In contrast to most current approaches to international politics, this work views domestic politics and international relations as inseparable and the role of individual political leaders as key. A core assumption is that political leaders and foreign policy decision makers are motivated to keep their jobs and that they select policies and allocate scarce resources so as to help them fulfill their personal political objectives.

We model the evolution of international conflict as a game of sequential decisions and show that arms races are neither necessary nor sufficient for peace or war. Peaceful intentions are not adequate to insure peace, even when both rivals wish to avoid violence. Peaceful intentions together with complete information are sufficient for peace. A preference for forcefully pursuing foreign policy goals also is not sufficient to preclude the peaceful resolution of disputes, and this is true even if there is complete (...) information. In some circumstances, the absence of an arms race can precipitate violence, even giving the military advantage to a nation that unilaterlaly stopped getting ready for a war it would initiate. Finally, we also show that empirical research is likely to be biased in favor of the hypothesis that deterrence leads to peace. (shrink)