Why War Rather Than a Deal? How Bargaining Can Break Down

As the conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran unfolds in real time, it raises one of the oldest question in politics: why do wars start? The familiar answers are tempting — greed, power, hatred, the darker instincts of human nature. But they are often too simple. War is ruinously expensive for both sides, and almost any deal is better than destruction. The costliness of war is precisely why it remains the exception rather than the rule — rivals usually prefer to loathe one another in peace rather than fight. The book we will be looking at in May takes that observation seriously. Instead of asking why humans are warlike in general, it asks a sharper question: if peace is usually the better choice, why do deals collapse and wars break out anyway? By mapping the specific strategic breakdowns — miscalculations, hidden uncertainties, promises that can't be kept — that derail even willing parties, it offers a diagnostic framework for understanding why conflicts erupt despite overwhelming incentives to avoid them, and how those same insights can be used to chart a path to peace. Come along and let's dig in.

Primary Reading: Why We Fight Summary (A 38-page guide prepared for this meetup)

The Book: Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace (2022) by Christopher Blattman.

Christopher Blattman is a professor at the University of Chicago who has spent decades doing something rare in conflict studies: actually going to war zones and high-violence communities to run rigorous field experiments and test his theories against reality. Drawing on political science, economics, and psychology, he builds a framework that applies equally to international wars, civil conflicts, drug cartel turf wars, and street gangs — the same underlying logic, he argues, explains them all.

His central claim is that war is almost never inevitable — peace and compromise are almost always available, and almost always better for both sides. When wars do break out, it is because one of five specific mechanisms has caused the logic of peace to collapse: (1) Unchecked interests — leaders pursuing personal gains at their people's expense; (2) Intangible incentives — goals like honour, ideology, or religious duty that no material deal can satisfy; (3) Uncertainty — where private information and the temptation to bluff make it rational to call an adversary's hand; (4) Commitment problems — when a rising power cannot credibly promise not to exploit its future advantage, making conflict feel safer than a deal that won't hold; and (5) Misperceptions — when leaders systematically misjudge their enemy's strength, intentions, or resolve.

The guide we prepared should give you a solid grounding in all of these ideas, but I hope it leaves you wanting more and that you will track down the book. It is easily available as an ebook and audiobook, and likely in libraries. If you want to buy a physical copy, you may need to order one, so don't leave it too late. One honest caveat: although Blattman writes for a general audience — enlivened by his firsthand accounts of fieldwork in war zones and gang-controlled neighbourhoods — this is a substantial book that requires some effort.

One request, though: only arrive having done some reading. The summary guide is there precisely for this — it won't take long and it will make the evening far more rewarding. We've all sat through discussions that devolve into "well, Netanyahu is just..." or "the Ayatollahs are simply..." and while those conversations have their place, they're not what the Big Ideas Book Club is for. Blattman's whole project is to get beyond personality and prejudice to the structural forces that drive conflict. Come ready to think at that level, and the discussion will be genuinely illuminating.

Join us for a drink (and optional meal) at 6:30pm on Monday, 4th May, on the 2nd floor of the Keg & Brew Hotel in Surrey Hills (i.e. up two flights of stairs). The venue is conveniently located near Central Station and the Light Rail.

Do the reading and bring along your favourite war to discuss, and maybe we can also help deescalate the parking-spot war you are currently waging with your neighbours. 😊

Hope to see you there!

P.S. Please adjust your RSVP if you have indicated that you will come but are no longer able to do so. This is courteous to other people if there is a waitlist.

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These are just some optional links to consider to supplement the main reading. But please do the reading! Feel free to pass on other useful links in the discussion section.

Video & Audio

• Talks and Podcasts with Blattman:
  Blattman Presentation on the Book (1 hr)
  Vox’s Weeds podcast with Blattman on Spotify
  Interview at the U.S. Institute of Peace (Now the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace!)

Written

• Blattman's writing on the book:
  5 Key Insights -- The Next Big Idea Club
  The Roots of War - Boston Review
  Five Reasons War Happen
  Blattman on the prospects of war with China
• Summary of the book:
  Tosummarise book summary
• Other books. If you are interested in how historians rather than political scientists approach the causes of war, two books worth knowing about are listed below. Geoffrey Blainey — one of Australia's most eminent historians — argues in his 1973 classic work (now updated to 2025) that wars typically begin when nations hold conflicting beliefs about their own relative power, a thesis that maps onto Blattman's uncertainty and misperceptions mechanisms. Richard Overy's recent book takes a broader and darker view, surveying the deep biological, psychological, and cultural foundations that make humans a persistently warlike species — essentially the kind of sweeping "why are humans aggressive?" question that Blattman deliberately sets aside in favour of his sharper diagnostic approach.
  - Blainey (2025) The Causes of War
  - Overy (2024) Why War?