ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the two current frameworks for identifying preventive objectives and socio-historical factors that have led conflicts towards or diverted conflicts away from violence. Macro-political, systemic, operational, and institution-specific perspectives will be considered in the analysis of preventive capabilities within the United Nations (UN) system. The chapter offers a plausible, transformative vision of significantly stronger early warning, analysis and response capacities within the UN system for dealing with potentially deadly conflicts. Two recent UN-relevant schematizations of early-warning-early-response and conflict prevention analysis are useful as a concrete introduction to the conceptual and evidentiary richness of the early warning analysis and response problematic. Conforming to the operational imperative of "putting it all on one page" for busy decision-makers, the Conflict Prevention and Post-Conflict Reconstruction (CPR) Network's "Conflict Diagnostic Framework". Persuasive analyses of approaching conflicts can improve the quality of expectations of what is likely to happen.
