When it comes to the CRUNCH

PERSONAL COLUMN GEOFFREY TAYLOR

For a brief spell after Cuba 'crisis manage- ment' enjoyed a certain prestige. Nothing has come of it, and crises are still as unmanaged as ever. Thus the popular notion that foreign affairs are 'just one crisis after another' could _ not be more ironically ill-informed. Would that they were! In fact they are several crises at the same time.

Suez-Hungary is the notorious example, but there have been many since. Khrushchev was toppled on the night of a British general elec- tion. Cyprus came on top of devaluation. Aden and Rhodesia have kept getting in each other's way. As it happens, 1967 was not a particularly bad year: Sierra Leone coup 21 March, Greek coup 21 April, Hong Kong takeover bid mid- May, and Middle East war 5 June, with Biafra not going critical until July. It was then 22 August before the British mission in Peking was destroyed. But this orderliness came about more by accident than design. Several impor- tant crises have not yet taken place: When they come, there is no guarantee that they will not come in groups. This could well be the year of Laos-Zambia-Portugal, or Thailand-British Honduras, or West Bengal-Bahrein-Philippines- Swaziland. These are in addition to the normal run of crises (Cyprus, Congo, sterling, Middle East, Kashmir, and so on) for which allowance must be made.

As the pace of interlocking crises quickens, the strain on statesmanship may become too heavy to bear. A workable system of crisis management has thus become an urgent need. The concept put forward here as a tentative contribution to the literature is known as Crisis Uniformity Control.

The aim is not to abolish crises altogether. Crises have a functional role in international affairs, both in sublimating aggression and in relieving monotony. Often they draw attention to countries which would otherwise be for- gotten. It is an old truth that the quickest way to get foreign aid is to hold a crisis. This makes it all the more important that crises not only take place but should be seen to take place.

Consider a republic south of the Sahara, independent for, say, five years. It has de- nounced British aggression in Gibraltar and walked out of the WHO Assembly, but other- wise it has not cut much of a figure in the world. It decides to have an upheaval, begin- ning on 1 March. By 27 February tanks have taken up stations. Martial music is put on tape. Mark Antony-type resignation speeches are run off. Cars begin to be overturned. Then on 28 February Russia and America launch a much graver crisis. It is too late to stop the sub-Saharan upheaval, but no one pays attention. The radio goes off the air but is not missed. Telegrams are ignored in foreign capitals. The name of the strong man barely registers. At the end of it all, when both crises have run their course, sub-Sahara finds it has spent a great deal of money and emotional energy to no purpose. Not only did the crisis evoke no interest at the time but in restrospect it is not memorable. No wonder rancour be- comes evident towards the developed world.

Crisis Uniformity Control therefore aims not to• eliminate crises but to administer them better. A few examples will show what is.pro- posed. Assume that the East Germans want

to restrict access to Berlin for a while, the French to supply Mirage IVs to Quebec, the Congolese Army to run amok, and the Flemish-speaking' Belgians to burn down some schools. Each would notify Crisis Uniformity Control Headquarters (CRUNCH), which would allocate a date. Since all but one of these crises are recurrent, CRUNCH- would provide for them as a matter of course in drawing up its annual schedule (but see below). Should a country not want to mount its crisis on the due date, CRUNCH would issue a notice to members deem- ing the crisis to have been held.

Three weeks is a fair time for a crisis, in- cluding a few days for it to peter out. This allows only seventeen crises a year. A system of weighting is therefore needed so that the graver crisis may take precedence over• the less grave. With new techniques the specific gravity of a crisis can be measured with some accuracy.

Basically the gravity of a crisis is measured by multiplying the Gross National Product of the country concerned by the number of men under arms and dividing this product by the population. Its assets, in other words, are divided by its liabilities. Let us take the Republic of Tanzania and apply the formula G X F s.g. — where G is the GNP in dollars, F the regular forces and P the population (the statistics are from The Military Balance 1966-67 and other publications of the Institute of Strategic Studies). Then Tanzania s.g. = 2,408,000,000 x 1,800 —10,000.000 = 433,440; which we approximate as 430,000 units of gravity.

At the other end of the scale we take the United States: United States s.g. = 677,500,000,000 x 3,000,000 ± 196,000,000 -= 10,370,000,000; which we approximate as 10,000,000,000 units of gravity.

These are unmanageable figures. Let us there- fore simplify and say that 100,000,000 units of gravity = One thant.

A United States crisis would then have a read- ing of 100 thants. A Tanzanian crisis would rate 0.004 thants or 4 millithants. By applying the formula to several countries we can draw up a league table:

Thants

Thants US 100

UAR

0.3 Russia 40 Pakistan '0.23 France 9 Thailand 0.13

UK

7 S. Africa* 0.11 Italy 4 Syria 0.09 Holland 1.8 Laos 0.08 Japan 1.6 Congo 0.03 Turkey 1.1 Rhodesia* 0.008 Greece 1.0 Tanzania 0.004 Israel 0.9 Zambia 0.004 Norway 0.6 Chad 0.0009 Portugal 0.55 Mauritania 0.0008 India 0.4 Togo 0.0007

* If these figures seem surprisingly low it is probably because in times of crisis the popu- lation is even more of a liability than usual. Even a crisis in one country has international significance (and is referable to CRUNCH) if it threatens a change of government or has elements of violence based on race, language or religion. But most of the crises coming be- fore CRUNCH will fall into one of the following categories:

(1) Confrontation, in which there is a simple clash between states. The gravity of such a crisis is the sum of the thant ratings of the powers taking part in the clash.

(2) Mediation. When a power offers to mediate, one-tenth of its rating is added to the gravity of the crisis. In December Greece (1.0) and Turkey (1.1) with American mediation (10) would superficially have rated 12.1 thants. In actual fact the crisis was devalued because of its frequent occurrence.

(3) Moral Support. When a power gives Moral Support to one side, one-tenth of its rating is, added. In the Arab-Israel war Israel had 10 thants from the us and the Arabs had 4 from. the Soviet Union and 0.9 from France (other contributions have been ignored). Disregard- ing. Arabs other than the (JAR the crisis thus had a high rating of 16.1.

(4) Commitment. When a power offers military support the whole of its rating is added to the The solution to the problem of the sulzf' Saharan country which wants an internal up- heaval is still somewhat rule of thumb. It is to allocate August and September for the use of powers with less than 0,01 thant. These would be known as the millithant months. A more serious problem is that of the crisis which, because of its repetitiousness, becomes, too tedious to follcw. Our system here de- values a crisis each- time it occurs within a period of seven years. This means that if the first confrontation between Italy and Austria over Alto Adige (is it not time, by the way, that we had one?) rates 4.5 thants, subsequent crises would rate 0.45, 0.045, 0.0045 thants and so on. Even with American mediation the recent Greek-Turkish crisis had a reading of only 0.0000121 thants.

CRUNCH itself will have to formulate rules for unpremeditated crises, if any, and natural disasters (Act of God = 1 megathant?) which' are -outside the scope of this article. CRUNCH may also wish to multiply (or divide) by an Ethical Constant any crisis judged to be a Moral Issue.

With these rules in mind, those who are in- terested might like to examine one or two case studies:

(1) India and Pakistan arrange to fight for the Rann of Kutch. The Congo, at the same time, applies to invade, Angola (which for this pur- pose is Portugal) and applies to CRUNCH for leave. Which takes precedence? (Remember that India and Pakistan are reinstating an old crisis.)

(2) Would the overthrow of President Nasser, with Israeli moral support, be preferred to a split in the Italian coalition?

(3) A Berlin crisis is due on 1 October. On 20 September Laos applies for an air raid on Bangkok with Japanese mediation. Discuss.

(4) What is the least country whose air space Syria must violate in order to take precedence over a third race riot at Berkeley? Would Zambian moral support make any difference to the choice of country?

(5) President de Gaulle is to visit Harlem. By, how many thants does Rhodesia fall short of declaring a republic?

Suggestions (on a postcard please) to CRUNCH, c/o The Foreign Office, London SW1.