| Ballistic missile proliferation has emerged as important topic in international relations. Once confined to a select group of industrialized nations, ballistic missiles have spread throughout many parts of the world. Proliferation of this particular weapons platform is salient because of its potential to deliver weapons of mass destruction to densely populated areas. Contemporary analysis of ballistic missile proliferation tends to explain missile proliferation as the latest bad habit of the so-called rogue-states. My methodological approach is unique in that I examine the phenomenon as a dynamic process of a complex system in which individual choices are rational and intended to achieve national security goals. Collectively, however, these choices have unintended macro-level effects. Such a process is not unfamiliar to economics. Indeed, the invisible hand theorem is more than a proposition about the computation of a price vector but a statement about the inherent order in human affairs, an order that is the “result of human action but not human design” (Adam Ferguson, 1767).; Traditionally nations have countered defensive weapons with offensive weapons: castle were countered by cannons; forts were counter by tanks; ships were counter by missiles, jet aircraft were counter by radar and air defenses and so on. Ballistic missiles changed this defense-offense sequence of weapons innovation. Unlike these earlier weapons systems, which can be neutralized before or after being mobilized, defense against ballistic missiles is extremely difficult. When faced with ballistic missile threats, nations often acquire ballistic missiles themselves as a deterrent.; A ballistic missile threatens not only its intended target but menaces all agents within its range. Consequently, missile procurement by one state can precipitate missile procurement from the various nations within the striking distance of the newly acquired missile. Using a panel data set of 119 countries from 1967 to 1997, I show that missile threats can explain over 80% of the variation in missile ranges. I also model the decision to arm with a discrete choice model that explains the probability of procuring ballistic missiles as a function of the number of foreign missiles capable of striking a country. I find that the probability a country procures missiles increases nonlinearly as the number of neighbors with missile increases. Moreover, missile proliferation exhibits threshold dynamics: countries are likely to get ballistic missiles when they have at least two neighbors with ballistic missiles.; I simulate ballistic missile proliferation as a cellular automation, that is a lattice in which the site strategy (arm or disarm) is determined the number of neighboring sites with missiles capable of striking the cell. The decision rules, which arm or disarm sites are based on my discrete choice model. Starting with a random distribution of armed sites and unarmed sites, the lattice system self-organizes into clusters of armed and unarmed sites. These simulation configurations resemble the real world patterns of ballistic missile proliferation. |
