Tag
War
Entries tagged war.
5 entries
Political Realism
The tradition that treats international politics as a struggle for power among states in a world with no ruler above them, where survival, not virtue, is the first law.
12 min
Mental modelThe Bargaining Model of War
Because war is costly, a settlement both sides prefer should almost always exist, so war is a failure of bargaining, not its natural outcome.
7 min
ConceptThe Security Dilemma
Under anarchy, the steps a state takes to make itself safer can make others less safe, so they arm in reply and everyone ends up more exposed, even when no one intended harm.
8 min
ConceptThe Thucydides Trap
The idea that when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling one, the resulting structural stress often ends in war.
9 min
Mental modelWar Made the State
Modern states were built not by contract or design but as the by-product of rulers scrambling to fund war: to fight, they had to tax, and to tax they had to build bureaucracy.
9 min