Interaction between international actors is a process of balancing and balance, of disorder and order, of conflict and cooperation. Expectations are disrupted, overt conflict breaks out, new expectations are reformed, peace and cooperation ensue.

This process is continuous. Although structures of expectations may be stable for generations, interests shift, capabilities wither or increase, will becomes emboldened or timid, and expectations once aligned with interests, capabilities, and will, have only habit and inertia to withstand opposing forces. Only a trigger is needed to break up the old, initiate a new balancing, bring about a new structure of expectations. Such is an aspect, a turn on the conflict helix. Change is the constant of life.

The full process of conflict--the conflict helix--is pictured in Figure 29.1 of Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix and has been elaborated and detailed in Chapter 29 and Part VII of that Volume. My interest here is to make the latent conflict phase of this process more explicit in terms of the space-time components and behavioral equations outlined previously in Table 8.1. The elements, empirical concepts, and notation of the conflict helix to be discussed here are presented in Table 10.1.

i

For example, the people of the Pacific Island nation of Tonga and the land-locked Central African Republic will be similarly or differently located in international space-time as they are similar or different in their state's wealth and power, politics and social conflict, culture and diversity, and so on. These relative locations reflect shared and distinct meanings, values, and norms; convergent and divergent status and class; and thus congruent, opposing, and different interests, capabilities, and expectations. Neither peoples may be in contact, however; neither may be aware of each other. But, these relative similarities and differences define their potential conflict and cooperation. Place a Tongan and a Central African next to each other, have them share a dormitory room while both are attending a foreign university, and this potential for conflict and cooperation will become actual. Similarly if representatives of Tonga and the Central African Republic come together to discuss and negotiate issues in an international organization.

Through acculturation, socialization and individual experience, international actors develop a lattice of attitudes.² These are clustered around an actor's superordinate goal, delineate his sentiments, and define his role dispositions.

Attitudes are goal and means potentials transformed into dispositions. Their development structures the conflict space. The attitudes of international actors make possible the structure of conflict between them.

The structure of conflict is the disposition or tendency to conflict. Along with awareness, it comprises opposing attitudes (inactive--dispositional--interests) between actors and their attendant means (relative capabilities). On the empirical plane, this structure is reflected in the physical and sociocultural distances (vectors) between actors.

Now attitudes lie along the sociocultural distances between actors: their differences and similarities in meanings, values, norms, status and class define their opposing attitudes.⁴ And these distances reflect vector forces in the psychological space of an actor. They define latent motivations toward behavior. The distance vectors between all actors on all the sociocultural components then embody the variety of motivational (attitudinal) forces latent within the conflict structure.

To retrace the logic, international actors have differing latent attitudes expressing their ends, wants, and goals, and the means to achieve them. Within the structure of conflict these attitudes are inactive; they are dispositional forces waiting for stimulation. Moreover, attitudes cluster into particular patterns which lie along the components of sociocultural space. There are attitudes involved with wealth, politics, power, and so on. Therefore, the differences and similarities between actors in their attitudes are along these components. And it follows, then, that the distances between them on these components then embody these differences in attitudes.

But do differences mean opposing attitudes? To answer this, consider again the sociocultural components delineating the space-time of international actors. The poles of the components are wealth versus poverty, powerful versus weak, totalitarian versus liberal democratic, authoritarian versus liberal democratic, Catholic versus non-Catholic, and so on. Clearly, these poles denote potentially opposing attitudes, and distances on these dimensions then reflect this.⁵

However, this is not to imply that only differences on these components measure opposition. Similarity in high power status may as well (Chapter 17 and Chapter 18 of Vol. 2: The Conflict Helix) reflect opposing attitudes, that of the strong who may see their strength as means of manifesting their differing attitudes along other components.

As a final point of clarification, note that attitudes comprise goals, that which an actor wants. But again, these are latent, inactive goal dispositions. At this level distance vectors reflect the opposition towards which actors are disposed by their latent goals.

In addition to awareness and opposing attitudes, a third theoretical element in the structure of conflict is capabilities,⁶ the base or resources for power in all its forms, whether coercive, bargaining, authoritative, or (as in much violence and war) physical. Here the wealth, type of political system, size, culture, and the like, of an actor's state, as well as his individual abilities and resources, are all relevant, depending on the situation, form of power, and object. These capabilities relative to another actor are measured by the distance vectors.

Distances in power (coercive), in wealth, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, size, and so on, not only describe opposing attitudes but capabilities as well. For example, the distance along the power component between two actors reflects as a whole and in itself their difference in national income, energy resources, energy production, population size, political centralization, defense expenditures, and armed forces--all capabilities for coercion or force.⁷

Such is the structure of conflict, as shown in Table 10.1: awareness, and opposing attitudes, and capabilities as empirically measured by sociocultural distances.⁸ The structure of conflict defines the tendency to oppose, to conflict, to struggle. But this tendency is inactive, yet without strength.

But needs are not stimulated in a vacuum. They are linked to a perceived situation g, such as the threat of aggression, loss of human rights in another country, possibility of a profitable investment, and the like. Perceived situations stimulate needs and transform structures into actual conflict,⁹ attitudes into empowered interests. Such stimulation is the first theoretical element in the situation of conflict; for an actor at the empirical level it is defined by a situational parameter _gi of Equations 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3, as shown in Table 10.1.

Interests--energized attitudes--are the second, essential theoretical element in the conflict situation and major forces towards behavior. These define the excited purposes, activated roles, felt sentiments, and most important, an actor's driving superordinate goal. Also essential is the third theoretical element, the means ingredient of interests, the relative capabilities of international actors--their differing coercive, authoritative, bargaining, and physical powers.¹⁰ Both opposing interests and relative capabilities are reflected in the sociocultural distances between actors. Which interests are stimulated and which relative capabilities are salient depend on the perceived situation.

Because both opposing attitudes and potential capabilities are reflected in sociocultural distances, opposing interests and relative capabilities are likewise empirically manifest. Distances measures both dispositional and dynamic levels, both the structure and situation of latent conflict. What distinguishes the two levels, what separates possible attitudes and potential capabilities from active empowered interests and salient capabilities is the perceived situation. The product of perceived situation and distance vector d discriminates between structure and situation.¹¹ This is shown in Table 10.1.

Therefore, a particular product d means: the actor's situational perception of an object's relative (to the actor) interests and capabilities.¹²

The perceived situation is latent, however. While interests are engaged within a situation, behavior yet remains unaffected. Conflict is there, but beneath the surface. Therefore, the variation in _gid_,i-j for actor i's situation of conflict with j has yet no necessary correlation with the common, manifest behavior of i to j.

In a specific perceived situation of conflict g, the common interests and capabilities are theoretical, a cognitive framework for understanding the process of conflict at the level of dispositions and powers. Dynamic interests and relative capabilities transform behavioral potentials into an active tendency, a psychological force towards threatening, protesting, snubbing, attacking, accusing, sanctioning, and so on. But this behavioral disposition, while empowered, is yet latent, unmanifest.

How a behavioral disposition will be manifested in what specific behavior depends on the actor's expectation within a situation, the final element in the situation of conflict. Situational expectations of outcomes alter, suppress, or strengthen dispositions; they determine the final manifest behavior to follow from interests and relative capabilities. This situational expectation, _hig, has been discussed in Chapter 6 and Chapter 8 and articulated in Equations 6.2 to 6.6, and 8.3 and 8.4; it is also listed in Table 10.1.¹³

However, note again that the situation of conflict is latent. Theoretically, the sociocultural distances d define the forces toward conflict behavior--the strain to conflict. But there may be no manifest interaction between actors or they may be interacting in some manner incidental to or independent from the conflict situation g. For the forces reflected in d have yet to be manifest: they are powers toward manifestation and it is the next stage in the process that makes these forces--opposing interests and relative capabilities--determinate.