ABSTRACT
The sequence leading to conflict, as specifically in July 1914, reveals the changes in each protagonist’s propensity to wage war. To characterize its timing, escalation is viewed as a viability (differential) game in progress under the protagonists’ actions. The chronicle of confrontations and accommodations allows for estimating a responsiveness structure at the heart of the game. As the moves, which are the controls, are observed, and not the state variables, the game reduces to the minimization of a viability criterion under dynamics. Early estimation of the responsiveness structure operationalizes the procedure for crisis management and provides a way to anticipate the consequences of possible moves in escalations to conflict. The application to July 1914 shows the strength of the method.
Acknowledgments
I thank Thomas Lindemann (Université Versailles-Saint-Quentin, France) for advising me Otte’s (2014) book.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Availability of data and material
published in the Appendix.