© Jack L. Davies 2001 & 2002

Version 2, 28 April 2002

[Version 2 replaces Version 1, 11 April 2002, mainly by inserting a new Chapter 5. The old Version 1 is still available.]

 Table of Contents 

1  Abstract and Executive Summary

Richardson’s Processes are models that expose the mechanics of how

In a de-escalation, each party responds to a provocative action by the other party with a less-provocative response. In an escalation, each party responds to a provocative action by the other party with an even more provocative response.

Misperceptions of the motives of an adversary are a major cause for overreacting and escalating within the framework of a Richardson’s Process.

The use of false propaganda, censorship, and even "politically-correct views" in the media is dangerous because they can increase misperceptions that lead to an escalation of a small conflict into a larger war.

A "Clash of Civilizations" generates deliberately false propaganda and "politically-correct views" biased in favor or one culture, religion, and/or ethnic group over others.

Richardson's Processes; together with their underlying components of Misperceptions, Propaganda, and Clashes of Civilizations; can be used as a model to describe and understand the processes leading to a war. Therefore, these models can also be used as the basis for developing a strategy for blocking unstable Richardson's Processes from continued escalation up to war. 

2 Richardson’s Processes for the Escalation of a Conflict up to War

Lewis F. Richardson¹ developed a mathematical model for the dynamics of arms races that escalate up to war, now known as “Richardson’s Processes”. They are applicable to both

Let us suppose that

 If both parties are interacting strongly with each other, whereby Action 2 is stronger than Action 1, Action 3 is stronger than Action 2, etc.; then we have an unstable process. If the Actions are negative, we have a spiraling escalation between the parties of becoming enemies and leading either to saturation at a high level of animosity or a war that ultimately breaks the escalation. If the Actions are positive, then the two parties escalate in becoming friends until they reach a level of saturation, such as to “be in love” with each other in the case of individuals. 

Unstable Richardson’s Processes 

However, if both parties are interacting weakly with each other, whereby Action 2 is weaker than Action 1, etc.; then we have a stable process with small perturbations around some equilibrium point of mutually liking or disliking each other.

Stable Richardson’s Processes

 When we discern between

we discover that

When we compare the relative strength within our minds between these two competing reactions or strategies, we discover that

It is simply not worth the effort to waste our time and energy hating someone we don’t know or care about, or to go to war with another country that we are not even interested in.  

If we prefer peace over war in our international relations, we need to select experienced political leaders who have sufficient control over their own personal emotions that they will respond to the actions of others on the basis of a rational cost/benefit analysis for the interests of their own citizens rather than personal emotional desires for revenge. We need leaders who realize and are willing to demonstrate that

Whenever an individual person or groups of individuals escalate an original conflict by bringing in additional partners on their side, this represents a serious form of escalation that often increases the difficulty in stabilizing the escalation – unless the third parties brought in serve only in a neutral role as mediators. Such escalation includes both

Whenever organizations not recognized as governments are escalating a conflict with recognized governments, which are usually much stronger than they are, they sometimes try to provoke their opponents into retaliating and escalating with attacks against powerful potential allies of the organization itself, thereby drawing them into the conflict with more resources than the small organization itself has – to fight the war of the small organization as its proxies.

An important characteristic of nearly all Richardson’s Processes is that both parties see the other party as the aggressor provoking them, without having provoked the other party themselves in any way. Both parties try to interpret the situation as a single isolated aggression by the other party against themselves and the need for them to respond appropriately on a one-time basis, rather than within the framework of an escalating or de-escalating process through many incremental steps.

[The mathematical models of Richardson are more general than implied here. They include other possibilities, such as: when one party acts in a provocative manner and the other party acts in a non-provocative manner; when two parties react with different sensitivities while reacting positively or while reacting negatively to each other; the effects of random perturbing events; as well as differentiating between the magnitude of the intention of an action by a party versus the perception of the action by the party receiving the action. In 1962, Kenneth E. Boulding² presented an influential simpler exposition than the original exposition by Richardson of Richardson’s Processes. R. J. Rummel developed a more-general approach in 1977 that includes the basics of Richardson’s Processes.³]  

3  Misperceptions as a Factor Driving an Unstable Richardson's Process

3.1 Definitions of Misperceptions

Robert Jervis has warned us of two common misperceptions of nations relative to each other that often provoke wars:⁴

1. the misperception that other nations are more centralized and calculating than they really are and
2. the misperception that the actions of the other party are autonomous rather than reactions to their perceptions of our own behavior.

He gives many illuminating examples of how this has occurred in the past 20’th Century.

Experts at the US Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA") have recognized this work by Jervis, such as when Richards J. Heuer, Jr. writes: “The process of perception links people to their environment and is critical to accurate understanding of the world about us. Accurate intelligence analysis obviously requires accurate perception. Yet research into human perception demonstrates that the process is beset by many pitfalls. Moreover, the circumstances under which intelligence analysis is conducted are precisely the circumstances in which accurate perception tends to be most difficult."⁵  

Heuer agrees with misperception 1. of Jervis above whereby he describes a human bias in the form of "... a tendency to see the actions of other governments (or groups of any type) as the intentional result of centralized direction and planning."⁶ He also cites Jervis as writing "...most people are slow to perceive accidents, unintended consequences, coincidences, and small causes leading to large effects. Instead, coordinated actions, plans and conspiracies are seen."⁷ 

Heuer stresses the distinction between internal versus external causes of behavior.  "Internal causes of behavior include a person's attitudes, beliefs, and personality. External causes include incentives and constraints, role requirements, social pressures, or other forces over which the individual has little control." As a typical misperception, he sees: "A fundamental error made in judging the causes of behavior is to overestimate the role of internal factors and underestimate the role of external factors. When observing another's behavior, people are too inclined to infer that the behavior was caused by broad personal qualities or dispositions of the other person and to expect that these same inherent qualities will determine the actor's behavior under other circumstances. Not enough weight is assigned to external circumstances that may have influenced the other person's choice of behavior."⁸ 

He sees this bias in perceptions more generally in the form that we generally

Of course, our opponents see a mirror image, i.e. they

The result is a major difference in the perceptions of the two parties involved in an escalating conflict and these misperceptions play a key role in causing the conflict to escalate towards war rather than to de-escalate towards peace.

This insight is important for understanding why both parties involved in an escalation of a conflict as a Richardson's process nearly always justify their own actions as retaliation against an action by the other party, which the first party did not provoke in any way. Each party sees itself as the victim of unprovoked aggression by the other party. Heuer explains this phenomenon as: "This is because the observer assumes his or her own actions are unprovocative, clearly understood by other actors, and well designed to elicit a desired response. Indeed, an observer interacting with another actor sees himself as determining the situation to which the other actor responds."¹⁰

When a party sees an action by an opponent as being negative, this party is usually biased to interpret the action to internal causes influencing the opponent. However, when a party sees an action by an opponent as being positive, this party is usually biased to interpret the action as being due to external causes, particularly successful action of the party itself.

As an example, referring to the peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel in 1978-1979, Heuer states: 

As another more recent example from the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in March 2002, Israel and its allies assumed that:

As still another example from the same conflict, the Israelis and the Palestinians have mutually false perceptions of each other with

With misperception 2. of Jervis above, we see the key component in the structure of most Richardson's Processes. Each party justifies its own actions as defensive reactions to unprovoked aggressive actions by the other party. These positions of the two parties are logically contradictory to each other.

Both parties claim that

The real truth, that any sane unbiased outsider sees in such a conflict, is that

3.2 Integrating Misperceptions within Richardson’s Processes

Each Reaction in a Richardson’s Process is always based upon the perception of the preceding Action, rather than the original intent of that Action (which is usually not accurately known to the recipient of that Action).

Therefore, the question of whether the result will be

 is determined by both

As an example, we will first apply this combined model to the case of two individuals, with the following initial assumptions:

This situation is illustrated in the top half of the following diagram:

Misperception in Richardson’s Processes

Party A starts out by doing something “nice” towards Party B. Party B misperceives Action 1 to be less positive than actually intended by Party A. However, Party B still reacts through Action 2 with the intent that it be more positive than his or her perception of Action 1. Party A misperceives Action 2 to be less positive than actually intended by Party B. But Party A will still respond to Party B with an action slightly more positive than his or her perception of the intent of Party B. The result in this scenario is that the two Parties actually de-escalate their relationship and drift away, despite the fact that both are deliberately trying to escalate it – because the magnitudes of the negative misperceptions are less than the magnitudes of their positive intents.

As a second example, consider the case of two countries with the following initial assumptions:

This situation is illustrated in the bottom half of the diagram above.

Party A starts out by doing something mildly negative towards Party B. Party B misperceives Action 1 to be more negative than actually intended by Party A. However, Party B still reacts through its Action 2 with the intent that it be less negative than its perception of Action 1. Party A misperceives Action 2 to be more negative than actually intended by Party B. But Party A will still respond to Party B with an action slightly less negative than its perception for the intent of Party B. The result in this scenario is that the two Parties actually escalate their relationship and may even go to war with each other, despite the fact that both are deliberately trying to de-escalate their relationship to neutrality with cordial relations – because the magnitude of the negative misperceptions was greater than the magnitude of their positive restraint between the perceived intent of the actions to the intent of their reactions.  

The analysis above shows that any successful mediation of an escalating Richardson's Process

4 The Role of Censorship and False Propaganda in Driving Misperceptions

4.1 General Theoretical Foundations

The use of censorship and false propaganda is a deliberate attempt to influence the perceptions of large numbers of people,

In principle, censorship and false propaganda could be used to create misperceptions in the minds of many people in a way that increases the chances in a Richardson’s Process based upon an initial conflict for either

In reality, censorship and false propaganda are nearly always used negatively in ways that tend to escalate an initial conflict on up to all-out war. Historically, censorship and false propaganda have played a key role in creating the misperceptions that cause minor conflicts to escalate via Richardson’s processes into large wars. World War I was a classic example – as documented in detail in the book by Jervis on misperceptions.¹²

The temptation is certainly large for any elite class of political, economic, and media leaders should they discover that they can de facto control the views of the majority of citizens in a dictatorship by censoring out undesired information and replacing it with deliberately-false propaganda. However, actually doing so in a democracy would be difficult, particularly if there is a diverse set of competing media players who are not centrally controlled by the government.

If one class or group of citizens were to deliberately control the media in a country to achieve their own goals, this would destroy the very foundations of democracy in that country. How can citizens exercise their rights and responsibilities within a democracy, using their power to express their views through freedom of speech and their will through democratic elections and referenda, when a smaller group of individuals is distorting the information available to them, in a deliberate attempt to influence their decisions?

Once such an elite group de facto establishes control over the media of a country, thereby de facto destroying any genuine democracy in that country, the temptation also becomes large to misuse this new political and economic power for their own interests and to the detriment of the other citizens. We must always remember Lord Acton’s warning that “power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Even with the best of original intentions, we end up deceiving ourselves that we are beneficially caring for the remainder of the citizens, from whom we have stripped real democratic freedom and power. This is a fundamental weakness of nearly all non-democratic governments.

We have recently seen the fallibility of religious elites in some Islamic countries, such as Iran and Afghanistan, presumably starting out with the purest of religious intentions in creating religious governments or theocracies that ultimately became corrupt and oppressive for their citizens. But, we have learned the same lessons in the past concerning the similar fallibility of Christian governments in the “Dark Ages” of Europe, from about 475 to 1000 A.D. This phenomenon is not associated with any particular religion, but rather with the fallibility of human beings when no longer subjected to the constraints of a system of adequate “checks and balances”. This is the reason why the founding fathers of the USA installed such safeguards in the U.S. Constitution.

Another serious danger is that even members of an elite class, using censorship and false propaganda to deceive the majority of citizens, are ultimately influenced negatively by their own propaganda. When the leaders themselves believe their own false propaganda, they make logically-correct decisions based upon false assumptions that too easily lead to disastrous unexpected results. Through de facto censorship of the media, they create a monolithic flow of information creating a nearly-unanimous consensus for the policies they want to execute. The healthy self-correcting open debate on critical issues, allowing the general public to openly discuss all theories and positions, is missing. Again, this is a fundamental weakness of nearly all non-democratic governments.

4.2 Subtle Censorship and False Propaganda in Democracies

There is a general reassuring consensus today that "democracies do not go to war with each other". Likewise, some experts argue that democracies do not escalate a Richardson's Process up to war.

The justification for such claims is that freedom of speech and freedom of the media will promote the introduction of a variety of competing ideas and public discussion of them that will not allow the false perceptions involved in a typical Richardson's Process to develop. In particular, the claims, arguments, and views of each of the potential parties to a conflict will be fully aired in the other country, thereby exposing the ludicrous logical contradictions between the perceptions of the two parties, leading to a rational non-provocative middle ground.

However, there are some disturbing cases in recent history that should cause us to reconsider these claims. The recent war between Ethiopia and Eritrea is one such example. After jointly overthrowing the Communist Dictatorship in 1991, Eritrea was allowed to secede and both countries drafted and implement new Constitutions with the assistance of international experts on democratic constitutions to include all of the relevant articles for implementing democracy. (As examples, see Article 27 , Article 29, and Article 30 of the Ethiopian Constitution as well as Article 7 and Article 19 of the Eritrean Constitution.)

How did Ethiopia and Eritrea, as two enthusiastic young democracies, manage to start a war between themselves within just a few years that was disastrous for both countries? Some excuses have been offered, such as that

As a result, strong false perceptions developed, which fueled a Richardson's Process on up to a war that was about equally disastrous for both parties. The censorship and false propaganda by both Governments was so complete that the citizens of each Country sincerely believe the contradictory views today that the Government of the other Country started the war against them -- without any provocation from their own side.

The convenient excuse was that, since both countries violated key provisions in their own Constitutions, they were de facto no longer "genuine democracies" and hence this war did not disprove the claim that "democracies do not go to war with each other".

However, there still may be a dangerous lesson to be learned. Namely, the justification of both Governments for suspending and suppressing freedom of speech and freedom of the press was the alleged threat to national security. The emotion of patriotism was invoked in order to motivate each population to support the decisions of their respective Government to wage this war. Any democratic government could be tempted to temporarily suspend basic democratic freedoms within a national crisis -- and not receive substantial resistance from its citizens -- at least initially.

By definition, democracies do not have a national bureaucratic organization that centrally controls the contents of the media. Nearly all non-democratic governments do have such centralized control. For these reasons, it would not be easy for a democratic government to quickly implement formal censorship of the media or a systematic campaign of false propaganda. Particularly the Executive and Legislative Branches of most democratic governments usually have sufficient autonomy that neither could impose its own propaganda upon the nation.

Therefore, de facto censorship of the media and false propaganda usually take less obvious forms in a democracy than in a dictatorship. The most common form is based upon the concept of "politically correct views". The question is whether the media in all democracies has the will to defy these "politically correct views" defined by consensus within "the establishment", particularly in a "national emergency", by publishing contradictory or alternative views? In both Ethiopia and Eritrea, editors of newspapers who challenged the views of their Governments were arrested and the television stations were already controlled by the Governments.

The stigma of "being unpatriotic" can be applied within a democracy, particularly during a national crisis, when the government is trying to unify public opinion behind a common set of goals and procedures for responding to a national crisis. What happens when the "politically-correct views" are engineered for mobilizing the emotions of the citizens and are based upon misperceptions of the type that fuel escalations in a Richardson's Process? The democratic controls through the freedoms of speech and the media for dispelling false "politically-correct views" are at least temporarily short circuited.

4.3 Measuring the Dangerous False Perceptions and Bias of the Government and Media of a Country

Fortunately, the level of dangerous false perceptions and bias of a government and the media of a country related to a specific conflict can be measured reasonably impartially. 

The key to such measurements is the understanding that both parties in an escalating conflict have qualitatively equal false perceptions in the form that they are only reacting to unprovoked aggression by the other party. When the government or media of a given country is biased in the direction of supporting the false perceptions of one party while attacking only the false perceptions of the other party, this is easy to identify.

If there is biased reporting in favor of supporting the false perceptions of Party A, then reporting on individual actions by the two parties will usually be in the form of:

This pattern of reporting excuses Party A when it attacks while condemning Party B when it attacks. It encourages an escalation of a Richardson's Process.

If there is simple 1-level reporting, it would be in the form of:

If this reporting criticizes the actions of both parties equally, it would be unbiased reporting. But, if it assigns more criticism to the actions of one party than the actions of the other party, then it would be biased reporting. Since it does not refer to the escalating spiral of violence, it is neutral towards a Richardson's Process, since it does not promote either a de-escalation towards peace or an escalation towards war.

If there is 2-level unbiased reporting, it would be in the form of:

Since there are an approximately equal number of actions by each party in a long escalation, each party receives an approximately equal amount of the blame from the readers/listeners to such reporting. By emphasizing that one action is always the result of a previous action, it demonstrates the futility of continuing an escalation of the Richardson's Process.

If there is 3-level unbiased reporting, it would be in the form of:

This pattern of reporting assigns the blame upon the party who makes the current attack -- for having continued to escalate the spiral of violence. It also places the burden upon this party to be certain that their current action is less violent and damaging than their earlier action, i.e. a de-escalation rather than an escalation. In general it encourages a de-escalation of the Richardson's Process -- and hence is a more responsible pattern of reporting for promoting peace. It also demonstrates the basic nature of the ongoing Richardson's Process to the readers/listeners of such reporting and it actively encourages a helpful de-escalation of the Richardson's Process.

It also assigns

We need to carefully distinguish between

whereby all 3 cases may be equally unbiased; but where

In general, reporting that includes an odd number of levels places more pressure upon the party currently escalating the conflict and therefore it is more effective in de-escalating a Richardson's Process. Reporting that includes an even number of levels places more pressure upon the party being blamed by the party currently escalating the conflict and this may even have a small effect encouraging an escalation of a Richardson's Process.

This means that we need to quantitatively measure and compare two separate variables, i.e.

Particularly in the case of a Richardson's Process involving an internationally-recognized government and a group of people who have not been recognized as a government, it is almost impossible to quantify the level or intensity of actions by both parties for enabling a quantitative comparison of the levels of the actions of Party A with the levels of the actions of Party B. The reason is that the actions by a recognized government are mainly through its centrally-controlled army and police forces whereas the actions by a non-recognized group are mainly guerrilla type actions by de-centrally controlled ad hoc groups. Since the actions of one group are qualitatively different from the actions of the other group, an impartial quantitative comparison is not feasible.

However, once an escalation proceeds beyond 2 incidents, it is easy to measure and compare the intensities of the actions by the government to determine whether the Richardson's Process is escalating or de-escalating -- and likewise to measure and compare the intensities of the actions by the ad hoc groups opposing the recognized government.

As a key hypothesis for testing, we might postulate that the level of bias by the government and media of a given country concerning a third-party conflict would correlate with public opinion polls of the relative support for the 2 parties of the conflict in this given country.

Particularly within a democracy, it will be important to distinguish between causes and effects, i.e. whether the chicken or the egg comes first. Does

It may also be relevant in any quantitative analysis of bias to note how reporters can selectively use different techniques when reporting actions of Parties A and B, depending upon whether the "politically-correct views" are biased in favor of Party A or Party B. As a simple example from the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, whenever U.S. reporters do report that an action by Israel was provoked by an action by the Palestinians and that an action by the Palestinians was provoked by an action by Israel, there is often a subtle difference whereby the reporter 

The subtle message seems to be that it is self evident (according to the "politically-correct views") that all actions by Israel were provoked by actions by Palestinians, and hence do not need to be justified, whereas it would violate the "politically-correct views" that any action by the Palestinians could have been provoked by an action by Israel. Since the reporter does not want to go against the "politically-correct views", the reporter only reports that someone else said so, suggesting that the source may not be reliable -- and that the reporter accepts no personal responsibility for the claim. Is this a hidden form of bias, that also needs to be measured quantitatively when attempting to measure bias?

5  The Role of Incentives/Disincentives Upon Escalation/De-Escalation of a Conflict

When Party A perceives an aggressive action against itself by Party B, it has a wide variety of potential "reactions" for consideration, including:

It is the set of these choices by each party in alternation over many stages of an unstable Richardson's Process which ultimately determines whether the conflict will:

In making these decisions at each stage of a Richardson's, each Party at least intuitively performs a cost/benefit analysis for each option under consideration. Because of the various uncertainties for both the costs and the benefits for each option, one may use the general mathematical models for making decisions under certainty.

Such rational analysis is highly distorted by the misperceptions of each Party in a Richardson's Process that lead to false estimates for the most likely costs and benefits.

How can an impartial outside mediator effectively stop such an escalation in order to achieve peace?

Experience shows that it is extremely difficult to change the misperceptions that each of the two parties (and their allies) have. The already escalating process is in itself increasing the disparity between the two logically inconsistent misperceptions of the two parties.

This is where the concept of "incentives/disincentives" comes into play.¹³ The mediator and/or the rest of the International Community can apply a set of

Particularly when a local conflict between Party A and Party B is threatening to escalate and endanger world peace, the International Community should have strong incentives itself for applying such a set of strong incentives/disincentives equitably and impartially upon both Party A and Party B.

The set of external incentives/disincentives applied by the International Community to both parties in a conflict combine with the set of internal incentives/disincentives that each party is already applying. Before attempting mediation, external mediators should carefully review the relations of the various members of the International Community vis-à-vis each of the two parties, to determine which relations are already promoting an escalation and which relations are already promoting a de-escalation of the conflict. Correcting in appropriate relations by outside nations with the two parties, where outside nations are indirectly or directly encouraging an escalation rather than a de-escalation can in itself help to stabilize the conflict.

The tactical point is that external incentives/disincentives can be applied equitably and impartially to both parties immediately by the International Community whereas changes in the misperceptions of the two parties can only be brought back to reality slowly - if at all. The misperceptions may be driving the escalation of an unstable Richardson's Process, but the International Community and impartial mediators must focus upon appropriately changing the incentives/disincentives  that each party uses in its decisions for escalating/de-escalating the conflict.

Following are a few examples of how the International Community can change the total incentives/disincentives influencing the parties to escalate or de-escalate a conflict:

In the USA, law-enforcement officials try to combat crime by making the adage, "Crime Does Not Pay", a reality. If we were to apply the law differently for different individuals, some criminals would be convinced that "Crime Really Does Pay" -- and the level of criminal acts would increase. We need the same courage to apply international laws and to create a powerful set of impartial international incentives/disincentives upon parties who choose to violate international law and Resolutions of the UN Security Council, so that such illegal behavior on their part will not be protected and rewarded, but rather will be more expensive for them than they are willing to accept.

It is important to note that the two parties will usually be unable to negotiate any formula for compensation of damages between the two parties. Because of their complementary conflicting misperceptions of the conflict:

There is no room for compromise between these opposite positions as long as each party holds to its opposite misperceptions of the conflict. Therefore, such compensation for damages must be imposed by the International Community, such as the by the United Nations, in accordance with international law, using the UN Compensation Commission for Iraq as a legal precedent. 

As an example, there was no way that the Serbs could negotiate successfully with the people of Albanian descent who they were driving out of Kosova in a program of ethnic cleansing to allow Serbs to take their property and obtain a majority in Kosova. Therefore, a just solution had to be imposed by the International Community.

When a conflict in the category of a Richardson's Process has gradually escalated over a period of many years, the animosities between the two parties and the contradictory differences in their misperceptions may be so great, that it is no longer practical to

between the two parties. This is particularly true when the stronger of the two parties is in violation of international law, this party is using superior military force to violate the law, and the International Community is not protecting the weaker party. The levels of distrust between the two parties as well as distrust of the International Community due to its failures to impose or enforce justice is often so great that

More generally, we need to rethink our current "politically-correct view" that we should always try to negotiate a ceasefire first as a prerequisite for negotiations on the political issues underlying a conflict. By rigidly insisting upon an often-inappropriate sequence, the International Community may be unnecessarily prolonging some conflicts and encouraging them to escalate, rather than stopping them as desired.

6  A Clash of Civilizations Driving Deliberately-False Propaganda

The bitter conflict between Jews and Palestinians in Palestine, now Israel, is not a simple local conflict between two local clans or tribes, such as in the case of Rwanda or the recent war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Rather, it is a “clash between civilizations” in the sense of Samuel P. Huntington.¹⁴ He predicts that the major future conflicts in our World will occur at the fault lines between major civilizations. The city of Jerusalem and other religious sites in Israel are the vertex where the fault lines of 3 major civilizations based upon different but related religious beliefs and their cultural consequences intersect and overlap: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (in the order of their evolution and emergence). In the sense of Huntington, this must be one of the most dangerous hot spots in the World today, with the greatest potential for conflict arising with such strong foundations that it could potentially trigger a new World War III.

One should conclude that we must be particularly cautious not to exacerbate tensions at the intersection of these 3 fault lines. In this sense, it is difficult to understand how the largely Christian US Government can justify taking sides in favor of the Jews in their conflict with the Islamic Palestinians. This policy has vastly increased the explosive dangers, by forcing the Christian and Islamic Civilizations into an unnecessary clash with each other. Inevitably, the USA pulls in the Christian nations of the World on its side in support of the Jews and the Palestinians pull in both the Arabic and Islamic Civilizations on their side. Ultimately, the much smaller Jewish Civilization may succeed, whether so intended or not, in provoking a mutually self-destructive World War III between the two much-larger Christian and Islamic Civilizations!

When civilizations clash with one another, each civilization generates its own distorted version of reality concerning themselves and the other civilizations. This is particularly true in the case of the 3 religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This is de facto propaganda which they use to manipulate perceptions to their advantage in the competition among religions and civilizations. This propaganda distorts the perceptions of both the civilizations issuing and receiving this propaganda. The resulting misperceptions destabilize Richardson’s Processes among them, thereby increasing the probability of warfare evolving among them.

7 World War I as an Example

Lewis Fry Richardson developed his mathematical model around the end of WW I, to explain how WW I started. Therefore, it is not surprising to discover that WW I is the classic example for how Richardson’s Processes work.

Richardson used the expenditures for weapons and armed forces of a country as a quantitative measure for “actions” and “reactions” – because this data was readily available. But, he clearly understood the underlying psychology that was fueling such “arms races”. In fact, the Cold War was largely an “arms race”, which escalated, like in a poker game, until the economy of the Soviet Union could no longer finance the increased expenditures to keep up with the USA – causing a collapse in their system and an end to the escalating spiral.

For a conflict between an officially-recognized government of a country and non-recognized forces opposing it, such as liberation movements from within its own territory, the expenditures for weapons and stockpiles of weapons are not a good quantitative measure for the escalating process. Rather, we must go back to other fundamentals, such as the levels of frustration and determination of the “have nots” versus the levels of determination and resources of the “haves”. 

In his analysis of WW I, Richardson traced the pattern of actions, reactions, and reactions to reactions using a combination of arms expenditures, levels of mobilization for armed forces, and other psychological factors.

Historians now concede that WW I was not deliberately planned and initiated by any one or several parties. In fact, none of the parties saw any advantage for their own interests from going to war. Rather, misperceptions and misunderstandings over the motivations for the actions of others led to a gradual escalation into a major war that no one wanted to have. Governments became the victims of their own misperceptions and false propaganda. All Governments were convinced that they were only “reacting” to the “unprovoked actions” of others – being convinced that they themselves were not provoking others.  All leaders were convinced that other leaders were at fault, without realizing that they were equally at fault for their own roles in this escalation leading to an unnecessary war.

This part of our history should be a warning for our leaders today, that they may also be blamed later by historians for having escalated a small conflict up into a new global World War III – if they do not learn from this past history and avoid repeating the same tragic blunders.

8 Prevention of Unstable Richardson's Processes Leading to War

Prevention of unstable Richardson's Processes leading to war can occur at 2 stages:

In both cases, we need to ameliorate the factors that may otherwise lead to an unstable Richardson's Process that will lead to war.

The most immediate cause for an unstable Richardson's Process is the pair of mutually contradictory misperceptions held by both parties that they are only reacting to unprovoked aggressive actions by the other party. This pair of contradictory misperceptions is usually held not only the two parties directly involved, but also by the other nations who support one or the other of the two parties. These contradictory misperceptions must be brought back at least closer to reality by both parties to the conflict and their allies as a pre-requisite for reducing the instability of any Richardson's Process. In order to do this, it is necessary to at least ameliorate the censorship of the media, false propaganda, bias, and "politically-correct views" that contribute to and support these contradictory misperceptions. In some cases, ethnic, religious, and cultural factors that influence these "politically-correct views" and bias must also be addressed.

However, it is both difficult and time consuming to try to change the misperceptions of two parties already engaged in an unstable escalating Richardson's Process. In such cases, the most effective means for stabilizing them as de-escalating Richardson's Processes is by introducing appropriate incentives/disincentives as outlined in Chapter 5 above.

In the case of democracies, the "path of least resistance" for tackling this complex set of interdependent factors appears to consist of

In this way, the citizens of each democracy will have the power in their own hands to debate the issues in public, form their own independent opinions on the issues, and use their own democratic rights as voters to assure that their elected leaders act responsibly in leading their country and partners of their country towards peace rather than towards war. The implementation of this proposal should be left in the hands of citizens, civic organizations, academic institutions, private "think tanks", professional pollsters, etc., rather than any governmental bodies.

The resulting discussion and dialog at the level of the citizens of a democracy with freedom of speech should result in an informal set of realistic "middle-of-the-road" opinions on the issues of a conflict that will dispel the mutually-contradictory misperceptions that otherwise develop spontaneously around such conflicts. The results should support the hypothesis that "democracies do not go to war with other democracies" and, in fact democracies will only very seldom engage in war with non-democracies.

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