Enduring Rivalry Analysis

Enduring rivalry analysis studies the long-running, recurring antagonisms between particular pairs of states — India and Pakistan, the United States and the Soviet Union, Israel and its neighbors — as a distinct unit of analysis. Pioneered by Diehl and Goertz in War and Peace in International Rivalry (2000), it identifies rivalries from patterns of repeated militarized disputes, classifies their intensity, and analyzes their origins, dynamics, and termination. The approach argues that conflict is concentrated in a small number of rivalries and that understanding these histories explains much of interstate war.