ISAS Working Papers

Studying conflicts is a big intellectual enterprise. More than 60 per cent of the top 100 think - tanks listed in the University Pennsylvania survey in 2012 study conflicts and issues related to conflicts. These conflict studies concentrate mostly on inert - state wars and intra - state armed conflicts. 2 The conflicts generated by great power interventions or the imperatives of global order receive only occasional or incidental atten tion. This area of conflict studies would perhaps gain in salience as the phenomenon of “Arab Spring” spreads to other regions, and as interventions invoking “Responsibility to Protect” within the United Nations framework are more frequently taken resort to as was evident in Libya or could be tried in Syria. For yet another reason, the role of “global political conditions” needs to be factored in seriously in the study of conflicts.