A Crisis Or Conflict Prevention Center For The Middle East (1995) By Richard E. Darilek
 
A recurrent theme in the multilateral talks on Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS) for the Middle East has been the suggestion by participants in the talks that some form of crisis or conflict prevention center might help to assuage Arab-Israeli conflicts of interest in the region. This study employs the term "crisis prevention center" to identify the basic concept at issue, but the phrase should also be understood to imply other possible formulations of the issue as well—in particular, conflict or war prevention, in addition to crisis prevention, and designated mechanisms or arrangements, instead of a geographically located center.
At bottom, the general problem being addressed by these various formulations is prevention, and the particular question they seek to answer or define, in abbreviated fashion, is "prevention of what?" A less encapsulated, more discursive response to this question than simply the terms "crisis" or "conflict" might go as follows: the escalation of differences and disagreements into potentially violent conflicts of interest, up to and including all-out war—this is what needs to be prevented in the Middle East.
Another, equally valid definition of the question might cast the purpose of any prevention efforts in positive rather than negative terms—by asking, for example, what such efforts should seek to achieve, rather than what they should try to avoid. An alternative way of formulating the same goals would be to speak positively of increasing mutual understanding, building confidence, and promoting peace.
 
Soft Cover
39 pages
In Good Condition