Proliferation and the Probability of War

Dagobert Brito and Michael Intriligator

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1996, vol. 40, issue 1, 206-214

Abstract: To determine formally the effects of nuclear proliferation on the probability of a deliberate nuclear war requires more than just qualitative assertions about the change in the probability that an individual nation will initiate a deliberate nuclear war as the number of nuclear powers increases. For a model to predict that an increase in the number of nuclear powers will increase or decrease the probability of a deliberate nuclear war, it is necessary that it be able to predict the cardinality of the change in the probability that any one nation will initiate a nuclear war. Inasmuch as this is beyond the capability of most models in economics and political science, the formal debate on this issue should be viewed with caution. It is likely that the dominant factor when considering the effect of proliferation on the probability of a nuclear war is that it will occur as a result of an accident or other inadvertent behavior.

Date: 1996
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002796040001009 (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:40:y:1996:i:1:p:206-214

DOI: 10.1177/0022002796040001009

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 ().