We are now in a position to compare and contrast optimal crisis behavior using the military instrument to other escalatory moves, such as sinking costs, running risks, or tying hands. Crisis behavior almost always involves more than one tactic: from diplomatic maneuvering to military threats to small-scale fighting. As discussed in Chapter 2, the instruments represent ideal types that only roughly approximate actual behavior. It is nevertheless useful to establish some benchmark comparisons that will facilitate the exposition of the advantages and disadvantages of the various instruments of coercion. Before this comparative exercise can commence, however, we need two preliminaries. First, we need to be precise about what effects of the various instruments we are interested in. At the most basic level, we would like to know how they affect the probabilities of war, of escalation, of preserving the status quo, and so on. To this end, I will define these quantities of interest more precisely. Second, I introduce the basic setup for the simulations that I will use to explore the behavioral dynamics of the various models.

Stability and Expected Mobilization

The military threat model (MTM) developed in Chapter 3 assumes that S2 has made a demand, and so the following discussion is predicated on the existence of a crisis.