What causes petro-aggression? Conventional wisdom maintains that the regime type of petrostates has significant effects on the likelihood that petrostates will launch revisionist militarized interstate disputes (MIDs). While domestic politics is an important factor that might explain the motivation and behavioral patterns of a petrostate, it says little about the international environment in which a petrostate decides to initiate conflicts. One significant factor that presents opportunities and constraints for petro-aggression is a great power alliance. In essence, the great power has strong incentives not to upset the relationship with its client petrostate ally for both strategic and economic reasons and, hence, tends not to oppose military adventurism by its ally. Consequently, the petrostate’s anticipation of great power inaction or even protection for its revisionist policy creates a moral hazard problem. Overall, by offering favorable circumstances, a great power alliance has a positive effect on petro-aggression. Although not without caveats, our large- n model and case study bear out this conclusion.

中文翻译：

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天然气大火：大国联盟和石油国家侵略

是什么引起石油侵略？传统观点认为，石油国家的政权类型对石油国家发起修正主义军事化的州际争端（MID）的可能性具有重大影响。尽管国内政治是可以解释石油国家的动机和行为模式的重要因素，但对于石油国家决定引发冲突的国际环境却知之甚少。提出石油侵略的机会和制约因素的一个重要因素是大国联盟。从本质上讲，大国具有强大的动机，不会出于战略和经济方面的考虑而破坏与客户石化盟友的关系，因此，倾向于不反对盟友的军事冒险主义。所以，石油国对大国无所作为的期待，甚至对其修正主义政策的保护也带来了道德风险问题。总体而言，大国联盟通过提供有利的条件，对石油侵略产生积极影响。尽管并非没有警告，但我们的大型模型和案例研究证明了这一结论。