Power transfers, military uncertainty, and war
| Published date | 01 October 2020 |
| Date | 01 October 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0951629820956304 |
| Author | William Spaniel |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Journal of Theoretical Politics
2020, Vol.32(4) 538–556
ÓThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0951629820956304
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Power transfers, military
uncertainty, and war
William Spaniel
Department of PoliticalScience, University of Pittsburgh, USA
Abstract
In many contexts, patronswish to simultaneously increase a prote
´ge
´’s military power whilereduc-
ing the probability of war between that prote
´ge
´and its enemy.Are these goals compatible? I show
that the answer is yes when states face uncertainty over a class of military allotments. Armstrans-
fers mitigate the information problem by making both strong and weak types behave more simi-
larly. This encourages uninformed states to make safer demands, which decreases the probability
of war. As a result, transfers to the informed actor both increase bargaining power and enhance
efficiency under these conditions.
Keywords
Alliances; bargaining; military aid; war
1. Introduction
Military aid has become commonplace in international relations. According to the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Arms Transfers
Database, the world accumulated more than $28 billion in arms exports in 2012.
The United States alone transferred about $630 billion from 1950 to 2012, with per
annum exports routinely going above $12 billion during the Cold War. Military
aid extends to the realm of civil conflicts, with about four in five rebel groups
receiving assistance during some eras (Grauer and Tierney, 2017).
One reason that states give aid is obvious. If a prote
´ge
´and a mutual enemy were
to fight a war, the patron would like to see the prote
´ge
´emerge triumphant more
Corresponding author:
William Spaniel, Departmentof Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, PosvarHall 4446, Pittsburgh, PA
15260, USA.
Email: williamspaniel@gmail.com
often. Military aid achieves that goal. Meanwhile, if a prote
´ge
´and a mutual enemy
were to negotiate a settlement, the patron would like to see the prote
´ge
´receive a
better share. Because peaceful settlements must be commensurate with the distribu-
tion of power (Fearon, 1995; Powell, 1999), military aid again achieves that goal.
Nevertheless, patron states often have a competing incentive. The United States,
for example, would like South Korea to better coerce North Korea. But the United
States does not want to see war on the Korean Peninsula, if for no other reason
than the deleterious effects on the world economy. Transfers are therefore benefi-
cial if they hold fixed either a peaceful outcome or a war outcome. However, trans-
fers could backfire if they take an otherwise peaceful outcome and subvert it into a
war outcome, even if that war outcome is better than a war outcome without a
transfer.
Can transfers affect the probability of conflict? The existing literature provides a
mix of answers. Kuperman (2008) worries that the answer is yes—by aiding poten-
tial rebels, patrons cause prote
´ge
´s to take more risks than they would otherwise,
leading to more wars occurring. Kinsella (1994) provides evidence in the affirma-
tive, at least in regard to some US transfers during the Cold War. And in a related
topic area, scholars debate whether alliances—which also endow their benefactors
with greater military capacity—have a deterrent, provocative, or moral hazard-
inducing net effect (Benson et al., 2014; Leeds, 2003; Waltz, 1979).
In this paper, I provide a clear, if partial, theoretical answer: when a state is
uncertain about its opponent’s military resources, transfers to that informed oppo-
nent suppress conflict. Put differently, patron states can have their cake and eat it
too in these cases, both empowering their prote
´ge
´s and reducing the probability of
war.
Despite generating an expectation similar to what the deterrence literature
offers, the mechanism is distinct and rests on informational concerns. An extreme
example helps illustrate the intuition. Suppose that A faces uncertainty over B’s
military resources, such as its quantity of weapons, vehicles, or soldiers.
1
To put
more structure on the problem, imagine that A does not know whether B has 1 or
100 tanks. The true quantity determines the offer A would want to make, as the
type with only 1 tank is helpless whereas the type with 100 stands a real chance of
winning a war. Obtaining peace with the 100 tank type requires a vast overpay-
ment to the 1 tank type. When such a ‘‘peace premium’’ is large, safe demands
looks less attractive. As such, A may prefer making an aggressive demand that
only the 1 tank type would accept, leading to war with the 100 tank type.
Now suppose that a patron gives B 1000 additional tanks. The substantive dif-
ference between the 1 tank type and the 100 tank type becomes less relevant. After
all, the marginal difference in power that a country has with 1100 tanks and 1001
tanks is relatively small compared with 100 tanks versus 1 tank. Making peace with
the more powerful type therefore requires a smaller overpayment to the less power-
ful type. In turn, A has more incentive to issue safer demands, and thus the prob-
ability of war declines. Put differently, the transfer mitigates A’s information
problem. I show that this same general principle applies to transfers that act as
substitutes for the military technology the opposing state faces uncertainty over.
Spaniel 539
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