Arms Race Instability and War

Smith, Theresa C.

doi:10.1177/002200278002400204

Cited by 26 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Despite numerous empirical analyses, the puzzle of whether alliances and arms races deter or promote war remains unresolved. There are a number of methodological problems that have plagued arms race analyses, ranging from attempts to capture the mutual stimulation presumably implicit to an arms race to questions about what best captures the process of military buildups (for instance, military expenditures vs. weapon systems) or which cases need to be studied to be able to assess a genuine causal push to war from arms racing (compare, among others, Altfeld 1983; Diehl 1983, 1985; Diehl and Crescenszi 1998; Houweling and Siccama 1981; Sample 1997, 1998; Siverson and Diehl 1989; Smith 1980; Wallace 1979; Weede 1980). Alliances possess their own heterogeneous complications.…”

Section: Alliances Arms Races and Rivalry In Retrospectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alliances, Arms Buildups and Recurrent Conflict: Testing a Steps-to-War Model

Colaresi

Thompson

2005

The Journal of Politics

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Alliances and arms races have received considerable attention in the causes-of-war literature. While a large amount of empirical research has pursued these topics separately, multivariate conditional combinations of these processes have been relatively scarce to date. An argument for doing so is provided by Vasquez's steps-to-war theory which organizes international relations into an interactive complex of factors, including territorial disputes, interstate rivalry, recurrent crises, alliances, military buildups, and war onset. A model linking indicators of these processes is developed and tested for the 1919-95 era. Substantial empirical support for their interactions emerges. Territorial disputes in the context of rivalry and recurrent crises, aggravated by military buildups and asymmetrical external alliance situations, combine to make escalations to war more probable. Hopefully, an improved understanding of interstate escalatory dynamics can serve as a foundation and stimulus for more interactive attempts to unravel the puzzle of war causation.

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Section: Alliances Arms Races and Rivalry In Retrospectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alliances, Arms Buildups and Recurrent Conflict: Testing a Steps-to-War Model

Colaresi

Thompson

2005

The Journal of Politics

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“…When modeling interactions, Richardson implicitly assumed a pattern of mutual sensitivity : if X reacted to Y, Y reacted to X (see Wagner, Perkins & Taagepera (1975), or Smith (1980) for recent treatments along these lines; and Majeski & Jones (1981) for a research design and results explicitly testing this assumption). The notion of reacting through allies or other proxies was possible to encompass in an n-person model (which Richardson 1960, Ch.…”

Section: Letmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In sharp contrast, Ostrom (1977), who prefers an organizational politics interpretation of military goods fluctuation, uses defense expenditures data uncontrolled for inflation ('even though defense policy makers may make calculations in constant dollars, the budget is proposed, appropriated, and spent in current dollars'). Still others prefer total defense expenditures controlled for price fluctuations (Lambelet, Luterbacher & Allan 1979;Majesky & Jones 1981;Sabrosky 1975;Smith 1980;Wallace 1979; and others), presumably because deflated estimates are both more comparable across countries (expressed in $ US millions, usually), and through time, thus indicating roughly the level of military capability being built and maintained. Yet others have shown that Richardson's approach can even be applied to negotiations data (Hoppman & Smith 1970), specifically the Soviet testban negotiation of 1962-63.…”

Section: Statistical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS-X) was used to perform multiple regressions on each country's military expenditures data, varying the explanatory variables in accordance with different versions of the Richardson process model. Unlike the work ofWallace (1979) orSmith (1980), specific pairs of countries were not assumed a priori to be engaged in arms races during some historical period. Since it was desired to relax various of Richardson's assumptions, such a research design would have been too restrictive.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Richardson Processes and Arms Transfers, 1971-1980: A Preliminary Analysis

Chadwick

1986

Journal of Peace Research

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Arms transfers to Asian countries seem to effect an increase in military expenditures of their neighbors. An examination of Australia, US and USSR military expenditure patterns for 1971-80 in an Asian context indicates sensitivity to arms transfers and US 'containment policy' in Asian countries. Analyses of other Asian countries (from Afghanistan to Japan) lead to similar conclusions. Lewis Fry Richardson's theory is employed in a manner which allows alternative hypotheses to be tested, supplementing his original 'arms race' formulation. Burden sharing, cooperation, and compliance among allies, and asymmetric responses to perceived threat, are among the alternatives studied. Economic burden does not appear to affect significantly many Asian countries' ability to increase military expenditures, at least in the manner Richardson proposed, but this result may be due to the relatively low burden currently placed on the economies of most countries studied. It is concluded that Richardson's theory and general methodology may still be useful not only for the policy purposes he originally intended, but also for obtaining quantitative implications of military spending for long term problems such as environmental degradation, economic and political development, and social change. This can be accomplished by embedding equations similar to his into global macroeconomic and political models.

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“…Elsewhere the deterrent value of arms racing is argued to be low and to tend to diminish over time, through decay of credible threat, proliferation, cumulative risk of crisis, or other reasons (Smith 1980;. Here the defense value of arms racing is argued to have also been over-rated, if military casualties, length of war, and war nation-months are the variables to be minimized by defense.…”

Section: Intraduetianmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Insurance Factor? An Assessment of War Costs

Smith

1985

Journal of Peace Research

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The arms racing literature includes studies of definitional questions, identification of racers, mathematical modelling, and assessments of the risks or benefits of ongoing races. The nature of the relationship between arms racing and the outbreak of interstate war has also received some attention. Relatively little theoretical or empirical work has been directed to the questions of whether wars following arms racing differ systematically from other conflicts. Contrary to some recent assessments, arms race-related wars are argued here to be on the average of greater duration, magnitude, and severity than are other wars. In the Correlates of War data, arms race-connected wars as a separate class of events exact significantly higher casualties and tend to be somewhat longer in both calendar-and and nation-months than other wars. Significant differences exist in the entire sample, and in the sample of wars remaining after the outliers have been removed, which argues that the effects uncovered are not statistical accidents and are not artifacts of unusually lengthy or extensive wars.

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Arms Race Instability and War

Cited by 26 publications

References 12 publications

Alliances, Arms Buildups and Recurrent Conflict: Testing a Steps-to-War Model

Alliances, Arms Buildups and Recurrent Conflict: Testing a Steps-to-War Model

Richardson Processes and Arms Transfers, 1971-1980: A Preliminary Analysis

The Insurance Factor? An Assessment of War Costs

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