IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jocore/v53y2009i2p278-301.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Winning with the Bomb

Author

Listed:
  • Kyle Beardsley

    (Department of Political Science Emory University, Atlanta)

  • Victor Asal

    (Department of Political Science State University of New York, Albany)

Abstract

Nuclear weapons' effects on an actor's success in coercive diplomacy are in part a function of how nuclear weapons change the perceived costs of conflict. The authors argue that states can improve their allotment of a good or convince an opponent to back down and have shorter crises if their opponents have greater expected costs of crisis. Noting that nuclear weapons increase the costs of full-escalation scenarios but decrease their probability, it is uncertain what impact nuclear weapons should have on expected costs of conflict. The authors assess crisis outcomes from 1945 to 2000 using the International Crisis Behavior data set. The evidence confirms that nuclear actors are more likely to prevail when facing a nonnuclear state. The expected duration of crisis in such asymmetric directed dyads is substantially smaller than the duration of crisis for actors in nonnuclear dyads. Nuclear actors in asymmetric dyads are also more likely to prevail than states in symmetric nuclear dyads.

Suggested Citation

  • Kyle Beardsley & Victor Asal, 2009. "Winning with the Bomb," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(2), pages 278-301, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:53:y:2009:i:2:p:278-301
    DOI: 10.1177/0022002708330386
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002708330386
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0022002708330386?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Curtis S. Signorino & Ahmer Tarar, 2006. "A Unified Theory and Test of Extended Immediate Deterrence," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 586-605, July.
    2. Tomz, Michael & Wittenberg, Jason & King, Gary, 2003. "Clarify: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 8(i01).
    3. Michael Intriligator & Dagobert Brito, 1981. "Nuclear proliferation and the probability of nuclear war," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 247-260, January.
    4. Giacomo Chiozza & H. E. Goemans, 2004. "International Conflict and the Tenure of Leaders: Is War Still Ex Post Inefficient?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(3), pages 604-619, July.
    5. Huth, Paul K., 1988. "Extended Deterrence and the Outbreak of War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(2), pages 423-443, June.
    6. Powell, Robert, 1987. "Crisis Bargaining, Escalation, and MAD," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(3), pages 717-735, September.
    7. Tannenwald, Nina, 1999. "The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Normative Basis of Nuclear Non-Use," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 433-468, July.
    8. Frederick J. Boehmke & Daniel S. Morey & Megan Shannon, 2006. "Selection Bias and Continuous‐Time Duration Models: Consequences and a Proposed Solution," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(1), pages 192-207, January.
    9. Waltz, Kenneth N., 1990. "Nuclear Myths and Political Realities," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(3), pages 730-745, September.
    10. James D. Fearon, 1994. "Signaling Versus the Balance of Power and Interests," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(2), pages 236-269, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Ewerhart & Julia Lareida, 2018. "Voluntary disclosure in asymmetric contests," ECON - Working Papers 279, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Jul 2023.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kyle Beardsley & Victor Asal, 2009. "Nuclear Weapons as Shields," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 26(3), pages 235-255, July.
    2. Alexander H. Montgomery & Scott D. Sagan, 2009. "The Perils of Predicting Proliferation," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(2), pages 302-328, April.
    3. Frank C. Zagare, 2004. "Reconciling Rationality with Deterrence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(2), pages 107-141, April.
    4. Michael Horowitz, 2009. "The Spread of Nuclear Weapons and International Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 53(2), pages 234-257, April.
    5. Clayton L. Thyne, 2006. "Cheap Signals with Costly Consequences," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(6), pages 937-961, December.
    6. Jesse C. Johnson & Brett Ashley Leeds & Ahra Wu, 2015. "Capability, Credibility, and Extended General Deterrence," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 309-336, March.
    7. Dong-Joon Jo & Erik Gartzke, 2007. "Determinants of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(1), pages 167-194, February.
    8. James Meernik, 1999. "Force and Influence in International Crises," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 17(1), pages 103-131, February.
    9. Geoffrey P.R. Wallace, 2008. "Alliances, Institutional Design, and the Determinants of Military Strategy," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 25(3), pages 224-243, July.
    10. Trace Lasley & Clayton Thyne, 2015. "Secession, legitimacy and the use of child soldiers," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(3), pages 289-308, July.
    11. Catherine C. Langlois, 2012. "Power and Deterrence in Alliance Relationships," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(2), pages 148-169, April.
    12. Daniel S. Geller, 1990. "Nuclear Weapons, Deterrence, and Crisis Escalation," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(2), pages 291-310, June.
    13. Weiqi Zhang, 2018. "Neither friend nor big brother: China’s role in North Korean foreign policy strategy," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-6, December.
    14. Hanne Fjelde & Desirée Nilsson, 2018. "The rise of rebel contenders," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(5), pages 551-565, September.
    15. Christoph Schwierz & Boris Augurzky & Axel Focke & Jürgen Wasem, 2012. "Demand, selection and patient outcomes in German acute care hospitals," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 209-221, March.
    16. Clemens Noelke & Daniel Horn, 2011. "Social Transformation and the Transition from Vocational Education to Work," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 1105, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    17. Nil Demet Gungor & Aysıt Tansel, 2008. "Brain drain from Turkey: an investigation of students' return intentions," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(23), pages 3069-3087.
    18. Michael P. Leidy & Robert W. Staiger, 1985. "Economic Issues and Methodology in Arms Race Analysis," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(3), pages 503-530, September.
    19. Jo Jakobsen & Indra De Soysa, 2006. "Do Foreign Investors Punish Democracy? Theory and Empirics, 1984–2001," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 383-410, August.
    20. P. See Lim & Colleen Barry‐Goodman & David Branham, 2006. "Discrimination that Travels: How Ethnicity Affects Party Identification for Southeast Asian Immigrants," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1158-1170, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jocore:v:53:y:2009:i:2:p:278-301. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://pss.la.psu.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.