MIDs and enduring rivalries

Question 1

what are the ten general wars?

Answer 1

1). Italian Wars 1494-1517
(2). War of Dutch Independence 1585-1609
(3). Thirty Years’ War 1618-1648
(4). Wars of Louis XIV 1689-1700
(5). War of Spanish Succession 1701-1714
(6). War of Austrian Succession 1739-1748
(7). Seven Years’ War 1755-1763
(8). French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1792-1815
(9). First World War 1914-1918
(10). Second World War 1939-1945

Question 2

since 1945, what are the most war-prone regions ranked?

Answer 2

• the Middle East,
• Asia,
• Latin America,
• Africa,
• and then Europe.

Question 3

what are the prerequisite to be a great power?

Answer 3

1). 10% of global power base to qualify;
(2). and not defeated decisively by another great power

Question 4

what are the phases of the great powers?

Answer 4

1816-1859: England, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary
1860-1864: England, France, Russia
1865-1899: England, France, Russia, Prussia/Germany
1900-1934: U.S., England, France, Germany, Russia/Soviet Union
1935-1945: U.S., England, Soviet Union, Germany
1946-1949: U.S., Soviet Union, England
1950-1976: U.S., Soviet Union, PRC

Question 5

what is the word that means close to each other

Answer 5

Contiguous

Question 6

what does MIDs mean

Answer 6

Militarized Inter-state disputes

Question 7

what is the definition of a MID

Answer 7

interaction between or among states involving the threat of force( blockade, threat to occupy territoty ), display of force ( alert, mobilization ) or actual use of force ( seizure, declaration of war) of force between state.
These must be explicit, overt, non-accidental and government-sanctioned.
MID is considered to have ended if after six months no state have taken an action.

Question 8

how much MIDs escalate to war?

Answer 8

5%

Question 9

72% of MIDs are what?

Answer 9

dyadic

Question 10

what are ER

Answer 10

Enduring Rivalries is a hostile military confrontation between two state punctuated by disputes that may also include war.

Question 11

what are the three categories that defines ER?

Answer 11

o Severity condition: # of MIDs to be ER.
o Continuity condition: max gap in years between MIDs to be an ER.
o Termination condition: time passed for an ER to end.

Question 12

what is the criteria of time ( in convention ) for a conflict to be a MID of a ER?

Answer 12

3-5 MIDs= proto rivalry
6+= ER

Question 13

why do ER matter?

Answer 13

45% of MIDs occurred within ER ( since 1816). ex.
53% of all inter-state wars occured within an ER. The remaining 31% of wars occred in dyadic rivalries that were too short to be classified as an ER
- 10 of 12 great power wars since 1816 have begun with ERs
- Disputes in an ER are 2 to 8 times as likely to escalate as disputes outside of ER
- Territorial changes within an ER are three times as likely to be violent as non-ER disputes
THEREFORE: If we want to understand most wars, we have to focus on these ERs. They are not necessarily causes of war, but they seem to concentrate causes within their dynamic.

Question 14

how do most ER begin?

Answer 14

87% of enduring rivalries begin with a system shock like the formation of one of the states, a world war, or revolution. Systemic shocks were among the most important shocks: fundemental realignments of the international system.
- Newly independent states account for a disproportionate number of disputes.
EG: Greece-Turkey (Greek independence), Israel-Arabs (Foundation of Israel), India-Pakistan (colonial independence), US-USSR (end of WWII), ROC-PRC (Communist Revolution) etc

Question 15

ROCK: how can ER terminate?

Answer 15

o (1) Economically complementary;
 EG: The British and US economic trade goals were mutually exclusive: the British had an exclusive Empire.
o (2) Culturally compatible;
 EG: The British and the U.S. had common grounds for communication.
o (3) Not in political competition.
 EG: Neither sought to exclude the other politically on the world stage.

Question 16

Hensel found that ERs that do not terminate early tend to…

Answer 16

endure

Question 17

what are the odds of war happening

Answer 17

War is a statistically rare given the total possible opportunities for war.
There is a near-infinite potential for war but very few actual wars given possible dyads: 85 wars out of 200,778 dyad-years (1816-1965).

Question 18

Extra facts about general wars (6)

Answer 18

-All of these are also aggregates of smaller wars
- Non-European wars tended not to have systemic effects because only Europeans controlled the oceans through the navies that is the prerequisite for systemic effects.
- Almost all of the global wars included commerce raiding
- 1816-1918 - most militarized disputes (including war) were European
- Since 1945, the most war prone regions have been, ranked, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Africa and then Europe
- Trend changes indicate that Africa has bypassed all but Asia to be the second most violent continent for inter-state violence

Question 19

who participates in war?

Answer 19

-Most wars are by major powers and half of all interstate disputes by major powers
- Great power wars are becoming less frequent but are becoming more sever

Question 20

great powers in history? 13

Answer 20

Ottoman Empire 1495-1699
Spain 1495-1808
Holland 1609-1713
Sweden 1617-1721
Great Britain 1495-1945
France 1495-1940
Russia/Soviet Union 1721+
Austria-Hungary 1495-1918
Prussia/Germany 1740-1945
Italy 1860-1943
United States 1898+
Japan 1895-1945
China 1949+

Question 21

facts about war 5

Answer 21

• Contiguous states are 35 times more likely to engage in war
• For 1816-2001, 26.5% (708/2,671) disputes were over territorial isues. 47.7% (61/128) of wars involved territorial issues. Territorial disputed are the most war-prone.
• War is 30% more likely between dyads with small and medium power differences.
• The most peaceful dyad consists of cono-contiguous, minor powers with allies, democratic, unmilitaries, in which one state is much larger than the smallerExpected outcome: 0.003 wars per 100 years. Most war prone dyad would result in 3.29 wars per 100 years.
• Militarized dispute outcomes succeed at resolving issues just 10% of the time, a compared with binding third party arbitration (77%) and mediation (10%)

Question 22

what are Hostility levels in MIDs

Answer 22

1. No militarized action
2. Threat to use force (103)
3. Display of force (569)
4. Use of force (1553)
5. War (107)

Question 23

Patterns of MIDS in the International System

Answer 23

• 2,586 from 1816-2010
• Each dispute has an average of 2.4 participants
• 72% of MIDs are dyadic
• 30 states have initiated over 70% of MIDs, and these were the primary targets in over 60% of all MIDs, and 9 of 10 most dispute prone states are major powers.
• Major powers are more likely to escalate disputes, but minor powers, once escalates are more likely to escalate to war.
• Major on major powers MIDs are most likely to escalate
• Major powers are more likely to initiate disputes with minor powers than the reverse

Question 24

Nuclear weapons and MIDs

Answer 24

no impact on the frequency and level of disputes but it has shifted disputes from the major to the minor powers: major power disputes declined from 50-75% before 1945 to 33% after 1945
EG after the Cubal Missile Crisis, US-Soviet diputes declined sharply, there was some learning here, which lef to managed peace, or ddetente, between these two great powers.
major powers use minor powers to fight their proxy conflicts for them?.
However, many scholars have argued that proxy conflicts don’t exist.
Scheptics argue that in the case of Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Latin America, the superpowers were actually manipulated by regional powers.

Question 25

War intensity (# actors) and Frequency

Answer 25

Inverse relationship between war intensity and war frequency ( 1820-1997): A 10-fold increase in war severity decreases the subsequent probability of war by a factor of 2.6.
- Multiparty MIDs last longer
- EG First World War: Serbian-Austro-Hungarian dispute ultimately involved almost every major power in the system (incl. Japan). It persisted for a long time.
- Criticism: There has been very little effort to demonstrate what causes MIDs to happen, and too much focus on them as causes when they are actually effects of underlying causes such as regime types, power distributions, and planning. We therefore must also ask why disputes don’t occur at certain times. (EG The North-South Korean: impasses but few MIDs)

Question 26

ER Statistics

Answer 26

There are 115 rivalries over the period 1816-2001. 80% of rivalries are power asymetric, such as the US and Haiti, with 42% enduring for 13+ MIDs: this is interesting since we’d expect the more powerful state to prevail. 65% of disputes in enduring rivalries occur within 2 years.

Question 27

How do Enduring rivalries end?

Answer 27

90% of ERs end with a systemic shock, such as a war or a major state faliure, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are a number of discrete causes for termination:
1 - Terminate by another rivalry: EG, Franco-German ER replaced by NATO-WP ER.
2 - Terminated by power preponderance: EG, US-Mexico Relationship
3 - Terminated by the introduction of third parties: EG, Detente between the Soviet Union and the United States that ended the first phase of the Cold War was the result of the Sino-Soviet split and the uncertainty as to China’s future allegiance; EG, End of the US- British rivalry ended at the end of the nineteenth century because of the emergence of unified Germany in 1870.
4 - It has been statistically found that disputes within enduring rivalries tend to decline as states approach power parity: EG, the Iranian-Iraqi level of disputes declines in the 1970s and Iraq was becoming stronger in comparison to Iran.
5 - End by Agreement: Specific disputes due to territorial disagreements end more often because of plebiscites, and less often by treaty (which increases the probability of a recurrence of war): EG, Kashmir

Question 28

When do wars in enduring rivalries?

Answer 28

Not sure cause: two interpretations of how decision-makers learn within enduring rivalries.
- Samuel Huntington has argued that wars tend to occur early in arms races because newly established states and new enemies find it difficult to measure their relative strengths. They therefore enter into wars because it is not clear which is the weaker side.

Question 29

Huntington on learning in Enduring Rivalries

Answer 29

states have substantive learning: they change their goals based on their early experiences with their rivalry, and this makes war less likely because they choose more attainable goals; EG - 1947-49, First Arab-Israel War, the 1947-48 First Indo-Pakistani War, the 1950-53 North-South Korean War.
- In effect, the longer the enduring rivalry, the more likely the states will learn to interact peacefully.
- Statistically validated: In half of enduring rivalries, war occurs by the third dispute, and by the 6th dispute in 90% of rivalries.

Question 30

Russel Leng’s findings on repeated deterrence failure using MID dataset

Answer 30

wars are more likely to occur late in a rivalry (specifically the third dispute) Cause: with each subsequent dispute each state hardens its commitment and is therefore more likely to escalate to war.
- As rivalries endire, states shift an increasingly large portion of their attention on that single adversary.
- EG, The US’s focus on the Soviet Union has meant that the US is still focusing on Russia and practically ignores other major states such as India and Brazil.
- Learning: For Leng, states learn instrumentally: they learn how to change their tactics but not their final goals; EG - 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pakistani Wars, 1974 Greco-Turkish War, 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the 1980 Iran-Iraq War, 1962 Sino-Indian War.
- In Effect: the longer the enduring rivalry, the more likely states relations will deteriorate into war.

Question 31

Criticism of Russel Leng’s study

Answer 31

1 - disputes let off steam and thereby reduce tension, making war less likely. but no dispute= lack of communication and accumulation of grievances that could make war more likely
2 - war was likely in long term enduring rivalries, but in the extremely long enduring rivalries there was a decreased likelihood of war.

Question 32

When there is no change in enduring rivalry

Answer 32

• then learning has not occured and the rivalry itself is probably being driven from outside any conflict spiral between the two states
• EG, the Mozambique-South African confrontation was driven in large part by the Mozambiquan desire to obtain Soviet aid.

Question 33

Why Janice Gross Stein argues learning is difficult

Answer 33

States cling to core beliefs unless there is overwhelming disconfirmatory evidence, which rarely occurs even with a war in an enduring rivalry.