Strategic Militarization, Deterrence and Wars

Jackson, Matthew O.; Morelli, Massimo

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1081775

Cited by 26 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…In recent years, other scholars have elaborated on the concept of deterrence (Garfinkel ; Grossman and Kim ; Neary ; Chassang and Padro‐i‐Miquel ; Jackson and Morelli ; Jacobsson ). The added value of some of these models has been to endogenize militarization.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deterrence in Contests

Luca

Sekeris

2012

Economica

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This paper explores the role of deterrence in contests. As a general rule, we show that for a deterrence strategy to be played by rational agents, it is necessary that the contest be destructive. We show for a very general class of functions that pure strategy deterrence equilibria where contestants deter one another do not exist. A corollary of this finding is that under fairly general conditions, agents should always be expected to engage in contests. Applied to international relations, our results imply that war is always a potential outcome despite deterrence attempts.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deterrence in Contests

Luca

Sekeris

2012

Economica

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“…Some recent models, for instance Schwarz and Sonin (2007), Jackson and Morelli (2008), Chassang and i Miguel (2008), and Yared (2009), are rooted in the theory of repeated and/or dynamic games. Others such as Fearon (1995) and Glaeser (2005) place conflict in a signalling context.…”

Section: ]"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social memory, evidence, and conflict

Anderlini¹,

Gerardi²,

Lagunoff³

2010

Review of Economic Dynamics

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Abstract.This paper examines an equilibrium model of social memory -a society's vicarious beliefs about its past. We show that incorrect social memory is a key ingredient in creating and perpetuating destructive conflicts.We analyze an infinite-horizon model in which two countries face off each period in a game of conflict characterized by the possibility of mutually destructive "all out war" that yields catastrophic consequences for both sides. Each country is inhabited by a dynastic sequence of individuals. Each individual cares about future individuals in the same country, and can communicate with the next generation of their countrymen using private messages. Social memory is based on these messages, and on physical evidence -a sequence of imperfectly informative public signals of past behavior. We find that if the future is sufficiently important for all individuals, then regardless of the precision of physical evidence from the past there is an equilibrium in which the two countries engage in all out war with arbitrarily high frequency, an outcome that cannot arise in the standard repeated game. In our construction, each new generation "repeats the mistakes" of its predecessors, leading to an endless cycle of destructive behavior.Surprisingly, we find that degrading the quality of information that individuals have about current decisions may "improve" social memory. This in turn ensures that arbitrarily frequent all out wars cannot occur.JEL Classification: C72, C79, D80, D83, D89.

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“…However, there is no reason that Powell's (1993) model could be not be adapted to allow for within-period transfers and still yield conflict as a possible equilibirum outcome. Jackson and Morelli (2008) analyze a dynamic model similar to that of Powell and allow for mixed strategies, with conflict taking place for at least some realizations of mixed-streategy equilibria.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conflict, settlement, and the shadow of the future

McBride

Skaperdas

2014

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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In many instances of potential violent and non-violent conflict the future strategic positions of adversaries are very di erent when there is open conflict than when there is settlement. Then, as the future becomes more important, open conflict becomes more likely than settlement. We theoretically demonstrate this result and discuss its applicability in war, litigation, and other settings. We test for this e ect in a laboratory experiment and find that subjects are more likely to engage in risky conflict as the shadow of the future increases.JEL Classifications: C72, C91, D01, D74.

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Strategic Militarization, Deterrence and Wars

Cited by 26 publications

References 41 publications

Deterrence in Contests

Deterrence in Contests

Social memory, evidence, and conflict

Conflict, settlement, and the shadow of the future

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