Technological Innovation and Cooperation in Arms Races

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Abstract
Cooperation in the form of either tacit or formal agreements is a relatively rare event in both contemporary and historical arms races. Yet, analysts of most arms races suggest that all the participants usually can benefit from mutual cooperation. In this analysis, arms races are represented as Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma games of finite but uncertain length. Based on this plausible formulation, the conditions when mutual and/or unilateral tacit cooperation is ‘rational’, in a game theoretic expected payoff sense, are examined. Then the dynamic effects of technological innovation and formal arms control agreements on the payoff structure of the IPD game are introduced. Given these new conditions, the possibilities for cooperation are reexamined. This initial exploration permits a number of tentative conclusions about the conditions under which it is rational to cooperate, and why cooperation is so difficult to achieve in arms races.

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