National Material Capability Buildup and the Rank-Magnitude Distribution of Wars

Are there physical laws, rather than conventions like diplomacy, that determine when war will break out and how severe it will be? On the eve of World War II, L. F. Richardson discovered a curious pattern: Major wars are rare and minor wars are common to such a predictable degree that the size-frequency offset can be plotted with a straight line. Complex-systems theorists have since confirmed those findings and tested them with computer models. Yet none of the research has fully synthesized this law-like observation with the established theoretical approaches in international relations that would apply, such as power transition theory. This dissertation examines the distribution of nations’ latent war-making capabilities in the form of total energy production and compares it with annual war deaths worldwide, using both real-world and computer-generated data, to fill a significant theoretical gap: What do relative energy production levels tell us, at the systemic level, about the potential use of military force? Is the distribution of material capability self-correcting, and does this explain the tradeoff between the frequency and size of wars?