Briana Trewitt January 31, 2012 Rationalist Explanations for War: Fearon (1995) First of all, war can

be caused by a result of private information. In hope of getting a better deal, states have a motive to misrepresent their capabilities and capacities or their true intentions. For example as noted in the July crisis, Russian foreign minister told German ambassador that Russia would not be able to tolerate Austria-Hungarys using threatening language to Serbia or taking military measures. This did not suede Germany because Russia had a tendency to misrepresent as a strategic incentive. However, of course states would still prefer to avoid war as much as possible, but due to the bargaining phase, states want to do well in it. Fearon implies that although costless signals are uninformative, costly signals can and tend to be informative. However, they also can increase the probability of war because they (states) want to reveal private information. Secondly, war may result as an aftermath of states' inability to actually commit to the pre-war solution. This rings true in an anarchic international system, where not much exists in the way of states to enforce the terms of the agreement. Nothing stops states from using force under anarchy. The new dominant state cannot credibly commit to the role of sovereignty, making the prior status quo state more convinced to fight a war over the power transition. Fearon also suggest that commitment problems may lead to war by narrowing the bargaining space in a way that it exacerbates other causes. Fearon also discusses preventative war: If one state (A) is increasing in power and another (B) is declining, (B) can rationally wage preventive war on (A). (B) does this because they may be afraid of the peace it will have to accept from (A), not because it fears attack. For example in 1914, German leaders were willing to run a risk of global conflict was

Briana Trewitt January 31, 2012 due to their fear of the growing Russian military power. Thirdly, issue indivisibility dismisses the bargaining phase before it even begins. There are issues that may not have compromises or only have a certain amount of possible solutions. However, if the issue is to be comprehended as an all-or-nothing matter, the possibility of division disappears, therefore, determining that a war would be the only option.