if they achieve or frustrate their goals,if they incur heavy costs, or if they feel
pressured by changes in the domestic and
international conditions. The 1956 Suez crisis
appears to be a useful case for exploringthese possibilities.
An investigation ofa
number of relevantsources has yielded the following rank-or-
dering of major Israeli strategic preferences(seeAzar, 1970):
(1) Protection of the territorial integrityand sovereignty of the Israeli nation-state,
specifically protection of Israeli citizens
against fedayeen attacks;
(2) Need to strengthen Israels military
capability and particularly her air force;
(3) Need to end Egyptian economic boy-cott of Israel-specifically Egypts closingof the Gulf ofAqaba to hamper Israeli
shipping;(4)Avoidance of military confrontation
with Israeli neighbors and in particular to
make Egypt renounce her objective of re-
ducing Israel to impotence by force; and
(5) Reduction of Nassers increasing pres-
tige in the region and the world, which wouldtend to reduce the level of threat againstIsrael, whether from Egypt or the otherArabstates.
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Aolix