Military Buildups, War, and Realpolitik

Abstract

This article examines the role of mutual military buildups in dispute escalation to war. It is argued that the effect of the pervasive realist culture in the modern state system is to affect policy choices and perceptions in ways that alter the dynamics of militarized disputes when the countries are arming, thus raising the chance that war will be the outcome of the dispute. Previous tests of the connection between arming and escalation have been fraught with methodological controversy and have been inconclusive in their conclusions. By contrast, this study is multivariate; it incorporates other factors that might have a strong influence on arming, escalation, or both. The findings indicate that when those factors are considered (including the issue in contention, history of disputes, and relative defense burdens as well as relative power balance), preceding mutual military buildups are strongly and positively related to the likelihood of dispute escalation.

Decomposing the Relationship Between Contiguity and Militarized Conflict

“…These results are also consistent with the more specific literature highlighting the conflict-enhancing effect of arms races by neighbors. As arms races bring neighbors closer to parity, they are an important determinant of the gap in the conflict probability (Gibler, Rider, and Hutchison 2005;Sample 1998Sample , 2002. For example, in the sample of contiguous dyads, an average pair of states close to parity is approximately 100 times more likely to experience militarized conflict than is an average noncontiguous dyad that is also close to military parity.…”

Measuring National Power

“…In fact, a JSTOR search revealed over 40 such studies since 1985 (see, e.g., Bueno de Mesquita et al, 1997;Geller, 1993;Sample, 1998). We caution researchers about the possibility of erroneous findings stemming from CINC's mismeasurement.…”

“…A measure of power based only on military expenditures, for example, might be an excellent referent for the probability of winning a head-to-head combat, but a poor predictor of a nation's overall influence in world affairs. For these reasons, several scholars recommend CINC over single indicators (de Soysa et al, 1997;Sample, 1998;Senese, 1997).…”

The Tragedy of Offensive Realism: Testing Aggressive Power Politics Models

“…Previously, the investigation of the relationship between arms races and war was limited to the class of major power states that participated in arms races (Wallace, 1979;Diehl, 1983;Sample, 1996;Sample, 1997;Sample, 1998;Sample, 2000). Using a new dataset that includes minor and major powers, Sample (2002) finds that even minor powers get into arms races and the effect on the escalation to war is similar to the relationship between major powers and war.…”