Preventive War: Concept and Propositions

Abstract

Commentary 87Scott Silverstone argues that political leaders often incorporate estimates of the consequences of war for the postwar international order into their calculations about whether or not to initiate a preventive war. Responding to the common argument that Britain and France would have been better off initiating a preventive war against Germany in 1936 rather than waiting to fight three years later after a vigorous German rearmament program, Silverstone argues that an important but overlooked reason for British leaders' rejection of the military option in 1936 was their fear that military action would not solve the security problems facing Britain and that it would contribute to an unstable and illegitimate postwar political order.Dale Copeland examines the Japanese decision for war against the United States in 1941. He argues that the anticipation of economic and military decline and future insecurity, fueled by depression-induced restrictive trade policies that would cut off Japan from badly needed resources, led Japanese decision makers to a desperate preventive war driven by better-now-than-later and lesser-of-two-evils logic.Preventive war is a state strategy to use military force to forestall an adverse shift in the distribution of power between two states. It is driven by the perception of a rising adversary, the anticipation of a decline in relative power, and the fear of the consequences of decline, which include diminishing bargaining leverage, the likelihood of escalating demands by an increasingly powerful adversary, and the risk of war under worse circumstances later.

Savaş Rasyonel Bi̇r Düellodan Mi İbaretti̇r? Savaşin Pazarlik Modeli̇’ne Bi̇r Eleşti̇ri̇

“…Thus, this uncertainty prevents other states from trusting each other, so incomplete information might cause a commitment problem. When there is ambiguity about the technology and investments of other state, the states initiate preventive wars 9 (Levy, 2011) because preventive war gives a chance to the states to strike before the balance of power shifts (Debs & Monteiro, 2014). 10 The mechanism of the model predicts that temptations for preventive war can be exacerbated by uncertainty about future intentions due to the commitment problems that might arise as a result of the informational problems.…”

Shifting Power, Commitment Problems, and Preventive War

“…As Levy () points out, Thucydides famously stated in The History of the Peloponnesian War that, “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that it inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable” (83). This quotation reflects the start of a long line of research that examines how changes in power, and the fear that it generates, can provide the incentive to initiate war (Organski and Kugler ; Niou and Ordeshook ; Gilpin ; Levy ).…”

Searching for non-aggressive targets

“…Political leaders may however prefer military force options especially when the opponent's power is relatively increasing. Leaders often use the 'better-nowthan-later' logic in order to justify their using force to their domestic audience, even when the anticipated result is a long, costly conflict (Levy, 1987(Levy, , 2011Copeland, 2000). For this reason, one might expect that unpopular leaders will prefer to provoke rising over declining states.…”