Hassling as Money Burning: A Note

Abstract

Why do states sometimes permit military activities that are minor, costly, and yet inconclusive? We argue that these low-level conflicts known as "hassling" are useful commitment tactics to prevent preventive wars. While states have incentives to cooperatively and permanently refrain from hassling, they recognize that doing so might beget a preventive war due to the rising power's inability to make appeasing offers prior to the power shift. Maintaining the hassling activities that might persist after a greater war would reduce the spoils of the victor, thus dampening the declining power's preventive war incentive. As such, costly hassling activities are efficient in the sense that they preclude costlier large-scale wars