A New Formal Model Analysis of Deterrent to Brinkmanship and the Causes of Security Dilemma

How close does a nation come to the brink of war with an opponent during the process of crisis bargaining?The present study constructs a new formal model focused on a challenger's incentive to intensify military provocations against a defender that involves a trade-off between securing a more profitable bargaining outcome and increasing the risk of inadvertent war.This new model identifies the conditions under which the defender's threat of military coercion effectively deters the challenger from engaging in his payoff-maximizing level of military provocations (i.e., his preferred brinkmanship).In conclusion, a sufficiently strong provocation incentive on the part of the challenger makes the defender's implicit threat of coercion incredible, thus allowing the challenger to engage in his preferred brinkmanship.A presented numerical example further suggests that a security dilemma could arise because military buildup by the defender could weaken the deterrent effect on the challenger's military provocations