Causes of Conflict

Scarce resources are very important to the country. It is a source of revenue for the country and it can be sold off for money and as raw resources for industrialization. Thus, countries would want to compete for scarce resources. An example would be the Iceland-britian conflict. As Iceland depends on the fishing industry for survival, its source of revenue comes from the fish caught. In 1970s, the number of fish, especially cod, dropped by 1/3 and these were due to the over fishing of Belgium, german and britian on Iceland seas. Thus, Iceland has came up with measures in controlling the number of fish caught to the UN but most were ignored. As 79% of the total export comprises of fresh fish and fish products, it is important for Iceland to maintain a sustainable levels of fish stocks in the seas around Iceland. Source of economic survivals is threatened, Iceland had to fight to ensure that this source of natural resource is sustained. This conflict resulted in Iceland breaking displomatic ties with britian. When a country’s scarce resources is being threatened, they have to fight back as it is their main source of revenue and survival. Losing the main source of scarce resource ewould lead to economic downfall, jobs and livelihood at stake resulting in poverty Different values and benefits. Countries fight over different values and benefits due when they feel that it is being threatened by others. This is evident in the Korean war. Korea is being separated into 2 halves in the 38th parallel after the Japanese surrended in the 1945. The Russian occupied the north of parallel and the American occupied the south of parallel. Attempt of un to establish a single government failed as the north parallel did not want to have an election in the north. North korea was then created and became a communist party whereas south korea was then created and became democratic party. Both the government claimed that they both have the rights to rule the Korean peninsula. China, afraid that the north korea would be influenced by the south korea’s democractic system, helped and supported north korea in the war of north korea and south korea to spread communism. This showed that when countries come into conflict to extend their balue systems to other territories and also protect their value systems from being threatened to fight back