Rational Deterrence and Crisis Stability

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6232075
AutoresJean-Pierre P Langlois (autor de correspondencia)
Año1991
Volumen35
Número4
Páginas801
Fecha de publicación1991-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0092-5853 • E-ISSN: 1540-5907
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2111495
OpenAlexW2313488430
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas10

This paper presents a new theoretic model of nuclear crises that maintains consistency with the usual chicken and prisoner's dilemma metaphors. Within a repeated continuous game framework, it establishes the existence of totally credible (because always optimal) deterrence strategies that are the expression of threats of graduated retaliations in response to an encroachment of status quo. Drawing a careful distinction between the three fundamental kinds of nuclear threats (the risk of losing control, the graduated response, and the massive retaliation), the theory predicts that a hawkish stand in response to aggression by an approximately equal nuclear opponent leads to an almost certain nuclear disaster. A completely dovish approach invites exploitation by a hawkish opponent who can maneuver a partial victory. A successful policy involves retaliations that are at first but that become increasingly if the opponent refuses to compromise. A firm and restrained strategy forces a rational opponent into a similar behavior. The result is a safe return to the status quo ante (i.e., crisis stability). The theory is illustrated by a numerical simulation of the Cuban Missile Crisis showing the outcomes of various strategies available to the United States and the Soviet Union. The simulation and the theory suggest a reformulation of nuclear strategies: the key to credibility and crisis stability lies in the threat to exact costs that cancel any prior benefit from aggression, not in the promise to impose equal or greater punishments

Adversary · Compromise · Computer security · Credibility · Deterrence theory · Dilemma · Economics · Law and economics · Market economy · Nuclear weapon · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Status quo · Victory · Wishful thinking · Computer Science · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Game Theory and Applications · Law · Mathematics · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Psychology · Social Psychology