War – What is it Good For?

According to LessWrong, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's mathematical model for predicting war initiation works surprisingly well using just three measurements: geographic distance between nations, their relative military power based on factors like population and fuel consumption, and how aligned their military alliances are. When these feed into a simple expected utility calculation, the model predicted which country initiated a conflict eighty-five percent of the time over the past two centuries — remarkable accuracy given how crude the inputs sound. The model also surfaces some counterintuitive insights: entering a military alliance can actually weaken a country by signaling alignment with certain nations and distance from others. And wars across large distances tend to be rare, not because of cultural factors but simply because projecting military power so far isn't worth the expected cost.

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