IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/jlqjps/100.00009047.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic Militarization, Deterrence and Wars

Author

Listed:
  • Jackson, Matthew O.
  • Morelli, Massimo

Abstract

We study countries choosing armament levels and then whether or not to go to war. We show that if the costs of war are not overly high or low, then all equilibria must involve dove, hawk, and deterrent strategies and the probability of war is positive (but less than one) in any given period. Wars are between countries with differing armament levels and the frequency of wars is tempered by the presence of armament levels that are expressly chosen for their deterrent properties. As the probability of winning a war becomes more reactive to increased armament, the frequency of wars decreases . As it becomes increasingly possible to negotiate a credible settlement, the probability of peace increases, but the variance of armament levels increases and war becomes increasingly likely when negotiations break down.

Suggested Citation

  • Jackson, Matthew O. & Morelli, Massimo, 2009. "Strategic Militarization, Deterrence and Wars," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 4(4), pages 279-313, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00009047
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00009047
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00009047
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1561/100.00009047?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexandra Brausmann & Elise Grieg, 2020. "Resource Discoveries and the Political Survival of Dictators," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 20/345, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    2. Michael D. König & Dominic Rohner & Mathias Thoenig & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2016. "The Long-lasting Shadow of the Allied Occupation of Austria on its Spatial Equilibrium," HiCN Working Papers 231, Households in Conflict Network.
    3. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Syropoulos, Constantinos, 2021. "Self-enforcing peace agreements that preserve the status quo," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 148-178.
    4. Chan, Kenneth S. & Laffargue, Jean-Pierre, 2016. "Plunder and tribute in a Malthusian world," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 138-150.
    5. Berman, Nicolas & Couttenier, Mathieu & Monnet, Nathalie & Ticku, Rohit, 2022. "Shutdown policies and conflict worldwide," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 240-255.
    6. Tommy Andersson & Conan Mukherjee, 2021. "Seeking No War, Achieving No Peace: The Conflict over the Siachen Glacier," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 253-270, April.
    7. Matthew O. Jackson & Massimo Morelli, 2011. "The Reasons for Wars: An Updated Survey," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Coyne & Rachel L. Mathers (ed.), The Handbook on the Political Economy of War, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Bård Harstad & Francesco Lancia & Alessia Russo, 2019. "Compliance Technology and Self-enforcing Agreements," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-29.
    9. Morelli, Massimo & Meirowitz, Adam & Ramsay, Kristopher & Squintani, Francesco, 2019. "Third Party Intervention and Strategic Militarization," CEPR Discussion Papers 13879, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Petros G. Sekeris, 2014. "The tragedy of the commons in a violent world," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(3), pages 521-532, September.
    11. McBride, Michael & Skaperdas, Stergios, 2014. "Conflict, settlement, and the shadow of the future," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 75-89.
    12. Helios Herrera & Massimo Morelli & Salvatore Nunnari, 2022. "A Theory of Power Wars," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 17(1), pages 1-30, January.
    13. Andrea Canidio & Joan-Maria Esteban, 2018. "Benevolent Mediation in the Shadow of Conflict," Working Papers 1027, Barcelona School of Economics.
    14. Nakao, Keisuke, 2019. "Modeling Deterrence by Denial and by Punishment," MPRA Paper 95100, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Daron Acemoglu & Mikhail Golosov & Aleh Tsyvinski & Pierre Yared, 2012. "A Dynamic Theory of Resource Wars," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 283-331.
    16. Hodler, Roland & Yektaş, Hadi, 2012. "All-pay war," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 526-540.
    17. Adam Meirowitz & Massimo Morelli & Kristopher W. Ramsay & Francesco Squintani, 2019. "Dispute Resolution Institutions and Strategic Militarization," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 378-418.
    18. Sylvain Chassang & Gerard Padró I Miquel, 2010. "Conflict and Deterrence Under Strategic Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1821-1858.
    19. M. Christian Lehmann, 2020. "Aiding refugees, aiding peace?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1687-1704, September.
    20. Edoardo Grillo & Antonio Nicolò, 2022. "Learning it the hard way: Conflicts, economic sanctions and military aids," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0284, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    21. Giacomo De Luca & Petros G. Sekeris, 2013. "Deterrence in Contests," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 80(317), pages 171-189, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00009047. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lucy Wiseman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nowpublishers.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.