Abstract
Research in quantitative international politics and peace science is dominated by two puzzles and their corresponding research designs. (1) Why do some nations fight wars more often than others? (2) Which system characteristics contribute to war? What is often neglected is a third puzzle: Why do particular nations fight each other? Dyadic analyses are most useful for dealing with this problem, and can be used to test the preferred policy of national security elites on matters such as deterrence. An empirical investigation is carried out to discover whether extended nuclear deterrence has reduced the risk of war in the 1960s and 1970s. While the evidence provides only moderate support, it still confirms the view that extended nuclear deterrence has reduced the risk of war.

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