Understanding conflicts: Causes, escalation and actors

Wars and crises are constantly in the news – and often the main feeling they leave us with is helplessness. This module offers a tool to help: a framework for analysis that you can use to make sense of any conflict between states. It consists of three questions:

1. Causes: What is the conflict really about?
2. Actors: Who is involved – and who could mediate?
3. Stage of escalation: How far has the conflict progressed?

Two points to clarify first. Firstly, conflicts themselves are normal. From “What is politics?”, you know that this is exactly what politics is for – bringing different interests into the open and negotiating binding agreements. Conflicting interests are also part of everyday relations between states: over trade rules, fishing grounds or borders. A conflict only becomes dangerous when one side tries to resolve it through violence.

Secondly, analysing does not mean approving. Examining the causes of a war means looking for explanations – not excuses. The framework helps you keep track of the flood of reports: it turns ‘there is another war somewhere’ into a series of questions you can answer. This is what distinguishes political education from simply following events with anxiety – and it is the starting point for the question in “Debattenvorbereitung: Frieden sichern – aber wie?”: what can secure peace?

The same basic patterns keep appearing behind conflicts between states – you should know these four:

• Territory: Two states claim the same area. For example, India and Pakistan have disputed the Kaschmir region since 1947 – both claim it, and war has broken out several times.
• Resources: The conflict concerns water, oil, gas, fishing grounds or valuable raw materials. For example, Egypt and Ethiopia dispute the use of water from the Nil – a huge dam upstream changes how much water reaches areas downstream.
• Ideology or religion: Different world views clash. For example, during the Cold War (roughly 1947–1991), two opposing camps had incompatible models of society – a market economy and Western democracy on one side, communist one-party systems on the other.
• Power and influence: A state wants to maintain or extend its dominance – for example, by keeping neighbouring countries within its sphere of influence: they are expected to align themselves economically and militarily with that state, rather than with others.

The most important point about this list is that these causes rarely occur on their own. Most conflicts have several roots at once – they concern territory and the raw materials beneath it and power. If you see only one cause, you will usually miss what the conflict is really about. So ask yourself about every conflict: which of these four patterns can I identify – and which matters most?

Conflicts rarely jump from nothing to war – they escalate, usually stage by stage. The ladder model in the diagram helps you identify how far a conflict has progressed:

1. Tension: Interests openly clash. Governments accuse one another of misconduct in speeches and interviews, and the tone becomes harsh – but diplomatic channels remain open: ambassadors are working and negotiations continue, if necessary through courts or with mediators.
2. Crisis: The situation intensifies. Threats are made, troops gather at borders, talks are broken off and ambassadors are withdrawn; isolated incidents add fuel to the situation. There is no sustained fighting yet – but a spark may be enough.
3. Armed conflict: Fighting takes place repeatedly – limited to a particular area, such as a border region, or limited in time, with pauses in the fighting.
4. War: Widespread, sustained fighting between armed forces – an exceptional situation that affects entire countries.

Three points about using the model correctly: firstly, the boundaries are fluid – reality does not fit neatly into separate stages, and experts may disagree about where a particular conflict stands. Secondly, progression is never automatic: most tensions never become crises, and most crises never become wars. Thirdly, there is the green arrow: de-escalation is possible at every stage – through mediation, talks or the withdrawal of troops. But the higher the stage, the harder it is to reverse the process: once shots have been fired, mistrust runs deep.

The second question in the framework is: who is involved? You will repeatedly encounter four types of actor:

• States: The main actors. Their governments decide whether to negotiate, threaten, withdraw – or, in the worst case, go to war.
• Alliances: States join together to become stronger collectively. The most important example is NATO, the defence alliance of over 30 states in Europe and North America, founded in 1949. At its core is a pledge of mutual assistance: an attack on one member is considered an attack on all – the aim is to make an attack unattractive from the outset (deterrence).
• The UN Security Council: From “The UN and human rights”, you know it as the only body that can make binding decisions – from sanctions to peace missions. You also know its inherent weakness: if a veto power is itself involved or protects a party to the conflict, the Council is blocked.
• The OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe): 57 participating states, from North America across Europe – including Liechtenstein – to Central Asia. It has no troops; its tools are mediation and monitoring: it brings parties to a conflict to the negotiating table and sends observers to document events on the ground impartially – the ‘eyes and ears’ of the international community.

Remember the broad division of roles like this: states are the parties to conflicts, alliances aim to deter attacks, the Security Council could take binding action (if no veto blocks it), and the OSCE helps with dialogue and observation. With these actors in mind, you can now apply the whole framework.

Now for a serious test of your framework for analysis – the war in Europe that you know from the news. We will analyse it objectively and using documented facts; no framework can capture the suffering this war brings to people, and we will deliberately avoid describing it in detail here.

What happened? In 2014, Russia occupied and annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Krim; an armed conflict began in eastern Ukraine, where forces supported by Russia fought the Ukrainian army. On 24 February 2022, Russia then launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine with its armed forces. This attack violates the UN Charter's prohibition on the use of force – the foundation of international law, which prohibits wars of aggression. This is not a matter of opinion but a documented fact: in March 2022, the UN General Assembly condemned the attack as a violation of international law by a large majority – 141 out of 193 states – and demanded a withdrawal.

Causes? Several patterns interact – just as described in the module: power and influence (the Russian leadership wants to keep Ukraine within its sphere of influence, while Ukraine turns towards the EU and Western partners), territory (Krim since 2014; in 2022, Russia declared further Ukrainian territories to be part of its own territory – not recognised under international law), and ideology (in speeches and writings, the Russian leadership repeatedly questioned whether Ukraine was a nation in its own right).

Actors? Russia as the aggressor, and Ukraine, defending itself. The UN Security Council is blocked – Russia is a veto power and already blocked a resolution in February 2022: the mechanism from “The UN and human rights” in a real crisis. The General Assembly could condemn, but could not compel action – its resolutions are recommendations. NATO is not a party to the war, as Ukraine is not a member; however, many NATO states support Ukraine with weapons, money and training. The OSCE had a monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine from 2014 – it had to end in 2022 because Russia did not agree to its extension.

Stage of escalation? The course of events follows the ladder: years of tension over Ukraine's alignment – crisis in 2013/14, with protests, a change of government in Kiew and Russia's response – armed conflict from 2014 to 2021 in Krim and eastern Ukraine – war since 24 February 2022.

This module deliberately says nothing about how the war will develop or end: that would be speculation, and maps of front lines become outdated faster than a learning module can be updated. What remains useful is the framework: causes, actors and the logic of escalation – you can use these to make sense of the next news report too. And in “Debattenvorbereitung: Frieden sichern – aber wie?”, you will ask the next question: what tools does the world have to secure peace?