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Arms Races and Cooperation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

George W. Downs ,
David M. Rocke  and
Randolph M. Siverson
George W. Downs
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
David M. Rocke
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
Randolph M. Siverson
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
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Abstract

States interested in reducing the level of arms competition with a rival can employ a variety of strategies designed to promote cooperation. We examine the ability of three important strategies—unilateral action, tacit bargaining, and negotiation—to reduce the intensity of arms races motivated by different patterns of preferences and complicated by different sources of uncertainty. The latter include strategic misrepresentation, imperfect intelligence, problems of interpretation, and problems of control. Examples are drawn from 19th- and 20th-century arms races that did not result in war.

Type
Part II: Applications to Security Affairs
Information
World Politics , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , October 1985 , pp. 118 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1985

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References

1 jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976Google Scholar); and, more notably, Jervis, , “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 (January 1978), 167–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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4 Both Huntington, Samuel, in “Arms Races: Prerequisites and Results” Public Policy 8 (1958), 41–86Google Scholar, and Kennedy, Paul, in Strategy and Diplomacy (Ayelsbury, England: Fontana, 1984), 163Google Scholar–78, offer examples of arms races that did not result in war. Huntington's list, which is the more comprehensive of the two, follows: 1. France vs. England 1840–1866 2. France vs. Germany 1874–1894 3. England vs. France and Russia 1884–1904 4. Argentina vs. Chile 1890–1902 5. England vs. Germany 1898–1912 6. England vs. United States 1916–1930 7. Japan vs. United States 1916–1922 8. United States vs. Soviet Union 1946-Kennedy, who concentrates his attention upon only the major powers, recognizes all of the above except Argentina and Chile between 1890 and 1902; there are minor differences in some of the dates.

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6 The key here is the preference structure; for our purposes, the other conditions for a 2 × 2 game do not necessarily have to hold. The sequential-play-of-the-game structure seems the most reasonable in spite of Wagner's argument that one should allow each placer to act conditionally on knowledge of the other's play. See Wagner, R. Harrison, “The Theory of Games and the Problem of International Cooperation,” American Political Science Review 77 (June 1983), 330CrossRefGoogle Scholar–46. This seems more like defining away the problem than solving it: if information moves quickly enough and control is fine enough so that one can respond to an opponent's move after one week, then one models this as a-game-a-week. The analysis in extensive form that is used by Wagner seems unnecessarily cumbersome.

7 In order to reduce the number of cases that have to be discussed, the analysis here is carried on with respect to the payoffs of one of the participants rather than to those of the whole game. Once the analysis of the individual orderings has been made, the actual games can be constructed using combinations of preference patterns. Terms such as “Prisoners' Dilemma,” which conventionally refer to symmetric games, are also used for the preference pattern of one of the participants.

8 The game Chicken, which violates this condition, has been used by several authors for representing conflict situations. For an example, see Snyder, Glen and Diesing, Paul, Conflict Among Nations: Bargaining, Decision-Making, and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977Google Scholar). Chicken is highly unstable, however, and not a realistic model for an arms race as continual defection.

9 We shall see later that some of these excluded games can lead to arms races when the assumption of perfect information is relaxed.

10 The terminology for the various games is presented in Snyder and Diesing (fn. 8) and [ervis (fn. 1). Snyder and Diesing use a different selection of games since they are interested in international crises—events of short duration—rather than the more extended arena of arms races. Jervis focuses mostly on Stag Hunt, which is an important sub-case that we deal with in a subsequent section.

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21 The question of whether it will in fact slow the arms race is a complex one. One could argue that the other side will build fewer offensive weapons since the marginal benefit of each is reduced; one could also argue that more will be built since more will be required to obtain a given objective. Without further assumptions, either result is possible. Suppose that one side established defenses so that each weapon of the other side is 10% less effective than it was. This has two simultaneous effects. First, it raises by 10% the price of what might be called a weapon effectiveness unit; that is, the amount of a weapon required to accomplish a given objective. Second, it increases the number of weapons required per weapon effectiveness unit by 10%. If the price elasticity of demand for weapon effectiveness units is — I, then the 10% increase in price will result in a 10% decrease in the number of weapon effectiveness units purchased. However, since 10% more weapons are needed for each effectiveness unit, the number of weapons remains the same. If this elasticity is greater than — i (say — 0.5), the number of weapons built will increase; whereas, if the elasticity is less than — 1 (say — 1.5), the number of weapons built will decrease.

22 Raiffa (fn. 3), 131 ff.

23 Axelrod (fn. 2).

24 Stephen Van Evera, “Why Cooperation Failed in 1914,” pp. 80–117 of this collection.

25 Cobden (fn. 5).

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50 Schelling, Thomas, “Reciprocal Measures for Arms Stabilization,” in Brennan, Donald, ed., Arms Control, Disarmaments, and National Security (New York: George Braziller, 1961), 175Google Scholar. More recently, Russell Leng has shown the effectiveness of reciprocity-based tactics in Soviet-American relations. “Reagan and the Russians: Crisis Bargaining Beliefs and the Historical Record,” American Political Science Review 78 (June 1984), 338CrossRefGoogle Scholar–55.

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