When Will States Strike First? Battlefield Advantages and Rationalist War

Abstract

Previous research suggests that first-strike advantages can create commitment problems that lead rational leaders to opt for war, even when both sides are perfectly informed. In this article, we develop a formal model that extends upon this work. We include a more detailed account of war processes in order to determine what factors are most likely to cause first-strike advantages that lead to war. In particular, we decompose first-strike advantages into three underlying dimensions: tactical offensive advantages, mobilization advantages, and the destructiveness of an initial attack. Our model also allows states to counterattack, rather than, as typical in the literature, assume a single-stage conflict. By studying the interaction of these factors, we uncover surprising results about wars produced by first-strike advantages. First, offensive advantages can lead to war in the absence of mobilization advantages. However, they only do so when successful attacks can destroy an extremely large proportion of the enemy's military power. In contrast, mobilization advantages always increase the likelihood of war. Surprisingly, mobilization advantages are particularly likely to lead to war when combined with defensive advantages. We demonstrate that these mechanisms can explain war initiation through an examination of the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars.