I was surprised to not see any mention of security dilemmas: one of the facially-plausible and otherwise commonly-mentioned scenarios/reasons I’ve seen for fighting or just wasting resources on combat preparations is a fear that “they might think that we think that they think… that someone wants to harm them, so we have to prepare/strike first.” In fact, security dilemmas are frequently suggested in conflict studies as reasons why two rational actors with 1) a preference for peace instead of violence, 2) realistically-bounded information about their adversaries, and/or 3) some imperfect ability to interpret evidence about intentions/capabilities, might still end up fighting despite neither side wanting to fight.
(If this has already been covered, my apologies, but I didn’t find it after some ctrl+f’ing for “security”, “dilemma”, or “fight”)
I was surprised to not see any mention of security dilemmas: one of the facially-plausible and otherwise commonly-mentioned scenarios/reasons I’ve seen for fighting or just wasting resources on combat preparations is a fear that “they might think that we think that they think… that someone wants to harm them, so we have to prepare/strike first.” In fact, security dilemmas are frequently suggested in conflict studies as reasons why two rational actors with 1) a preference for peace instead of violence, 2) realistically-bounded information about their adversaries, and/or 3) some imperfect ability to interpret evidence about intentions/capabilities, might still end up fighting despite neither side wanting to fight. (If this has already been covered, my apologies, but I didn’t find it after some ctrl+f’ing for “security”, “dilemma”, or “fight”)