Journal of Conflict Resolution 1972 Azar 183 201

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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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186

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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187

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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188

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.



8/20

189

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&horbar;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



9/20

190

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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191

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.



11/20

192

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


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


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

Documents

Journal of Conflict Resolution 1972 Azar 183 201