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This paper advances a definition of "conflict personalization" and suggests some future directions for research. Specifically, I argue that conflict personalization occurs when the leader of one country defines a political or territorial conflict as a dispute with the leader of another state, rather than a dispute with the entire polity. Moreover, when a conflict is personalized, a leader has a tendency to view his or her counterpart as driven by irrational motives. Using literature from social psychology, linguistics, and international relations, I outline a definition of conflict personalization, and suggest some hypotheses about the conditions under which it is likely to occur, as well as its consequences. I conclude by suggesting directions for research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examined the reasons behind the continuous advancement of some resistance movements like the Guatemalan Civil War as of January 2016 despite the stress and unbalanced power polarity of the opposing parties. Also examined are the effects of such war factors as territorial claims and dissatisfaction with economic standard of living to the outcome and duration of conflicts, citing as example the case of Israel and Palestine.

High levels of nationalism, territorial disputes, concerns over the division of natural resources, and a rising power in the form of the People's Republic of China (PRC), add up to make East Asia an area of critical US foreign policy concern. Today, with the Chinese economy beginning to show serious signs of instability for the first time since Deng Xiaoping's Four Modernizations, potential threats to stability loom large in this region. One negative potential outcome would be the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempting to bolster regime strength by stoking nationalism through military conflict. Along with this point, the greater the level of economic instability in the PRC, the more likely this turn to nationalism through regional conflict becomes. The South China Sea with its many islands and reefs in dispute between the PRC and neighboring states presents a high potential for such a dangerous regional conflict. There is also the threat of escalating tensions between Japan and the PRC over the fate of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. Unfortunately, there exists no shortage of possible flashpoints in this volatile corner of the world. For these reasons and more, East Asia has become a region that will likely consume the world's attention for decades to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]