The influential Bloomfield-Leiss multi-phase "anatomy" of violent inter-group disputes is richly developed in Lincoln P. Bloomfield and Amelia C. Leiss, Controlling Small Wars: A Strategy for the 1970s, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1969, based in part on Bloomfield's early research with gaming simulations of international crises. The first computerized CASCON is reported in L. P. Bloomfield and Robert Beattie, "Computers and Policy-Making: The CASCON Experiment," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Spring 1971. This project has had multiple funding sources, including repeated support from the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, project Athena at MIT and the US Institute of Peace, and several important additional published treatments and applications, cited in Bloomfield-Moulton.

The human Web browser might find it useful to compare and contrast CASCON with the rule-oriented process simulation developed by Alker, Greenberg and Christensen in the 1969-1976 period in response to the work of Ernst Haas; the earliest published citation is H. R. Alker, Jr., "Assessing the Impact of the U.N. Collective Security System: An Operational Multicultural Approach," Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 65(1971), 33-39

* Phase 1: Dispute, indicated by parties quarreling about an issue;
* Phase 2: Conflict, involving the development of a military option on at least one side;
* Phase 3: Hostilities, i.e. fighting between organized units;
* Phase 4: Post-Hostilities Conflict, where military option still exists;
* Phase 5: Post-Hostilities Dispute situation, where dispute remains unsettled;
* Phase 6: Settlement, where the parties create or accept dispute resolution.

This set of phase distinctions, which Bloomfield and Moulton (1997, p. 106) refer to as a "life-cycle model," is basic to much subsequent work on conflict management and prevention, including that of Alker, Sherman, and Lund.

Over several decades, Bloomfield has used this historical scheme carefully and thoughtfully to organize expert judgments about action variables or situational features (together called "factors") tending in particular phases of a dispute toward or away from violence. Each dispute has associated with a brief phase specific dispute precis or trajectory, along with a coding of the Region were it occurred, the Conflict Type (Interstate, primarily internal, external intervention, or colonial), and the primary Issue involved (Ethnic, governance, independence, resources, strategic or territory).(Bloomfield and Moulton, 1997, pp. 135-37). The most important information in CASCON is the set of factors judged to be present or absent, and possibly conflict exacerbating or ameliorating, during the first three phases of 85 conflicts around the world since 1945. Derived from expert judgments, these factors are grouped into 10 categories each mnemonically indicated by a single capital letter: (Ibid., p. 169):

* Previous or general R elations between sides - R;

* Allied or Great Power involvement - G

* General External relations - X;

* International Organization involvement (UN, regional, legal, public opinion) - U;

* ethnic issues (refugees, minorities) - N;

* Military-strategic factors - M;

* Economic/resource issues, including scarcity - E;

* Internal Politics of the sides - P;

* Communication and information dissemination practices - C;

* Actions in Disputed arenas - D.

Of the 571 identified factors, 176 can occur in Phase 1, 189 in Phase 2, and 206 in Phase 3. A specific factor, e.g. "3M06", is labeled in a way that suggests it to be a 3rd Phase Military and Strategic factor, the sixth in the relevant list..

The analytical routines built into CASCON encourage the comparison of newly constructed and ongoing cases with historically available records of similar previous cases. Generalizations concerning user-specified or system specified, i.e. region-specific, sets of cases.