Action-reaction Model Research Articles

The US, Iran, and Saudi Arabia: An empirical analysis of stimulus response theory: 2009–2020

Objectives: The study presented an empirical analysis of the impact of US foreign policy toward Iran on Iran’s foreign policy toward Saudi Arabia during the Obama and Trump presidencies. It argues that Iran’s foreign policy toward Saudi Arabia is one way of getting back at the US, considering it a key ally. Method: It adopted an action-reaction model to test various hypotheses on the proposed relationships, using American and Iranian presidential remarks utilizing stimulus-response theory to test the relationships. Results: The study showed a set of correlations between certain US behavior toward Iran and Iran’s foreign policy toward Saudi Arabia, based on the monthly and annual data. Conclusion: It concluded that Iran’s action toward Saudi Arabia appeared to be a reaction to the US strategies toward Iran.

Missile Race in South Asia: Security Challenges for Pakistan in the 21st Century

The article assesses the nature of missile competition between India and Pakistan and how it impacts deterrence and strategic stability in South Asia. It also analyses how their respective ballistic and cruise missile programmes developed. Taking the action-reaction model of arms racing, it concludes that there is indeed such a dynamic at play between the two countries. The missiles competition is very much linked to the nuclear competition as well. India’s Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system also factors into the competitions, whereby Pakistan was forced to develop missiles that could saturate and defeat it. The missile and nuclear competition has an overall negative impact on deterrence and strategic stability in South Asia. Pakistan’s biggest security challenge is to achieve security and deterrence against a hostile India without falling into the trap of an economically ruinous arms race. 

Dinamika Persenjataan di Asia Tenggara, 2010-2015

States, however, are still the main actors in International Relations. Although the Cold War had formally ended in 1991, as a matter of fact, the military competition still exists, including at the regional level. This article attempts to analyze the arms dynamic in Southeast Asia during the 2010-2015 periods. By using three models – action-reaction model, the domestic structure model, and the technological imperative – simultaneously and analyzing the data published by both the IISS and SIPRI, this study shows that conflict in the South China Sea had been the primary motive of several countries in increasing their military spending and enhancing their military capabilities, both qualities as well as quantities. Several countries accelerating their military strength had been Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia. However, Singapore had been the leading actor that has significant efforts in strengthening its military power. Relizing the difficulty to identify the actual motives of these several countries enlarging their hard power, the author argues that, within this arms dynamic, there is also a possibility or even the long-term tendency in terms of arms race as long as these major actors that relates directly to the South China Sea territorial conflict are not able carefully to maintain their security dilemma and perceived threats. Kata Kunci: Arms dynamic, Southeast Asia, military capability

Hit the Core or Weaken the Periphery? Comparing Strategies to Break the Circle of Violence with an Embryonic Terrorist Group: The Case of Galician Resistance

ABSTRACTThis article studies whether the action-reaction model holds on an “embryonic” terrorist group like Galician Resistance (REGA). After presenting an overview of REGA’s history, structure, financing, terrorist campaigns, and the police measures adopted against them, the text empirically contrasts whether deterrence is an efficient measure in reducing an incipient terrorist group’s actions. Our results show that deterrence does in fact reduce the number of attacks when aimed at the group’s periphery. However, it causes a backlash of new attacks when aimed at the group’s core. In addition, we prove that an increase in the number of attacks also causes a reaction by police forces and a higher number of detentions of core members. Our results give some meaningful insights into the design of counter-terrorism strategies aimed against “embryonic” groups.

Is there an Arms Race between Greece and Turkey?

Richardson's action-reaction model of an arms race has prompted a considerable body of research that has attempted to empirically estimate such models. In general these attempts have been unsuccessful. This paper provides an extensive reconsideration of the estimation issues and using some recent developments in time-series econometrics, provides a comprehensive analysis of data for Greece and Turkey. It finds evidence of some form of cointegration between the military expenditures in both countries, but not of Richardson arms race type.

An Empirical Analysis of the Arms Race Between South and North Korea

This study analyses an arms race between South and North Korea over the period 1963–2000. Despite the strategic importance of the Korean Peninsula, the arms race between South and North Korea has rarely been studied. In this study, the South–North arms race is empirically estimated using Richardson’s action–reaction model. The pattern of South–North arms race between the Cold War (1963–1989) and the post‐Cold War eras (1990–2000) as well as the existence of an arms race is examined comparing both countries’ defence spending, number of military personnel and tactical aircraft.

Country survey XVIII: The two Koreas' defence economy

This country survey briefly outlines the defence and economic background of the two Koreas and the security environment in the Korean Peninsula. It shows how defence spending to deter a potential North Korean attack has crowded-out the South Korean civilian economy and considers the possibility of arms control between the two adversaries. The military capabilities of both countries are described and empirical results are presented on the arms race between the two Koreas since 1963 using a Richardson action-reaction model. The development of South Korean defence industries and the problems of those industries are also examined, as well as the future prospects for inter-Korean relations and South Korea's defence policy.

Dynamic Foreign Policy Behavior

How best to classify event counts of directed dyadic foreign policy behavior and how best to model them are points of disagreement among researchers. Should such series be modeled as unit roots ("perfect" memory) or as stationary ("short" memory)? It is demonstrated that the dichotomous choice between unit root (I(1)) and level stationarity (I(0)) is overly restrictive. The intermediate (and more general) possibility of fractional integration (0<I<1), a concept proven useful in studies of aggregate opinion, is applied. Results show that fractional integration is extremely common and that error correction mechanisms (ECMs) can still be appropriate in the absence of unit-root series. Fractional ECMs are used in action-reaction models of bilateral relationships to demonstrate this. Given the frequency of fractional integration, its flexibility, and the problems encountered when ignoring it, scholars should incorporate fractional integration techniques into their models.

The arms dynamic in world politics

Part 1 Tracing the Arms Dynamic: Revolutions in Military Technology The Global Spread of Military Technology The Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Part 2 Explaining the Arms Dynamic: Arms Racing and the Arms Dynamic The Action-Reaction Model The Domestic Structure Model Relating the Two Models. Part 3 Using the Arms Dynamic: Force Threats Symbols. Part 4 Controlling the Arms Dynamic: Military Means as a Source of Security Problems Arms Control Non-offensive Defence Disarmament. Part 5 Conclusion.

Modeling China’s military expenditures as an action-reaction process: A preliminary study

This article attempts to study the patterns of China’s military capacity during the cold war era. We believe that this work will not only benefit us in better understanding what factors have contributed to China’s military expenditures over the past 30 years, but also be beneficial in the prediction of China’s future military establishment. The theory directing our work is Lewis F. Richardson’s action-reaction theory which describes military capacity build-up as a process in which changes in a nation’s defense expenditures are a function of its opponent’s defense expenditures and the hostility and the economic burden of producing and maintaining arms. Guided by this action-reaction model, we test whether or not China’s military expenditures are a function of its neighboring rival countries/regions for the period of 1963 to 1990. Sixteen different formulations of Richardson’s model are employed. We use the OLS (Ordinary Least Squares) linear regression technique to test our model. Our findings suggest that possibly in the case of Taiwan and Japan does an action-reaction process occur. In addition, models that employ time lags better illustrate whether an action-reaction process is going on.

The onset of inter-human contacts: longitudinal ultrasound observations in early twin pregnancies.

Twin pregnancies provide us with the opportunity to observe first reactions towards touch in utero, and this study illustrates the onset and development of these contacts. Forty women with twin pregnancies volunteered to take part in this study, 25 of whom (five monochorionic, 20 dichorionic pairs) fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Between 8 and 12 weeks' gestation, ultrasound examinations were performed transvaginally, and from 13 weeks onwards transabdominally, at weekly intervals. Ultrasound findings were recorded on videotapes and were analyzed retrospectively. The first contacts producing reactions in the co-twin were defined as primary contacts, which could be slow or fast arm/leg/head/body contacts. Primary contacts followed an action-reaction model, and usually lasted < 3 s. These contacts were initially slow and then became fast. The first reactions of the co-twin towards touch were observed at 65 postmenstrual days. Contacts of longer duration between both bodies including extremities, or contacts initiated by sucking movements towards the co-twin were defined as complex contacts and were observed from 85 and 92 post-menstrual days, respectively. Nearly all contacts occurred significantly earlier in monochorionic compared to dichorionic twins. Female/female pairs seemed to develop complex body contacts earlier than male/male pairs, but for the onset of other contacts we have not yet found significant differences between gender combinations.

Deterrence or Escalation?

Aggregate data studies of domestic political conflict have used an Action-Reaction (AR) model that has produced contradictory findings about the repression/dissent nexus: Repression by regimes may either increase or decrease dissent by opposition groups. To clarify these findings I propose an alternative Rational Actor (RA) model from which are derived three propositions. (1) An increase in a government's repression of nonviolence will reduce the nonviolent activities of an opposition group but increase its violent activities. (2) The balance of effects, that is, whether an increase in the regime's repression increases or decreases the opposition group's total dissident activities, depends upon the government's accommodative policy to the group. (3) Consistent government accommodative and repressive policies reduce dissent; inconsistent policies increase dissent. The RA model thus accounts for the contradictory findings produced by the AR-based aggregate data studies of repression and dissent.

Measuring Interstate Affect

This article advances a general formula that can be applied to classified behavioral data to yield a theoretically informed summary measure of interstate affect. Although this measurement procedure is constructed with exclusive reference to expressed affect-that is, a government's feelings of friendliness or hostility toward some external object or actorit is easily adapted to other properties embracing positive, neutral, and negative categories. Once the general measurement model is obtained, certain modifications are introduced that take account of varying time order effects in the development of affective attitudes and the occasional need for monadic-level measurement. The study concludes with an empirical example in which the affect measure is applied to World Event Interaction Survey (WEIS)encoded events exchanged between the United States and the Soviet Union. An actionreaction model fit to bilateral, quarterly affect scores revealed that these two nations follow virtually identical processes in generating affective evaluations of one another.

Research on Conflict Theory

Research on conflict theory, that is, studies of conflict or war using formal reasoning or mathematical approaches, is cross-classified by eight analytic approaches and eight areas of application. The analytic approaches include differential equations, decision theory/control theory, game theory, bargaining theory, uncertainty, stability theory, action-reaction models, and organization theory. The areas of application include arms races, war initiation/war termination/timing of conflict, military strategy/conduct of war, threats/crises/escalation, qualitative arms race/arms control, alliances, nuclear proliferation, and defense bureaucracy/budgets. The use of a particular analytic approach in a particular area of application entails 64 possible combinations, but research tends to cluster in only certain of these cross-classifications.

The Nuclear Era: Perception and Reality- a Century Apart?

The world today harbors some 60,000 nuclear warheads, most of which dwarf the Hiroshima bomb; six acknow ledged nuclear powers; two presumed nuclear powers; 40 states capable of acquiring nuclear arsenals within ten years; amidst arms trade practices that provide ever-easier access to sophisticated delivery vehicles, fighter-bombers and cruise missiles. The spiralling trends towards ludicrous levels of nuclear redundancy and proliferation are fueled by a complex amalgam of economic, technological, and psychological factors. Analysts dwell on arms race theories, action-reaction models, the demands of 'leadtime' and 'worst case' concepts and requirements, the lure of new technologies, inter-service lobbying, bureaucratic politics, and the dynamics of vast and ensconced military-industrial complexes. The present analysis, however, focuses on a less appreciated but vital factor, namely the mind-set of the protagonists. The weaponry may belong to the 21st century; the decision-makers are socialized and formed by 19th century molds. The Brezhnev Doc trine is but an extension of the views of Nicholas the First, and owes nothing to Karl Marx. The Reagan Administration's new Latin American doctrine mirrors the biases and inclinations of Lloyd George and Clemenceau, not those of Plato. And this is the single most important reason why the nuclear steamroller has enjoyed, and will enjoy, such free reign.

Conflict and Coercion in Dependent States

This paper puts forward an action-reaction model of the interaction between civil conflict and state coercion in nations undergoing dependent development. Using graphical techniques and dynamic analysis of difference equations, the conflict-coercion relationship is explored analytically and its implications drawn out. The primary findings are twofold: (1) the intensity with which both state and opposition react to each other is of vital importance, and (2) the external system plays a significant role in accounting for differences in national time paths.