A theorem on the existence of zones of initiation and deterrence in Intriligator-Brito arms race models
✍ Scribed by Murray Wolfson
- Publisher
- Springer US
- Year
- 1987
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 287 KB
- Volume
- 54
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0048-5829
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
have published two influential models of the arms race that conflict with one another when pushed to their logical conclusions. In their essay in Public Choice (PC) (1980) they argue that nuclear missile proliferation can reduce the danger of war. Using combinatorial methods they claim that with each new entrant into the nuclear club the probability increases that any winner of a bipolar conflict would itself be attacked by a third antagonist. In the Journal of Conflict Resolution (JCR) (Intriligator and Brito, 1984) and in the Journal of Political Economy (Intriligator, 1975), they offer a deterrence model between two nuclear powers. The substance of their conclusion is that the maintenance of peace requires that the arms race remain within a zone of mutual deterrence requiring high levels of missile stocks, and out of the zone of war initiation at low levels of nuclear arms. In this paper, I shall show that the proliferation envisaged in the PC makes the existence of non-negative zones of deterrence increasingly implausible in the JCR model. I will then draw some general conclusions about strategy for the avoidance of war.