The Rational Origins of Revisionist War

• In Event: Assessing War

Abstract

Bargaining models of war usually argue that, during a power transition, it should be the declining state, not the rising one, that initiates a conflict. This prediction does not accurately describe most great power shifts: during these upheavals, it is usually the rising power that starts a war. Less formal theories, especially realist ones, do a better job predicting that rising powers will start wars, but most of these either remain unclear about the mechanism linking power transitions to war or retreat to non-rational mechanisms to spark conflict. This paper attempts to reconcile these literatures. It seeks to ground realist ideas about revisionist war on rationalist foundations. To do so, it amends the standard bargaining model to explain why a rising country would start a revisionist war; it also shows how formal models can extend traditional realist insights to generate novel predictions relating military power to the likelihood of war. The analysis suggests that power transitions are most peaceful when the declining power invests in offensive military technology and when two challengers are rising simultaneously. The implications for U.S. foreign policy are clear: to avoid conflict with a rising China, the U.S. should enhance its offensive capabilities in the Far East, and it should seek to incorporate a rising India as quickly as possible into the American order. Moreover, we should be concerned by Chinese advances even in purely defensive capabilities.

Author

• Richard Pell Jordan, Baylor University