The “Long Peace†—

Alvin M. Saperstein
Additional contact information
Alvin M. Saperstein: Wayne State University

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1991, vol. 35, issue 1, 68-79

Abstract: One of the reasons advanced for the absence of a major war between the two superpowers during the forty-five years of their enmity since World War II is that the world system in which they functioned was essentially bipolar and hence, presumably, inherently more stable than previous multipolar worlds. Given the recent decline in the power of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. relative to the rest of the world, it is important to test the validity of this presumption. A nonlinear mathematical model of international competition is presented in which the transition from predictable laminar to unpredictable turbulent flow is the model manifestation of the transition from cold to hot war in the world system being modelled. The model is a tripolar competition which arises continuously from a bipolar system as a coupling parameter is varied. Thus the realm of nonchaotic, stable, competition can be examined as a function of the coupling parameter. It is found that the regime of stability decreases as the system complexity increases. Thus the simple model lends credence to the presumption that a tripolar world is inherently less stable than the corresponding bipolar world.

Date: 1991
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002791035001004 (text/html)

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:sae:jocore:v:35:y:1991:i:1:p:68-79

DOI: 10.1177/0022002791035001004

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().