General Deterrence between Enduring Rivals: Testing Three Competing Models

Abstract

General deterrence, unlike immediate deterrence, has rarely been analyzed in a systematic comparative manner. We outline a research design for doing so, by studying the circumstances under which, in a set of enduring rivalries, challengers are likely to initiate militarized disputes. We indicate the conceptual and operational steps necessary to make and empirically compare predictions stemming from three often-competing theoretical frameworks: rational deterrence, a general model of rational conflict initiation, and a cognitive psychological model of behavior emphasizing risk orientation and misperception. The results of probit analysis on a pooled time series of enduring rivalries since 1945 provide support for hypotheses from each of the different theoretical models.