Coordination Or Collaboration: The Cost Of War

War seems to constantly be ravaging some part of the international community in a manner that makes it almost commonplace; however, upon analysis, the frequent recurrence of war is found to be completely irrational. The costs of war, both in terms of the depletion of financial resources and in terms of lives lost, nearly always outweighs any winnings. This confusion can be unraveled using the bargaining model of war as well as many other theories that outline certain types of dispute that some say inevitably lead to war. Ideally, states would never have to go to war and instead settle their differences by cooperating or bargaining. The best case scenario would be either form of cooperating, coordination or collaboration, as cooperation leaves all parties at least as well off as they were before the interaction. Coordination is a much easier form of cooperation to achieve and to sustain, merely because each individual has an incentive not to defect. Collaboration, the other form of cooperation, is a bit more difficult to achieve and to sustain because individuals may have an incentive to cheat. For …show more content…
When Germany lost World War I, one of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles was that Germany would completely disarm, but once Hitler came to power, Germany began to build up their army in anticipation of war. If the British or the Russians had been completely aware of that, perhaps enforcement of the treaty could have been put into place before the threat became palpable. Even in the twenty-first century in the age of nuclear weapons, it is constantly a fear of most states, particularly the United State of America, that hostile forces are developing massive stores of nuclear weapons. It is always a possibility that a state will declare war and be blown up by a nuclear arsenal that they were completely unaware of before the war was