Choosing Demands Strategically

The idea that leaders choose their foreign policy strategically to accomplish their foreign policy goals is not new. The possibility that the goals themselves are chosen strategically is. Recent game theoretic models developed by Powell and Werner explore this possibility. Interestingly, both models show that when demands are chosen strategically, a perceived disparity between the underlying distribution of power and the status quo distribution of benefits creates a permissive condition for the onset of conflict. This prediction is tested by estimating the effects of changes in relative power on the onset of militarized interstate disputes. A hazard model to estimate the duration of peace for the set of all dyads existing between 1816 and 1992 shows that peace is more likely to end when the belligerents' relative power is changing. The results also show that powerful states, proximate states, states with prior disputes, nonjointly democratic states, and politically disparate states face greater risks of conflict and enjoy shorter periods of peace than do states with different characteristics.