Global interdependence and eliminating war in the twenty first century

Abstract

The logic is intuitive: as nations' interests become more global, as international trade and world economies become more complexly linked, the costs of war to nations should increase as well. Moreover, as this increasing inter-connectedness shifts the sources of conflict and of interstate power, warfare should be limited as well. Indeed, the increasing interdependence of nation-states has been discussed by scholars and observers as a potential limiting factor on interstate war. However compelling, this notion has yet to be well tested quantitatively. In addition, it is not clear what the combined effect of several individual indicators of global interdependence would have on war. The underlying concern of this research is the possibility of eliminating war by studying the relationship between war propensity and global interdependence. For the purposes of this study, two indicators of interdependence are used: annual international trade (an indicator of economic interdependence) and political alliances (to measure political interdependence). Using these two measures of the interdependence of nation-states, this study examines whether the dependence of a state's wealth on the international market and its level of political interconnectedness are associated with its likelihood to engage in interstate conflict.