EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The Elusive Quest for Disarmed Peace: Contest Games and International Relations

Johann Caro-Burnett, Sebastian Galiani and Gustavo Torrens

No 31343, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper extends the canonical security competition one-shot game by developing a dynamic framework where states can invest in a technology to eliminate their rival. The model includes a settlement stage for negotiation, stochastic contestable resources, and it assumes diplomacy never fails–so payoff-dominated equilibria are not played. Within this setting, we fully characterize equilibrium behavior for all discount factors, comparing cases with high and low elimination costs. The dynamic structure reveals why, even when states coordinate on the best possible equilibrium outcome, long-lasting disarmed peace is rare. By combining the escalation of military capabilities with the constraining implications of effective diplomacy, the model rationalizes the persistent cycles of peace, arms races, and conflict observed in history. Our approach identifies strategic mechanisms that restrict the sustainability of disarmament and clarifies the conditions under which arms races or conflict are inevitable. These findings offer a deeper understanding of the recurrent nature of international conflict under repeated interaction.

JEL-codes: F5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth
Note: DEV
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31343.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31343

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31343

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().

 
Page updated 2025-09-05
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31343