Abstract
This chapter elaborates basic elements for an integrated formal approach to conflicts, arms races, and war in an attempt to remedy the inadequacies we see in similar theoretical efforts. Starting from a rational actor perspective in international politics, the paper presents three interconnected models of arms races or resource allocation processes, diplomatic conflict and war initiation by nations that are based upon either general optimising principles through time or differential game theoretic considerations. All these principles are defined as adjustments between actual and target values of key variables of resources devoted to defence, diplomatic conflictual efforts, and evaluations of each side’s deterrent capabilities by the other. In addition, time constraints play a crucial role in the representation of the war initiation submodel. An analysis of these three interconnected formulations shows that our conception can account for several types of war initiation. On the one hand, we can emphasise a situation that we label the paradox of the weak where the nation with the least effective deterrent has an incentive to attack first. On the other hand, our model can also represent more classical types of confrontations where either deterrence works or where the strong attacks the weak.
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Notes and References
Allan, P., Crisis Bargaining and the Arms Race (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger, 1983).
Intriligator, M. D. and Brito, D. L., ‘Heuristic Decision Rules, The Dynamics of the Arms Race, and War Initiation’, In U. Luterbacher and M. D. Ward (eds), Dynamic Approaches to International Conflict (Boulder, Colorado: Rienner, 1985).
Brito, D. L. and Intriligator, M. D., ‘Conflict, War and Redistribution’, American Political Science Review, vol. 79(2) December 1985, pp. 943–57.
For a useful survey of the historical evidence, see Ruloff, D., Wie Kriege beginnen, (Munich: Beck, 1985).
Joll, J., The Origins of the First World War (London and New York: Longman, 1984). p. 21.
Bueno de Mesquita, B., The War Trap (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981).
Isaacs, R., Differential Games (New York: Wiley, 1967).
Lambelet, J. C. and Luterbacher, U., ‘Dynamics of Arms Races: Mutual Stimulation vs Self-Stimulation’, Journal of Peace Science, 1979, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 49–67.
Lambelet, J. C. (1984), ‘Arms Races as Good Things?’; (see note 2); also available (in a more complete version) as Cahier de recherches economiques 8501, Department d’econometrie et d’économie politique (DEEP), University of Lausanne, Switzerland, January 1985, mimeo.
Mayer, T. F., ‘Images of the Enemy and the Initiation of Nuclear War’ (Boulder, Colorado: Department of Sociology and Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, 1985) mimeo.
Basically, armbp is a measure of B’s ‘permanent’ defence effort as seen by A, in the sense of Milton Friedman’s permanent income hypothesis. This means that our construction eschews the possibility that expectations are formed rationally (in the sense which ‘rational expectations’ have in economics). This is not to say that the rational expectations hypothesis has no place in the analysis of arms races. Actually, one of us has shown that, in the 1905–14 Anglo-German naval race, the German side (but not the English side) behaved in a way which is strikingly consistent with the rational expectations hypothesis — see: Lambelet, J. C., ‘The Anglo-German Dreadnought Race, 1905–1914’, Papers of the Peace Science Society (International) vol. 22, 1974, pp. 1–45; ‘A Numerical Model of the Anglo-German Dreadnought Race’, Papers of the Peace Science Society (International), vol. 24, 1975, pp. 29–48; ‘A Complementary Analysis of the Anglo-German Dreadnought Race, 1905–1916’, Papers of the Peace Science Society (International) 1976, pp. 49–66.
See: Davis, H. Introduction to Non Linear Differential and Integral Equations (New York: Dover, 1962) p. 449.
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© 1987 International Economic Association
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Lambelet, JC., Luterbacher, U. (1987). Conflicts, Arms Races and War: A Synthetic Approach. In: Schmidt, C., Blackaby, F. (eds) Peace, Defence and Economic Analysis. International Economic Association Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18898-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18898-7_5
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