The Severity of Interstate Disputes

Two fundamentalar guments are presented to answer whether dyadic balances or preponderances of military capability are more peaceful. First, the impact of the dyadic balance of military capabilities on interstate conflict, conditional on the level of dyadic interest similarity, is assessed. Many theoreticalworks in the field argue that the degree of interest similarity gives meaning to the balance of military forces, yet few empirical studies investigate the conditionality of these two variables. The second argument is that interstate conflict is a heterogeneous outcome. Aselection model that seeks to explain the severity of interstate disputes is used to address this concern. Using data from all interstate dyads between 1886 and 1992, results show that dyads with similar interests have less severe disputes, and under the condition of interest dissimilarity, balances rather than preponderances of military capability are associated with less severe disputes.