Questions: Crisis Bargaining and Escalation to War

Question 1

Two states are in a crisis. Analysts identify a range of peaceful settlements both would prefer to fighting — any deal in that range leaves both better off than war. Despite this, war breaks out. The bargaining model best explains this as:

• A. Evidence that states are irrational and cannot identify their own interests
• B. The result of private information and incentives to misrepresent — both sides may calculate they will win, rejecting deals an informed observer would see as mutually acceptable
• C. Proof that one state had aggressive intentions — peaceful settlements are always reachable by non-aggressive actors
• D. An anomaly the bargaining model cannot explain, since rational actors should always find peace

Answer: (B)

The bargaining model's central insight is that war can occur even when a mutually preferred peace exists. The failure is private information with incentives to bluff — each side may genuinely believe it would win, making both reject what an outside observer can see is a mutually acceptable deal. Option A attributes war to irrationality, which the model rejects. Option C assumes aggressive intent is necessary, which the model shows is not. Option D misunderstands the model — explaining this is precisely its purpose.

Question 2

A rising power is growing rapidly relative to an established dominant power, which prefers to fight now rather than wait. The bargaining model interprets this as:

• A. Predatory aggression — the declining power is opportunistically attacking
• B. A commitment problem — the rising power cannot credibly commit to honoring today's settlement once it is stronger
• C. A private information failure — the rising power is bluffing about its growth rate
• D. An issue indivisibility problem — the powers cannot divide control of contested territory

Answer: (B)

When power is shifting rapidly, the commitment problem is structural: any settlement satisfactory today will be renegotiated tomorrow when the rising power is stronger. The declining power, knowing this, may prefer fighting now while it can still win over accepting an arrangement it cannot enforce long-term. This explains why power transitions are historically dangerous — not because states are inherently aggressive, but because credible long-run commitments become structurally impossible under shifting power distributions.

Question 3

Costly signals — like mobilizing troops at high economic expense or making public threats that damage a leader's reputation if unfulfilled — are more credible than cheap talk because they filter out bluffing states that would not pay those costs.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

The key property of a costly signal is that it is harder to fake. A state merely posturing would not bear a large economic or reputational cost, so incurring that cost credibly communicates genuine resolve. This is the solution to the private information problem: cheap talk (simply asserting commitment) provides no information because bluffing states can say the same thing. Costly signals work precisely because the cost screens out actors who are not genuinely committed.

Question 4

The bargaining model implies that war is caused by irrationality — if both sides were fully rational, they would typically find a peaceful settlement.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This is the opposite of the model's key insight. Fully rational states may still go to war when: private information prevents identifying a mutually acceptable settlement, commitment problems make future agreements unenforceable, or issues are genuinely indivisible. The model explains war as a rational outcome under specific structural conditions, not as a failure of rationality. War is a 'puzzle' precisely because rational, war-averse actors should prefer peace — the model explains why they sometimes cannot achieve it.

Question 5

Why does the bargaining model call war a 'puzzle,' and what does this framing reveal about the model's core theoretical move?

Model answer: War is mutually costly and its outcome uncertain, so a negotiated settlement giving each side its expected war payoff minus costs should almost always be preferable to fighting. The puzzle is why such settlements fail to materialize. Calling war a puzzle shifts analysis from 'who is the aggressor' to 'what structural conditions prevent bargaining from succeeding' — private information, commitment problems, or indivisibility.

The puzzle framing is where the theoretical leverage lives. If war simply reflects aggression or irrationality, policy implications are limited. But if war results from specific, identifiable structural failures, then policy can target those failures: reduce information asymmetries through transparency and verification, build commitment devices through international institutions, find ways to make indivisible issues divisible. The puzzle framing generates a different and more actionable theory of conflict.