173640

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Roots of the Modern Interstate Border Dispute Author(s): Robert Mandel Source: The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Sep., 1980), pp. 427-454Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/173640Accessed: 23-10-2015 20:22 UTC

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Roots of the Modern Interstate Border Dispute

ROBERT MANDEL International Affairs Department Lewis and Clark College

Recently there has been a flare-up of several significant international border disputes. This study examines when these disputes are most likely to arise, when they will escalate into war, and when they will spread beyond the original national participants. Specifically, this article hypothesizes that the frequency of border disputes is highest between nations that have (1) roughly equal levels of power and (2) relatively low levels of technology; that the severity of these disputes is highest when there is (3) a low level of technology, (4) contention on ethnic rather than resource issues, and (5) a two-state rather than three-state "mutually-contiguous" set; and that the scope of these disputes is highest between nations that are (6) members of opposing blocs rather than the same bloc. Data on 66 border dispute cases during 1945-1974 confirm these hypotheses.

Our current ability to explain why and when border disputes break out between adjacent nations is severly limited. Many analysts assume that such conflicts are virtually inevitable among proximate states, but then are at a loss to explain why in many such cases disputes have not erupted. We do not seem to know-or rather have meaningful theories about-what kinds of states, tensions, and situations are most conducive to the occurrence or intensification of boundary conflicts.

This article attempts to take one small step in filling the void of theoretical explanation regarding international border disputes. It focuses on when these disputes are. most likely to arise, when they are most likely to escalate into war, and when they will spread beyond the original national participants. In particular, as independent variables it examines the effect of (1) the power disparity between adjacent states; (2) the levels of technology of these states; (3) the type of disagreement involved; (4) the international alignments of these states; and (5) the size

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wish to thank Whitney T. Perkins, Robert Owens, James Swiss, and Sarah Clarke for help on this article.

JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION, Vol. 24 No. 3, September 1980 427-454 ? 1980 Sage Publications, Inc.

427



428 JO URNA L OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

of each set of "mutually contiguous" states. As dependent variables, it explores (1) the "relative frequency" of border disputes a scaled indication of how often they occur; (2) the severity of these disputes- including the level of fatalities and size of military operations involved; and (3) the scope of these disputes-the degree of third-party intervention. Within the considered time period from 1945 to 1974, this study narrowly defines its range of concern in terms of the types of included border disputes and contending nations-in order to isolate as much as possible the special characteristics of this particular type of interstate confrontation.

THE RESURGENCE OF INTERNATIONAL BORDER DISPUTES

Recently there has been a resurgence of significant border disputes between nations. In 1978 alone, violent border wars broke out between Vietnam and Cambodia, between Somalia and Ethiopia, and between Uganda and Tanzania. Other major boundary antagonisms still smolder, such as between the Soviet Union and China, between Chile and its neighbors, and between Iraq and Iran. The most important and prolonged war of the past two decades-the Arab-Israeli conflict- manifested itself to a great extent in terms of disputes over territorial boundaries.

At first glance this upsurge seems surprising because of the decreasing political and economic importance of traditional geopolitical elements' like frontiers and territorial size. Due to technological advances in transportation and communication, territory no longer seems to serve a political-military function as an insulating force against foreign attack: mountains, deserts, bodies of water, and large geographical distances no longer appear to be major deterrents preventing the movement of military equipment and personnel. The advent of nuclear weapons seems to have particularly reduced the impact of these geopolitical considerations. Furthermore, technology has challenged the long- standing assumption that geographical size enhances economic power and development: While size in a very loose sense associates with quantity and diversity of natural resources, nations have appeared

1. For some recent and refreshing general studies in this area, see Sprout (1963), Cox et al. (1974), and Gray (1978). For a geopolitical study of borders, see Prescott (1978).



Mandel / MODERN BORDER DISPUTES 429

unable to extract, process, and use these resources without the requisite technology. Today nations ar far more likely to pursue their economic needs through international trade and foreign direct investment than through territorial acquisition. The recent ascendancy of small nations like Japan in the international system seems to show that territory may be not only insufficient but also unnecessary for strength in the political and economic realms.

But a deeper probe reveals that territory, and in particular border territory, can still play an important functional and symbolic role in international relations. In the political-military sphere, standing firm on border claims can be critical in maintaining or increasing one's influence or reputation-especially the "reputation for resolve" (Snyder and Diesing, 1977: chap. iii)-in the eyes of both people within a nation and leaders of other countries. Though there may be little tangible connection between such intransigence and national defense, the psychological linkage should not be underestimated. In the economic sphere, gaining control over a valuable resource through annexation of territory seems to be especially important in an era of global resource scarcity, where there may not be enough of the resource to go around and where external sources of supply may be increasingly insecure. As inadequate resource stocks and high prices cause a large number of nations to turn to economic goals like energy self-sufficiency, the possession of resource-rich contested border territory becomes increasingly crucial. In the cultural sphere, the rise in the consciousness and outspokenness of subnational ethnic groups has reopened many simmering disagreements over border territory. When geographical boundaries do not correspond to ethnic group boundaries, tensions emerge which revolve directly around-and seem only to be resolved by-border demarcation issues. Finally, in many Third World countries, territory still appears to play the traditional geopolitical roles it did prior to the influx of modern technology. Precisely because these developing nations cannot transcend distance and topography through technology, they tend to rely more on territorial concerns for the pursuit of their national interests. And in cases where a colonial power determined their boundaries prior to independence, there is a particular urgency to the full attainment of border claims.

Viewed in the light of these considerations, the alarming frequency of the modern interstate border dispute becomes more understandable. the zero-sum nature of these conflicts over territory makes negotiation and settlement particularly difficult. Because border disputes are intrin-




sically localized affairs between two nations that have a long history of relations with one another, it is harder than usual for third-party mediators to step in and help to control the conflicts. The isolated, competitive nature of these disputes causes them in a sense to become "lightning rods" for the anarchy in the international system. Though their focal point is perhaps the clearest and most concrete of any international conflict-the simple division of land-border disputes may provide one of the toughest roadblocks to the development of effective policies for world peace.

EXISTING RESEARCH ON BORDERS AND INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT

Very little research exists specifically focusing on international border disputes.2 Most of the international relations research on borders and war emphasizes two main areas: trying to associate the probability of all types of interstate war with (1) geographical distance3 in general and with (2) each nation's number of bordering states in particular. A brief review of the findings in these areas is indirectly relevant to the study of border disputes, although the empirical results in the second area, especially, are mixed.

In the research on geographical distance, most of the findings demonstrate that there is a positive relation between geographical proximity and war.4 This proposition makes great intuitive sense in its general form, due to its support from assumptions that proximity creates a greater opportunity for (1) interaction among states and (2) perceived threat among-states (Boulding, 1962: 79; Starr and Most, 1976: 584-585). The earlier discussion on the critical role of technology, however, indicates that even these most basic assumptions may be quite controversial and need some qualification.

The research on the number of bordering nations reveals much more contradictory conclusions. Richardson (1960) finds that a nation's number of borders is positively associated with its number of interstate wars.

2. One of the few recent studies is Luard (1970). 3. Distance often refers to many different attributes-like economic or psychological

distance-but this study confines its meaning to the geographical sphere. 4. The recent research in this area includes Wesley (1962), Wright (1965: part 3),

Russett (1967: 200-201), and Garnham (1976a).




Midlarsky (1974) confirms this finding and defends it by asserting that more borders create more uncertainty by reducing each nation's control over its environment. But on the other side of the coin, Pearson (1974: 454-455) discovers that most military interventions take place in nations with a moderate number of neighbors (2 to 6 states) rather than in nations with the largest number of neighbors (7 to 15 states). And Starr and Most (1978, 1976: 610) note that, while more "colonial" borders lead to more war, more "homeland" borders in fact lead to less war, primarily because being surrounded by large numbers of weak neighbors actually decreases the homeland states' perceptions of threat and uncertainty.

While this research on distance and the number of borders has produced some useful and subtle insights, it clearly contributes only marginally to an understanding of the roots of interstate border disputes. Uncertainty and opportunities for interaction and perceived threat may be important background conditions to consider with regard to boundary conflicts, but they are present to a greater or lesser extent between every pair of adjacent states. And to claim that the level of these conditions varies largely according to distance or number of borders seems like a gross oversimplification.

RESEARCH FOCUS AND HYPOTHESES

In contrast to most of the existing research on proximity and war, this study operates under the assumption that border disputes need to be isolated and treated as a special form of international conflict. The qualitative and quantitative nature of neighboring states may have some impact on the potential for war in general, but it should have some of its most direct effects on the potential for conflict that revolves specifically around boundary issues.

In explaining the focus of this study, there is a need for some preliminary definitions. A border dispute is defined as a violent or nonviolent conflict between two primary national antagonists over the demarcation of their shared boundary. To be considered bordering nations, two states generally must have a land boundary between them, with the only allowable exception being if a river forms their border. This definition thus avoids looser notions of bordering states that include up to 200-mile water separations and classifications of "almost- bordering" nations (Starr and Most, 1976: 590-595). The more restric-



432 JOURNAL OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

tive meaning is used here instead because there is reason to believe that disputes over directly shared land boundaries differ in frequency and severity from more indirect territorial disagreements.

The two primary national antagonists involved in a border dispute must be independent-at least by the end of the dispute-and have a geographical area of over 4000 square miles. These two antagonists are those states which share the disputed border and usually which are most directly and overtly involved in the conflict. Thus allies and any other states sharing borders with the two contending states are excluded. This exclusion and the independence requirement serve to preclude analysis of colonial or proxy wars that may involve border issues; and the minimum size requirement simply circumvents dealing with ministate disputes of lesser importance.

The border dispute itself must be over demarcation of a territorial boundary between two bordering states,5 or of a land area between their borders of questionable ownership (the disputes over Kashmir exem- plify this second possibility). Of course, there is no requirement here that a dispute deal exclusively with demarcation of land borders; indeed, rarely is any conflict so tightly restricted in focus. Several types of proximate conflicts are thus excluded: (1) conflicts between adjacent states that do not relate to border issues; (2) conflicts involving border clashes but not contention over demarcation of boundaries; (3) conflicts involving establishing autonomous areas, or unifying areas, but where there is no question about the boundaries of these areas; and (4) conflicts revolving around ocean jurisdiction, or control of offshore islands, but that do not deal with land boundaries. Again, this narrow definition fosters explanations that are finely tuned to a distinctive form of international conflict.

This study's theoretical framework, which provides the foundation for the development of specific explanatory hypotheses about border disputes, rests on a rather simple five-pronged model of international conflict. In order to explain the pattern of such conflicts, the following elements appear necessary for examination:

(1) the distribution of political/military capabilities among the contending states (2) the economic/scientific development within each contending state

5. All interstate conflicts which Butterworth (1976: 488) quantitatively codes as centering around "disputed boundaries" are included in this study, except when they do not involve independent nations or direct land borders,




(3) the critical issue(s) of disagreement among the contending states (4) the formal or informal political/ military alliances between the contending states

and other states.

When dealing with conflict between neighboring states, a fifth element becomes important:

(5) the physical (geographical) arrangement of the contending states.

There is nothing particularly novel about this model, for it is used implicitly or explicitly by many existing conflict studies.

In applying this framework to the study of border disputes in particular, a more specific central concept emerges (out of the many alternatives possible) for each element. In dealing with the distribution of capabilities, the notion of power disparity stands out because of its empirical prominence in past studies of the proximity-war relationship. In examining economic/ scientific development, the level of technology seems most important due to its previously mentioned impact on the significance of territory. Focusing on the issue of disagreement simply involves choosing the most central categories (which turn out to be resource and ethnic issues) out of the range of political, economic, and cultural issues presented earlier. Looking at international alliances readily translates into determining whether contending states are members of the same bloc or of opposing blocs. Finally, considering the physical arrangement of bordering states necessitates the development of a new concept-"mutual contiguity"-which (as explained later) structurally reflects both the interaction potential and the interlocking interests among adjacent states. While previous studies have examined some of these explanatory concepts, none has been systematically applied specifically to the modern interstate border dispute.

The first hypothesis relates the power disparity between the two primary national antagonists in a border dispute:

(1) Border disputes occur with greater frequency between states of roughly equal power than between states of highly unequal power.

The bulk of the general studies on conflict find that a rough power equality among nations leads to war: For example, in a review of international conflicts since 1700, Blainey (1973) reports that war begins when there is a disagreement over relative strength-due to perceived equality-and ends when the states involved reach agreement on their




relative strength. Looking specifically at geographically proximate states, Garnham (1976a, 1976b) supports these results by concluding that war is most likely among proximate states of equal power. Further- more, Weede (1976) finds that only an overwhelming preponderance of power reduces the risk of conflict (especially major interstate war) among pairs of contiguous Asian nations. These studies generally assume that power disparity causes either quick capitulation or deterrence, while power equality causes conflict because each side believes it has a chance to win (Garnham, 1976b: 381; Organski, 1968: 294). These notions are in turn predicated on a model of rational states performing a power-based cost-benefit analysis on whether to go to war.6 Of course, some studies do exist with the opposite conclusion about power and war, such as Ferris's7 hypothesis that war usually results from a large differential in power because this gap permits stronger nations to secure their interests by force. But the evidence and logic linking war and power equality appear more convincing, especially when examining bordering states, because of the frustrating uncertainty created by equality among them.

The second hypothesis examines the level of technology of the two primary national antagonists in a border dispute:

(2) Border disputes occur with greater frequency and severity between states with low technology than between states with high technology.

Much of the research on border wars has implicitly assumed that the "lesser" states engage in them, though the reference is more often to levels of military power than to levels of technology. For example, Pearson (1974: 441, 453) finds that middle and small powers more often intervene for territorial interests than do large powers, since large powers had settled most of their territorial disputes earlier in Europe and North America. But this present study selects technology as its explanatory concept (as previously mentioned) because (1) territory

6. See Garnham (1976b: 380). This assumption of a rational cost-benefit analysis seems unwarranted in many circumstances, given the potential for misperception and emotionalism in international relations. Tying in another of the independent variables in this study, rationality appears to apply more to border disputes over resource issues than to the volatile conflicts over ethnic issues, where the logic of capitulation and deterrence has often failed to work.

7. See Ferris (1973). Gochman (1976: 543) offers an astute analysis of this power disparity debate between Ferris and Blainey.




may serve a greater functional role for states which lack technology, due to their resulting inability to overcome geographical barriers in order to achieve political and economic goals and (2) territory may serve a greater symbolic role for low-technology nations due to their desire for-and insecurity about-prestige and recognition in the international system.

The third hypothesis looks at the type of disagreement around which a border dispute revolves:

(3) Border disputes occur with greater severity when they focus on ethnic issues than when they focus on resource issues.

Existing research mentions numerous types of irritants which pre- cipiate border disputes over territory, but the two most frequently discussed (Pearson, 1974: 438) are desire for access to natural resources (primarily oil and water) and ethnic problems (including having an ethnically mixed border area or having a single ethnic group split by a border). Of course, background political considerations are present in most border disputes: For example, there is often contention over the validity of a previous border agreement, especially if it was determined during wartime, before a nation's independence, or by an outside power; and there is often a lack of a clearly demarcated border, including cases where the geographical frontier is ambiguous. But these political considerations do not appear to be nearly as salient in explaining the eruption of a dispute as do the economic and cultural ones. This study specifically hypothesizes that ethnically oriented border disputes are more severe than resource-oriented ones because ethnic seem in general to be the most intractable, most emotional, and most violence-prone of all the issues relating to international conflict; and because resource issues seem to be comparatively much more concrete and conducive to compromise and therefore less intense.

The fourth hypothesis explores the international alignment of the two primary national antagonists in a border dispute:

(4) Border disputes occur with greater scope between states that are members of opposing blocs than between states that are members of the same bloc.

Several existing studies (Deutsch and Singer, 1964; Mandel, 1979: 74- 77) confirm that alliance membership minimizes both the range and intensity of conflict among nations in the same alliance. But in the




context of border disputes, which are normally two-nation conflicts, a more critical quetion emerges of how formal or informal alignment with a bloc influences the likelihood of intervention by nations other than the primary antagonists. This potential for the increased scope of a dispute refers to intervention by third parties as participants in the conflict, not as mediators or managers in the conflict. This study hypothesizes that a dispute between primary antagonists in opposing blocs produces a greater likelihood of third-party intervention than one between antagonists in the same bloc because (1) within-bloc disputes seem less likely to involve issues of major concern to other nations-less likely to be proxies for bloc rivalries and (2) within-bloc disputes seem less likely to have crucial destabilizing effects on the distribution of power in the international system.

The last hypothesis introduces a new concept-mutual contiguity- which requires some preliminary explanation. This notion can be defined as follows: A set of nations is mutually contiguous if and only if each state in the set shares a direct and continuous land boundary with every other state in the set. In other words, the members of a mutually contiguous set must all border each other ("continuous" simply means that states in such sets must be adjacent at more than a single point). The long-awaited proof in 1976 of the mathematical four-color theorem unintentionally provided the maximum size range of such sets: The theorem demonstrates that "four colors are sufficient to color any map drawn in the plane or on a sphere so that no two regions with a common boundary line are colored with the same color" (Saaty and Kainen, 1977: 4). Translated into international relations terms, this means that no more than four nations may be mutually contiguous. Thus there are four distinct classes of mutually contiguous sets of states: Class A, in which a state is mutually contiguous with no other state; Class B, in which two states are mutually contiguous; Class C, in which three states are mutually contiguous; and Class D, in which four states are mutually contiguous. Most existing nations fall into Classes B and C, and in any case Class A is of little relevance to this study because it is composed entirely of nations which are islands and which inherently cannot participate in border disputes. Table 1 presents a comprehensive list of the mutually contiguous sets of nations in the current international system.

The fifth hypothesis applies this notion of mutual contiguity to border disputes:

(5) Border disputes occur with greater severity between pairs of states in Class B (two- nation sets) than between pairs of states in Class C (three-nation sets).




TABLE 1

Sets of Mutually-Contiguous Nations

Note: All included nations were over 4,000 square miles and independent in 1978.

Class A (12) Class C (100)

Australia Afghanistan-China-Soviet Union

Bahamas Afghanistan-India-Pakistan

Cuba Afghanistan-Iran-Pakistan

Ftiji Afghanistan-Iran-Soviet Union

Iceland Albania-Greece-Yugoslavia

Jamaica Algeria-Libya-Tunisia

Japan Algeria-Libya-Niger Madascagar Algeria-Mali-Mauritania

New Zealand Algeria-Mali-Niger

Philippines Algeria-Mauritania-Morocco

Sri Lanka Algeria-Zaire-Zambia Taiwan Argentina-Bolivia-Chile

Argentina-Brazil-Uruguay

Class B (20) Austria-Czechoslovakia-Hungary Austria-Czechoslovakia-West Germany

CamerooUnNigedritate Austrla-Hungary-Yugoslavia

Canada-UnitedKoSates Austria-Italy-Switzerland Ch bina-NorthKorea Austria-Italy-Yugoslavia Colombia-Panama Austria-Switzerland-West Germany

Costa Rica-Nicara Bangladesh-Burma-India

Costa Rica-PanamaBelgium-France-West Germany Denmark-West Germany Belgium-Netherlands-West Germany Dominican Republic-Haiti Belize-Guthemla-MexGco

Egypt-Israel ~Belize-Guatemala-Mexico

Egypt-IsraelBei-irNgra France-Spain Benin-Niger-Nigeria

Gambia-Senegal Benin-Niger-Upper Volta Honduras-NicaraguaBenin-Togo-Upper Volta

Honduras-Nicaragua Bhutan-China-Lndia Indonesia-Malaysia Bolva-Bra-Peru

Indonesia-Papua New Guinea Bolivia-Chile-Peru

Ireland-United Kingdom .oiva-hie .r Ieland-United Kind Botswana-Rhodesia-South Africa Lesotho-South Africa Bai-oobaPr Malaysia-Thailand Mexico-United States Brazil-Colombia-Venezuela

Brazil-Guyana-Surinam North Korea-South Korea

BrzlGynSuia

NorthKoreal-South Korea

Brazil-Guyana-Venezuela Portugal-Spain Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey

Bulgaria-Greece-Yugoslavia Bulgaria-Romania-Yugoslavia Burma-China-India Burma-China-Laos Burma-Laos-Thailand Burundi-Rwanda-Tanzania Burundi-Rwanda-Zaire




Table 1 (Continued)

Class C (cont'd.)

Cambodia-Laos-Thailand Iran-Iraq-Turkey Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Iran-Soviet Union-Turkey Cameroon-Central African Empire-Chad Iraq-Jordan-Saudi Arabia Cameroon-Central African Empire-Congo Iraq-Kuwait-Saudi Arabia Cameroon-Congo-Gabon Iraq-Syria-Turkey Cameroon-Equatorial Guinea-Gabon Israel-Jordan-Syria Central African Empire-Chad-Sudan Israel-Lebanon Syria Central African Empire-Congo-Zaire Ivory Coast-Mali-Upper Volta Central African Empire-Sudan-Zaire Kenya-Sudan-Uganda Chad-Libya-Niger Kenya-Tanzania-Uganda Chad-Libya-Sudan Mali-Mauritania-Senegal China-India-Nepal Mali-Niger-Upper Volta China-Laos-Vietnam Mozambique-Rhodesia-Zambia China-Mongolia-Soviet Union Mozambique-Swaziland-South Africa Colombia-Ecuador-Peru Oman-PDR Yemen-Saudi Arabia Czechoslovakia-East Germany-West Oman-Saudi Arabia-United Arab

Germany Emirates Czechoslovakia-East Germany-Poland PDR Yemen-Saudi Arabia-Yemen Czechoslovakia-Hungary-Soviet Union Arab Republic Czechoslovakia-Poland-Soviet Union Qatar-Saudi Arabia-United Arab Djibouti-Ethiopia-Somalia Emirates Egypt-Libya-Sudan Rwanda-Tanzania-Uganda El Salvador-Guatemala-Honduras Rwanda-Uganda-Zaire Ethiopia-Kenya-Somalia Sudan-Uganda-Zaire Ethiopia-Kenya-Sudan Finland-Norway-Soviet Union Class D (2) Finland-Norway-Sweden France-Italy-Switzerland Argentina-Bolivia-Brazil-Paraguay France-Switzerland-West Germany Malawi-Mozambique-Tanzania-Zambia Ghana-Ivory Coast-Upper Volta Ghana-Togo-Upper Volta Guinea-Guinea Bissau-Senegal Guinea-Ivory Coast-Liberia Guinea-Ivory Coast-Mali Guinea-Liberia-Sierra Leone Guinea-Mali-Senegal Hungary-Romania-Soviet Union Hungary-Romania-Yugoslavia

The underlying assumption behind this hypothesis is subtle-when three nations all border each other, the intertwining of foreign policies and the resulting complex trilateral relations seem to prevent border




disputes from being as severe as in the simple bilateral case. This assumption is indirectly compatible with some of the previous theo- rizing about bipolar and multipolar systems (for example, Rosecrance, 1966: 318): Although conflict may be equally or more frequent in multipolar systems, it tends to be less severe because it is diffused pluralistically among a larger number of viewpoints and cross-pressures from more interdependent actors. If three nations are mutually contiguous, then any border dispute between two of them is difficult to isolate from the whole web of relations among the three. Rather than using (as most previous studies have) common borders simply as a means of indicating chances for interaction and threat, this hypothesis is able to use them to indicate potentially interlocking interests as well. However, this structural influence on border disputes cautiously reflects a "free-will environmentalist" or "possibilist" view (Sprout and Sprout, 1965: chaps, iv-v) assuming that such physical configurations can influence the limits and opportunities for human behavior, rather than the more grandiose geographical determinist view claiming that these configurations can actually predict human behavior.

While these five hypotheses taken together clearly cannot provide a complete explanation of the modern interstate border dispute, they should at least provide some first clues. The independent variables they identify-power disparity, level of technology, type of disagreement, international alignment, and mutual contiguity-appear to be closer to catalysts (Russett, 1967: 200) than causes of these boundary conflicts, but these concepts do seem to highlight some of the most prominent and visible "correlates" of this pervasive type of international clash.

DATA BASE AND HYPOTHESIS OPERATIONALIZATION

The information on border disputes used to test these hypotheses is largely drawn from Butterworth's (1976) data set on interstate conflict from 1945 to 1974. This set includes only "conflicts that centrally involved specific power-political aims and demands having direct impacts on national behavior, and that were perceived internationally as being focused on political and security affairs." Butterworth breaks these conflicts down into "cases": A single conflict involves several cases when its diplomatic, strategic, or political course changes significantly in the eyes of the international community at the time of the conflict.




This data set includes information on a total of 310 cases of interstate conflict. Out of these general conflict cases, over 50%- 162 cases-took place between bordering states. Out of these conflict cases among adjacent nations, over 40%-66 cases-fit this study's criteria for an included border dispute. Thus over 20%-a sizable proportion-of the interstate conflict cases since World War II revolved directly around nations demarcating shared land boundaries. Table 2 displays the names, dates, and primary national antagonists within each of the 48 conflicts that comprise these 66 cases.

In analyzing each dispute, this study uses quantitative indicators of the independent and dependent variables in each hypothesis. Turning first to the dependent variables, the operationalization of the frequency of border disputes is fairly complex. This frequency of conflict for a certain type of state is meaningful only when scaled-to create a "relative frequency" rating-according to the total number of states of that type in the international system. In other words, the number of disputes that have occurred between pairs of states during a given time period has to be compared to the number of disputes that could have occurred between pairs of states during that period. To accomplish this end, the period from 1945 to 1974 is broken up into 10 three-year time periods. Then a tally is made of the number of border disputes between pairs of states of a given type-specified in the hypotheses-that occurred during each time period (as Table 2 reveals, most border disputes extend through several of these time periods and so are tallied several times). Then the total number of pairs of states of that type during that time period is computed (restricted, of course, to independent bordering states of over 4000 square miles). The ratio of these two figures represents the percentage of the total number of pairs of states of a given type that were actually involved in border disputes during each time period.8 That "relative frequency" percentage is then scaled as follows: 1 = 1% to 5%; 2 = 6%to 10%; 3 11%to 15%; 4= 16%to 20%; and 5 = over 20%.

8. The relative frequency figures may slightly distort what they purport to represent- the percentage of the total number of states of a given type that were actually involved in border disputes during each time period. This distortion occurs because several border dispute cases may (1) involve the same pair of states and (2) overlap a number of time periods (and thus be tallied more than once). Thus there may be exaggeration in the numerator of the ratio of the number of border dispute cases to the number of pairs of bordering states. Though this procedure seems necessary to preserve a fair and complete counting of border disputes, the inherent inaccuracy is the primary reason why relative frequency is treated as an ordinal rather than an interval variable in the statistical analysis.




TABLE 2

List of Interstate Border Disputes, 1945-1974

Conflict Name Acronym Dates Antagonists

Peruvian Border PF1B 1942-60 Ecuador, Peru Status of Mongolia SOM 1945-50 China, Soviet Union Soviet Claims on Turkey SCT 1945-47 Soviet Union, Turkey Israeli Independence ISI 1946-49 Egypt, Israel Trieste TRI 1947-54 Italy, Yugoslavia Gadaunia Wells (JAW 1947-63 Ethiopia, Kenya Kashmir Accession KAA 1947-48 India, Pakistan Pakhtunistan PAK 1947-63 Afghanistan, Pakistan Sino-Burmese Border SBB 1948-60 Burma, China Indus Canal Waters ICW 1948-60 India, Pakistan Eastern Arabian Boundaries LAB 1949-75 Oman, Saudi Arabia Somali-Ethiopian Border SEB 1950-61 Ethiopia, Somalia Status of the Saar SOS 1950-57 Irance, Germany Korean Invasion KOI 1950-53 N. Korea, S. Korea Temple of Preah Vihear TPV 1953- Cambodia, Thailand Sino-Indian Border SIB 1954-62 China, India Cambodian Border CMB 1956-70 Cambodia, S. Vietnam Rann of Kutch #1 RKI 1956-64 India, Pakistan Dutch-Belgian Border DBB 1957-59 Belgium, Netherlands Honduran Border HOB 1957-61 Honduras, Nicaragua Chilean-Argetine Border CAB 1958- Argentina, Chile Wadi Halfa WAH 1958-59 Ehypt, Sudan Sino-Nepalese Border SNB 1959-61 China, Nepal Mali-Mauritanian Border MAM 1960- Mali, Mauritania Sino-Soviet Rift SSR 1960- China, Soviet Union South Tyrol SOT 1960-71 Austria, Italy Thai-Cambodian Border TCB 1961- Cambodia, Thailand Moroccan-Mauritanian Border MOM 1961-70 Mauritania, Morocco Algerian Sahara ALS 1961-70 Algeria, Tunisia Somali Borders SOB 1962- Ethiopia, Somalia Guyanese Border GUB 1962-70 Guyana, Venezuela Sino-Indian War SIW 1962-63 China, India Lauca River LAR 1962-64 Bolivia, Chile Algerian-Moroccan Border AMB 1962-70 Algeria, Morocco Soccer Riots SOR 1962 Congo, Gabon Sarawak/Sabah SAS 1963 Malaysia, Indonesia Malaysian Confrontation MAC 1963-66 Malaysia, Indonesia Nigerian-Dahomean Border NDB 1963-65 Dahomey, Nigeria Ghanaian Border GHB 1964-66 Ghana, Upper Volta Rann of Kutch #2 RK2 1965-69 India, Pakistan Kashmir War KAW 1965-70 India, Pakistan June '67 War JUW 1967 Egypt, Israel Tanzanian Boundary TAB 1967 Malawi, Tanzania Rio De La Plata RDP 1969-73 Argentina, Uruguay Iranian Borders IRB 1969-75 Iran, Iraq Corisco Bay Islands CBI 1972 Equatorial Guinea, Gabon Iraqi-Kuwaiti Border IKB 1973- Iraq, Kuwait Yom Kippur War YKW 1973- Egypt, Israel




Operationalizing the severity of border disputes is somewhat simpler, involving (1) the number of fatalities in the conflict and (2) the type of warfare involved. The definition of these indicators is drawn directly from the Butterworth (1976: 483-485) compilation. Fatalities are deaths "directly' related" to the conflict: 1 = none; 2 = I to 25; 3 = 26 to 100; 4 = 101 to 1,000; 5 = 1,001 to 2,000; 6= 2,001 to 10,000; 7= 10,001 to 100,000; and 8 = over 100,000. The type of warfare is the "scale of military operations" in the conflict: 1 no military operations; 2 = military operations without fighting; 3 military operations minor and casu- alties primarily incidental; 4 = major military operations and fighting as reinforcements to diplomatic/political moves; and 5 = major military operations and fighting as the primary intention. Rather than aggre- gating these two indicators into a severity index, this study analyzes each separately. While other possible severity indicators exist-such as the proportion of each state's population involved in a conflict-the two measures chosen here seem sufficient to provide a rough idea of how far each border dispute escalated.

The scope of border disputes-the likelihood of intervention by third parties (nations other than the primary antagonists)-again is based on Butterworth's (1976: 487) coding: 1 = third parties not involved; 2 = third parties provided military and/or diplomatic aid; 3 = third parties in the immediate geographical region were actually in or about to enter the dispute militarily; and 4 = third parties elsewhere in the world were actually in our about to enter the dispute militarily. Butterworth labels this scope variable the "degree of spread" of a conflict.

Turning to the independent variables, each is defined in a dichotomous manner because of the general lack of precision in their measurement. A power disparity scale, again derived from Butterworth,9 gauges the disparity in power between the two primary national antagonists: Power gaps of 0 or 1 represent "equal" pairs of states, and power gaps greater than 1 represent "unequal" pairs of states. These power ratings are identified for each nation for each of three time periods-1945 to 1955, 1956 to 1961, and post-1961. If the power disparity between two national antagonists changes in the course of a border dispute, the rating selected is the one present for the longest period of time during the conflict.

9. See Butterworth (1976: 485). He borrows this scale from Cox and Jacobson (1973: 437-443). This five-point scale rates nations as "smallest," "small," "middle," "large," and "super" for each of the three time periods, and the power gap computed is simply the nu- merical difference in these ratings between the two nations considered.




The operationalization of the level of technology of the two primary national antagonists is based on the ranking of scientific capacity and gross national product per capita in the Taylor and Hudson (1972: 314- 325) data set. Scientific capacity compares the national publication of scientific journals, and the authors consider this to be one acceptable "crude measure" of technological potential (Taylor and Hudson, 1972: 290); and gross national product per capita is a more conventionally used scaled measure of output or productivity in a society. Each nation's two rankings on these measures are averaged to create a single technology ranking, in the manner demonstrated in Table 3. Combining these eliminates many anomalies, like Kuwait being so highly ranked on gross national product per capita and India likewise on scientific capacity. To code the level of technology for each border dispute, the technology rankings of the two primary national antagonists are then averaged: 1 = average technology ranking of 1 to 40; and 2 = average technology ranking below 40. This information is not broken down by time period, but the rankings of these indicators seem to have remained fairly stable since 1945.10

This study uses a couple of methods to identify the type of disagreement. Disputes which Butterworth (1976: 488) quantitatively codes as having ethnic issues "strong and salient" to the conflict receive an "E" code. An informal content analysis of the verbal synopses in Butterworth of each border dispute provides information on whether each conflict involves resource issues (coded "R"). If a dispute involves a combination of both types of issues, then it receives both letter codings (though in testing the differences between ethnic-oriented and resource- oriented conflicts, the jointly coded cases are omitted). If a dispute involves only political issues (exemplified earlier), then it is left uncoded since these considerations are present in one form or another in almost every dispute. While the source narrative of each dispute is admittedly not equally comprehensive, Butterworth (1976: 1) asserts that each account describes in a "brief and unbiased fashion" what was at stake in each case. Coding from such descriptions something so fundamental as the issue of contention in a conflict does not seem to be a subtle or controversial process.

The meaning of international alignment rests on Butterworth's (1976: 487) coding of nations' formal alliance membership or close diplomatic

10. For scientific capacity, the basis for claiming this stability over time is only intuitive; but for gross national product per capita, a comparison of earlier figures in Russett et al. (1964: 155-157) empirically supports this contention.




TABLE 3

Ranking of Top 40 States by Level of Technology

Rank in 1961 for Rank in 1965 for Technology Nation Scientific Capacity GNP Per Capita Rank

United States 1 1 1 France 3 11 2.5 Sweden 11 3 2.5 Switzerland 9 6 4 West Germany 4 12 5 United Kingdom 6 14 6 Canada 17 4 7 Belgium 8 15 8 Soviet Union 5 20 9 Australia 19 8 10 Denmark 21.5 7 11 Italy 7 24 12.5 Japan 2 29 12.5 Netherlands 13.5 18 14 Czechoslovakia 20 17 15.5 Poland 10 27 15.5 East Germany 16 22 17 Austria 18 21 18 New Zealand 33 9 19 Finland 26 16 20.5 Norway 29 13 20.5 Hungary 27.5 25 22 Argentina 24 32 23 Iceland 54 5 24 South Africa 25 36 25 Spain 23 39 26 Romania 32 31 27 Luxembourg 54 10 28 Bulgaria 34.5 30 29 Yugoslavia 21.5 47 30 Venezuela 42.5 28 31 Chile 34.5 38 32 Israel 54 19 33.5 Uruguay 36 37 33.5 Puerto Rico 51 23 35 Mexico 30 45 36 Ireland 49.5 26 37 Portugal 27.5 51 38 Brazil 15 65 39 Greece 47.5 34 40




ties with alliance leaders (in relation to the major Cold War blocs): 1 = both primary national antagonists were members of the same bloc; 2 = each antagonist was a member of an opposing bloc. Left uncoded are those disputes where both antagonists were nonaligned or where one antagonist is a bloc member and the other is nonaligned.

This study has already largely explained how to operationalize the geographical configurations in Class B and Class C through the discussion of the construction of these mutually contiguous sets. While Table l's 1978 patterns give an adequate general picture of these sets of states, in two disputes-the Somalia-Ethiopia conflict of 1950-1961 and the Tanzania-Malawi conflict of 1967-the mutually contiguous sets involved differ from those in the table because some adjacent nations were not yet independent. None of the included border disputes involved primary antagonists that were in Class D at the time of the conflict (nor, of course, in Class A).

Having completed the operationalization of the independent and dependent variables, a brief comment is appropriate on the statistical analysis of each hypothesis. All of the dependent variables for the hypotheses are ordinal, and the independent variables are either nominal or treated as nominal in this study. For this reason, the Mann- Whitney U score is computed to test the significance of the differences specified by the hypotheses. But since this statistic is not standardized, the Z score (which is derived from the U score) is computed as well. High Z scores and low U scores are associated with greater significance. This study also provides mean ratings for each variable-to clarify the magnitude and direction of the differences noted-and the percent of all conflict cases that fall into each category identified-to clarify broad trends in the data set. On the basis of these statistics, each hypothesis can be tentatively accepted or rejected. Although more sophisticated statistical techniques-such as regression-would probably be useful in future study of these relationships, existing theory and data on border disputes are so thin that the more preliminary conclusions provided by the significance tests seem more appropriate here.

RESULTS OF THE HYPOTHESIS EVALUATION

The findings of this study are clearly summarized in three tables. Tables 4 and 5 show the background information collected on the border disputes: Table 4 displays by dispute case the values of the

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explanatory indicators for the five hypotheses, as well as of the severity and scope variables; Table 5 delineates by time period the frequency data for the conflicts. Table 6 presents the statistical analysis of the significance of the differences between the two categories identified in each hypothesis.

Tables 4, 5, and 6 show that all of the hypotheses are strongly confirmed. The conditions found most likely to lead to the eruption of a border dispute are when two adjacent nations are roughly equal in power and have relatively low levels of technology. The conditions found most likely to lead to an existing border dispute escalating into a border war are when the two bordering nations have these low levels of technology, have boundary disagreements relating to ethnic issues, and are members of two-state (Class B) mutually contiguous sets. The condition found most likely to lead to an existing border dispute spreading to third parties is when the two adjacent nations are members of opposing blocs.

Beyond the hypothesized relationships, some interesting patterns emerge from these tables. First, while about 60% of the dispute cases involved fatalities, only three conflicts-the Arab-Israeli wars of 1946- 1949 and 1973 and the Korean War-had third parties directly involved in military clashes. Second, although the largest proportion of border disputes were between equal powers, in every case where a significant power disparity existed, there were military operations involved in the conflict. Third, none of the high-technology pairs of states involved in border disputes was a member of a two-state (Class B) mutually contiguous set. Fourth, none of the border disputes focusing on resource issues involved pairs of states that were members of opposing blocs. Finally, there has been a skewed bell-curve pattern in the occurrence of border disputes since 1945, with the peak being in 1960- 1962 at the height of the emergence of newly independent states. While not all of these patterns appear to be particularly meaningful, they can serve to enhance understanding of the conclusions emanating from the hypotheses.

Given an inability to be attentive to all incoming information and signals from all pairs of adjacent states, this study suggests-as a kind of early-warning system for spotting future border disputes-focusing on events transpiring in equal, low-technology pairs of states with ethnic disagreements and with membership in two-state mutually contiguous sets and in opposing blocs. But in the future the explanatory concepts considered may undergo significant change. Gauging the power dis-



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parity within each pair of states may become increasingly complex, as economic components of power grow in importance, and nuclear proliferation spreads immense but often unusable military capabilities. Each state's level of technology may become less predictable, as multinational corporations and other transnational actors create major and haphazard shifts through technology transfer. The global scarcity of resources may cause a larger proportion of border disputes to focus on resource rather than ethnic issues, and on nonrenewable resources rather than renewable ones. The obsolescence of traditional Cold War blocs and the growing assertiveness of the Third World may make meaningful international alliances more difficult to detect and assess. And the increasing interdependence among nations may make two-state mutually contiguous sets more similar to three-state sets, as any border dispute may become less isolated from the interests of all nations in the region.

These future changes highlight the severe limits on generalizing this study's findings to other time periods. Aside from methodological considerations which prevent extensive extrapolation of the conclusions due to the number of cases and the research design the highly contextual nature of the independent variables makes extension of the results very far backward or far forward unwise.

This study's findings can provide a preliminary springboard for much-needed further research on border disputes. There appear to be three pressing needs in this regard: (1) identification and analysis of other important explanatory concepts, like internal decision-making characteristics of the contending states and the relevant perceptions of these states' leaders, for this article has exclusively focused on rational actor ("billiard-ball") notions; (2) more systematic examination of the interrelationships among the concepts already introduced in this study; and (3) comparison of the roots of modern border disputes to the roots of other types of recent conflict between adjacent nations. The border dispute seems to be a sufficiently distinctive and homogeneous type of conflict to permit eventually quite refined theories about its occurrence.

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