Military Coercion in Interstate Crises

在国家间危机中，国家可以使用什么策略来实现其目标？这些策略导致战争的可能性有多大？危机行为是在权力的阴影下讨价还价：行为者威胁使用武力，或使用有限的武力，以迫使对手让步。威胁必须可信才能有效：尽管存在避免代价的诱惑，但坚持到底必须符合一方的利益。因此，可信地承诺使用武力的能力是危机谈判的核心。虽然学者们已经研究了行动者如何在不确定性使虚张声势成为可能的环境中传达他们的承诺，但他们并没有探讨行动者如何通过他们的行动来重组环境本身。军事行动，如军备积累、部队动员和部署，可以作为一种信号，但也可以通过提高使用武力的预期回报来改变战略形势。这些都是心照不宣的讨价还价动作，可以用来创造自己的承诺或破坏对手的承诺。尽管我们知道无法做出可信承诺的后果，但我们对做出承诺的过程本身却知之甚少。科学目标本项目调查出于强制目的而使用军事行动。运用一系列的博弈论数学模型，研究了军事仪器在建立承诺和传递承诺方面的应用。需要探讨的问题包括：军事技术对危机稳定和先发制人战争的影响；对手的不确定性如何激发了虚张声势的动机，而这种动机又如何被破坏；某些举动可能具有挑衅性和不稳定性；外交谈判如何与心照不宣的讨价还价相结合；资源限制如何影响以有利于自己的方式和平解决危机的能力；一旦战争开始，承诺过程如何延长；以及如何利用这个工具来结束战争。该项目并不完全是理论性的：一个重要的组成部分包括详细的历史案例研究，以及使用专门为该项目收集的数据对理论模型得出的假设进行仔细的统计检验。更广泛的社会价值这个项目旨在完善国际关系理论，但它的贡献更广泛。虽然理论上的发展是非常技术性的，但由于其对强制使用武力的影响，其局限性和潜在危险，结果将传达给更广泛的受众。企图使用军事手段来达到强制目的，可能会产生领导人试图避免的战争，而不是错误的。

What strategies can states use to achieve their goals in interstate crises? How likely are these strategies to result in war? Crisis behavior is bargaining in the shadow of power: actors employ threats to use force, or engage in limited uses of force, to coerce their opponent and secure concessions. Threats must be credible to be effective: it must be in one's interest to follow through despite the temptation to avoid their costs. Hence, the ability to credibly commit to the use of force is at the heart of crisis bargaining. Whereas scholars have investigated how actors can communicate their commitments in an environment where uncertainty makes bluffing possible, they have not explored how actors can restructure the environment itself through their actions. Military moves, such as arms buildups and troop mobilization and deployments, can serve as signals, but can also alter the strategic situation by improving one's expected payoff from the use of force. These are tacit bargaining moves that can be used to create one's own commitment or undermine the opponent's. Even though we know about the consequences of the inability to commit credibly, we do not know much about the process of creating commitments themselves.Scientific ObjectivesThis project investigates the use of military moves for coercive purposes. It uses a series of gametheoretic mathematical models to study the use of the military instrument to establish commitments and communicate them. Among the questions to be explored are: the impact of military technology on crisis stability and the use of preemptive war; how uncertainty about opponents creates incentives for bluffing, and how these can be undermined; how certain moves may be provocative and destabilizing; how diplomatic negotiation can be used alongside tacit bargaining moves; how resource constraints affect the ability to resolve crises peacefully to one's advantage; how the commitment process extends once war begins; and how the instrument can be used to terminate the war. The project is not entirely theoretical: a significant component involves detailed historical case studies and careful statistical testing of hypotheses derived from the theoretical model using data specifically collected for this project.Broader Social ValueThis project aims to improve international relations theory, but it makes broader contributions. Although the theoretical development is very technical, the results will be communicated to a wider audience because of their implications for the coercive use of force, its limits, and potential dangers. The attempt to use the military instrument for coercive purposes may produce the war leaders were trying to avoid, and not by mistake.