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Cooperation under the Security Dilemma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Robert Jervis
Robert Jervis
Affiliation:
Political Science at U.C.L.A.
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Abstract

International anarchy and the resulting security dilemma (i.e., policies which increase one state's security tend to decrease that of others) make it difficult for states to realize their common interests. Two approaches are used to show when and why this dilemma operates less strongly and cooperation is more likely. First, the model of the Prisoner's Dilemma is used to demonstrate that cooperation is more likely when the costs of being exploited and the gains of exploiting others are low, when the gains from mutual cooperation and the costs of mutual noncooperation are high, and when each side expects the other to cooperate. Second, the security dilemma is ameliorated when the defense has the advantage over the offense and when defensive postures differ from offensive ones. These two variables, which can generate four possible security worlds, are influenced by geography and technology.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , January 1978 , pp. 167 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1978

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References

1 This kind of rank-ordering is not entirely an analyst's invention, as is shown by the following section of a British army memo of 1903 dealing with British and Russian railroad construction near the Persia-Afghanistan border:

The conditions of the problem may … be briefly summarized as follows:

(a) If we make a railway to Seistan while Russia remains inactive, we gain a considerable defensive advantage at considerable financial cost;

(b) If Russia makes a railway to Seistan, while we remain inactive, she gains a considerable offensive advantage at considerable financial cost;

(c) If both we and Russia make railways to Seistan, the defensive and offensive advantages may be held to neutralize each other; in other words, we shall have spent a good deal of money and be no better off than we are at present. On the other hand, we shall be no worse off, whereas under alternative (b) we shall be much worse off. Consequently, the theoretical balance of advantage lies with the proposed railway extension from Quetta to Seistan.

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