Taking Arms Against a Sea of Troubles: Conventional Arms Races During Periods of Rivalry

Abstract

This article revisits the arms race to war relationship with the hope of resolving a lingering debate in international relations over the effects of arms races. Previous empirical studies in this area suffered from a possible selection effect, rendering them unable to differentiate between the escalatory and deterrent effects of arms races. Specifically, earlier quantitative investigations were unable to test deterrence hypotheses, because the unit of analysis (dispute) presupposed that deterrence had already failed in preventing dispute onset. In order to take the possibility of deterrence seriously, a dataset is constructed that identifies arms races independently of dispute occurrence. This article improves on previous studies in that a measure of interdependent arming exogenous to dispute initiation allows for a test of whether arms races actually deter the onset of militarized disputes or contribute to dispute escalation. Both the deterrence and escalation hypotheses are tested using a sample of ‘strategic rivals’ from 1816 to 1993. The analyses reveal that arms races increase the likelihood of disputes and war. Furthermore, to account for the possibility that the arms race to war relationship may be spurious to dyadic hostilities accounting for both arms races and war, a selection model is employed that differentiates between dispute and war processes. This indicates that arms races do not contribute to deterrence and are instead associated with both disputes and war.

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.…”

Spurred by Threats or Afraid of War? A Survey Experiment on Costs of Conflict in Support for Military Action

“…Most existing work on arming have focused on the incentives of leaders to arm in the presence of perceived threats from other states and the desire to deter the opponent from aggression (Jervis 1978, Rider, Findley andDiehl 2011). However, arming is itself costly, and the consequences are ambiguous; deterrence may fail, and arms races may increase the risks of military con ict (Gibler, Rider and Hutchison 2005, Maoz 1990, Rider 2009). Accordingly, if individuals are sensitive to the potential risk of con ict and more risk averse than leaders, they should be less likely to support belligerent policies that risk escalation and arms races, and when the potential costs of con ict are high (Levy 1992;1997, de Heus, Hoogervorst andvan Dijk 2010).…”

Nonviolent Conflict Escalation

“…Military academies have studied this for centuries. Within peace and conflict studies, violent escalation has been studied from the perspective of the arms race, rivalries, militarized interstate disputes, and the risk of war (Gibler, Toby, and Hutchison 2005 ; Petersen 2010 ; Rasler and Thompson 2006 ). However, from studies of violence, it is well known that escalation of method is just one aspect of engaging the enemy.…”