It is far too easy to slip into stupid wars because of a) the prisoner’s dilemma, b) a tit-for-tat escalation process, c) the perceived costs of backing down for the declining power, and d) misunderstandings existing when decision making has to be fast. Rival great powers typically find themselves in the prisoner’s dilemma; they need to have ways of assuring the other that they won’t try to kill them lest the other tries to kill them first. Tit-for-tat escalations are dangerous in that they require each side to escalate or lose what the enemy captured in the last move; it is like a game of
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