War and peace: Third-party intervention in conflict

This paper develops a simple sequential-move game to characterize the endogeneity of third-party intervention in conflict. We show how a third party's “intervention technology” interacts with the canonical “conflict technologies” of two rival parties in affecting the sub-game perfect Nash equil...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:European Journal of Political Economy 2007-12, Vol.23 (4), p.954-974
Main Authors: Chang, Yang-Ming, Potter, Joel, Sanders, Shane
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Conflict
Cost analysis
Deterrence
Economic Theories
Game theory
Military Intervention
Nash equilibrium
Peace
Strategic behaviour
Territorial conflict
Third-party intervention
War
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper develops a simple sequential-move game to characterize the endogeneity of third-party intervention in conflict. We show how a third party's “intervention technology” interacts with the canonical “conflict technologies” of two rival parties in affecting the sub-game perfect Nash equilibrium outcome. From the perspective of deterrence strategy, we find that it is more costly for a third party to support an ally to deter a challenger from attacking (i.e., to maintain peace or acquiescence), as compared to the alternative case when the third party supports the ally to gain a disputed territory by attacking (i.e., to create war), ceteris paribus. However, an optimally intervening third party can be either “peace-making”, “peace-breaking”, or neither depending on the characteristics of the conflict and the stakes the third party holds with each of the rival parties.
ISSN:0176-2680
1873-5703
DOI:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2006.11.002