A conflict continuum is a model or concept various social science researchers use when modeling conflict on a continuum from low to high-intensity, such as from aggression to irritation to explosiveness.
The mathematical model of game theory originally posited only a winner and a loser (a zero-sum game) in a conflict, but was extended to cooperation (a win-win situation and a non-zero sum game), and lets users specify any point between cooperation, peace, rivalry, contest, crisis, and conflict among stakeholders.
Overview
By the decade of the 2010s, military planners realized that additional capabilities in communications, sensors and weapons countermeasures made it possible for competitors to react to a contestant's moves in the "gray zone" just short of conflict. In 2018 Kelly McCoy identified a continuum within competition itself, as explored in the United States Joint Staff's Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning (JCIC), up to the point just short of armed conflict, while noting Perkins' connection to deterrence in the continuum. In 2020, Donald Stoker and Craig Whiteside cautioned that for strategists, the "gray zone" must not blur peace and war; they offered an analysis of the need for strategists to clearly distinguish peace, competition, contest, conflict, and war.
Standoff is the condition of deadlock between antagonists, sometimes measured by the distance between them (standoff distance). For antagonists in a non-zero sum game, von Neumann and Morgenstern showed in 1944 that this condition is equivalent to a zero-sum game with +1 antagonists, where the +1st player ("the fictitious player") is not an entity. Rather the fictitious player represents the global profit (or loss) of the players in the non-zero sum game. If we reduce this game to a zero-sum 3-player game by the introduction of a fictitious player 3, then the characteristic function becomes the one given In Tibor Scitovsky's terminology (more commonly known as the Kaldor–Hicks criterion), this global profit (or loss) of the +1st player represents the amount that the gainers would have been prepared to pay to the losers (or, in a global loss, the global amount that the players have lost in total), in order to attain a desired global policy.
Overmatch is the condition where protagonist A is able to present multiple dilemmas to an antagonist E. Thus if E can recognize that E risks total destruction (annihilation), then it is possible to bring an end to conflict between A and E. If A can bring about overmatch for all E's, the hegemony of A would result, temporarily. In other confrontations between A and the Es, deterrence can be the mutual recognition that power need not be used to destroy one another (mutually assured destruction). Instead A might display or project its power to the Es as a substitute for battle with them. If A's power can remain leashed (potential rather than kinetic) then soft power and hard power are also optional possibilities on a continuum of possible conflict between A and the Es.
Various continuum models
Elise Boulding's conflict continuum
Elise M. Boulding was a Quaker sociologist influenced by the events of World War II. Examining how war becomes peace, she posited a continuum between and .
This is Boulding's conflict continuum: { | |- | War of extermination |- | Limited war |- | Threat systems (deterrence) |- | Arbitration |- | Mediation |- | Negotiation (exchange) |- | Mutual adaptation |- | Alliance |- | Co-operation |- | Integration |- | Transformation |}
Andra Medea's types of conflict
Theorist Andra Medea seeks to explain how individuals, small groups, organizations, families, ethnicities, and even whole nations function when disputes arise between them. She posits that there are four types or levels of conflict, each operating under distinct rules: { | |- | (1) Problem Solving || | (2) Domination || | (3) Blind Behavior || | (4) Rogue Messiah |} Each level moving from first to fourth is characterized by increasing degrees of separation from reality, and decreasing degrees of maturity, in this context, defined as the ability to control anger and settle differences without violence or destruction. Problem-solving behavior is based in reality and maturity, and is therefore more rational and mature than domination. Domination is more rational and mature than blind behavior, which is more rational and mature than the Rogue Messiah.
However, each level moving from fourth to first is more capable than the one below it at forcing victory in a conflict. The rogue messiah overpowers blind behavior, blind behavior thwarts domination, and domination deadlocks problem-solving.