Crisis Control

This introductory article was written by ChatGPT at the direction of Heidi Burgess, who reviewed, edited, and approved the final content.
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August 18, 2026

Crises are moments when a conflict suddenly becomes much more dangerous. Violence may have broken out, rumors may be spreading, or a provocative event may be triggering rapid retaliation. Such situations demand a quick response because, once destructive escalation gets underway, each new action can provoke a still stronger counteraction.

But speed creates its own danger. Responders who act on incomplete or incorrect information can easily make the situation worse. In civic unrest, for example, authorities may misinterpret an unruly but largely peaceful protest as a riot, while protesters may interpret precautionary police deployments as preparations for repression. Effective crisis response therefore requires moving quickly, while still taking enough time to determine what is actually happening and what actions are most likely to reduce, rather than intensify, the danger.

In practice, good crisis response usually proceeds on two tracks at the same time. One track focuses on immediate stabilization: protecting people, keeping emergency routes open, preventing opposing groups from attacking one another, and stopping individuals who are committing serious violence. The other focuses on de-escalation: opening communication, reducing fear, and preventing the crisis from becoming a broader confrontation.

The OSCE's Human Rights Handbook on Policing Assemblies emphasizes several especially important principles. Authorities should learn as much as possible about the intentions of organizers, communicate with them, and distinguish peaceful participants from people engaged in violence. Dialogue, persuasion, and negotiation should be tried before force whenever circumstances permit. When force is genuinely necessary, it should be limited to what is needed to address the specific danger and should be scaled back as soon as that danger passes. The United Nations' guidance on policing peaceful protests similarly stresses advance risk assessment, de-escalation, restraint, and differentiated responses rather than treating an entire crowd as a single threatening actor.

Communication is particularly important because crises are driven not only by what people do, but also by what opposing groups think others are doing or intend to do. Officials should explain what they know, acknowledge what they do not yet know, and make their intentions as clear as possible. Protest organizers, community leaders, journalists, religious leaders, and other trusted intermediaries can help establish communication across lines that otherwise might be closed. They can correct dangerous misunderstandings, carry messages between adversaries, and identify face-saving ways for people to step back without appearing to surrender. Such third-party intervention is one of the classic tools of limiting escalation. Louis Kriesberg similarly observes that crises create pressure for immediate action, but that the resulting sense of urgency can produce poor decisions; sometimes even a short pause that gives parties time to reassess the situation can help prevent further escalation (Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution).

Finally, crisis response should be understood as emergency conflict management, not conflict resolution. Restoring calm does not eliminate the grievances, fears, injustices, or political disputes that produced the crisis. Once the immediate danger has passed, responders need to investigate what happened, correct mistakes or misconduct, and create opportunities for the parties to address the underlying conflict. This is where mediators, conciliators, community leaders, government officials, and other de-escalators become especially important. The ultimate objective is not merely to restore order for a few hours or days. It is to interrupt the escalation spiral long enough for more deliberate and constructive processes to take over, so that the crisis does not simply subside temporarily and then erupt again.

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This page was created by ChatGPT in response to this prompt. It was then reviewed, edited, supplemented and approved by Heidi Burgess. More information about how and why we are using AI in this way, and about the growing number of ways in which Beyond Intractability is using ChatGPT, Claude and other AI systems to generate content and build out the BI system, is available on our BI/AI Overview Page.