Review Essay: The Nuclear Arms Race and the Theory of Social Traps

Abstract

Social traps are those all too common situations in which people behave contrary to their own self-interest while making what appear to them to be rational decisions. These situations may provide useful models for explaining (and analyzing possible escapes from) the nuclear arms race. The literature on social traps is reviewed, concentrating on three recent books: (1) Social Traps (1980) by J.G. Cross and M.J. Guyer, which provides a taxonomy of traps and escapes: (2) Too Much Invested to Quit (1980) by A.I. Teger, which is a detailed experimental study of the dollar auction game, an easily repeatable social trap designed to study conflict escalation; and (3) The War Trap (1981) by B. Bueno de Mesquita, which is only tangentially about social traps but provides supporting data and models on the history of international conflicts. Pos sible escapes from the nuclear arms trap are reviewed and the idea of a weapons tax to convert the trap into a trade-off is proposed and discussed.