Crisis management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Crisis management - Essay Example While some crisis as the Cuban missile crisis was resolved within a period of 13days, others such as the World War I took over 4 years before they were finally settled. This essay seeks to evaluate the success factors of conflict resolution and analyze how they were applied in the Cuban missile crisis and the World War I. Kouzmin (17) points out that the timeliness of the response is a critical factor that determines the ability of the government or the involved parties to resolve their conflict. Crises are emergency situations that often have adverse effects to the social political system if prompt actions are not taken. The more the time that is taken to resolve a conflict, the more likely that the impact of the war is likely to be felt in the affected regions. While it is important to define a good background to resolve a conflict and to avoid hurried decisions that may fuel the war, there is need to develop a quick plan to initiate resolution strategies to reduce the ill effects that come along with such situations of war. Caldwell (6), a professor and a political analyst, commends President Kennedy for his prompt action to neutralize the looming danger of a heated nuclear war in a time of emergency. When the Cuban president stationed missiles in Cuba, there was already high tension that the two countries would engage in big fights whose repercussions would be out of magnitude. At this time, President of America prioritized this issue and focused on the emergency situation. First, he immediately dropped his support for North Korea attack on South Korea and engaged a consultative meeting to come up with a plan to resolve the conflict. Consequently the conflict was resolved within 13 days and no impacts of the looming war were experienced in America. Crisis management in the World War I seems to have taken a slow pace. Mulligan (73) points out that the reason why this war took too long to solve is because the governments had an attitude that any attempts to l aunch a crisis management plan would be futile. The impact of this delay is that World War I became one of the most catastrophic crises in the world history as many people lost their lives. The magnitude of the crisis is a factor that cannot be ignored while designing a strategic plan to mitigate the effects of a crisis. The geographical scope of a disaster is used to measure the intensity of a crisis and the population that is likely to be affected by the effects of the conflict. A disaster that involves only a few countries has less impact compared to one that affects the entire world. While planning the conflict resolution strategy, it is important to consider the applicability of the strategy to all the nations especially in a conflict that spans out in several countries. Kouzmin (7) warns that the domain of the threat has to be considered if the intervention strategy has to be successful. The First World War was a worldwide disaster the war was manifested in different ways in v arious countries. Mulligan (227) states that this war was a result of various threatening forces and determining the motives of the war was quite a complex issue, a factor that delayed the process of peace making. Governments took longer to agree on the best procedure to conflict resolution and this slowed the process while more people continued to suffer