In “Rationalist Explanations for War,” James Fearon argues that due to war’s costly nature and states’ risk-averse, or at least risk-neutral, tendencies, there should always exist some possible prewar agreement between two disputing states that both parties would prefer to achieve over committing to war. While seeking to reveal his main claim that war is caused by information problems, commitment problems, and issue indivisibilities, Fearon critiques five traditional Neorealist explanations of war: anarchy, positive expected utility, preventive war, lack of information, and miscalculation of relative power. Although Fearon’s critique of the majority of these theories are earnest and do expose multiple logical shortcomings, his rapid dismissal…