EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

A Theory of Armament

Ido Oren
Additional contact information
Ido Oren: University of Minnesota

Conflict Management and Peace Science, 1998, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-29

Abstract: I develop a theory explaining how states decide how much armament to acquire. The theory treats states as unitary optimizers choosing between guns and butter, and it offers a novel exposition of the role intentions play in armament decisions-how they are perceived, and how their assessment interacts with the assessment of power. One of the results deduced from the theory is that if statesmen worry about intentions more than about power, then high arms levels possessed by one state will be matched by low arms levels possessed by another, this prediction sharply contradicts conventional wisdom about the nature of arms-races. Statistical analysis of the Superpowers' cold war interaction-which supports the theory-is briefly discussed.

Date: 1998
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/073889429801600101 (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:compsc:v:16:y:1998:i:1:p:1-29

DOI: 10.1177/073889429801600101

Access Statistics for this article

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

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:sae:compsc:v:16:y:1998:i:1:p:1-29