Uncertainty about military power is widely considered an important determinant of international conflict, but research in international relations provides relatively little guidance about the origins of uncertainty. What factors influence the validity of actors’ assessments of military capabilities? When would one expect uncertainty about military capabilities to be particularly high, or especially low? We examine a series of factors capable of explaining the sources of uncertainty in international relations, positing that the uncertainty of assessments is a function of both characteristics of the state being assessed and the overall strategic environment. We test our theory using new measures of uncertainty that we derive from analyzing publicly available estimates of national military capabilities. Our findings offer a novel set of implications both for research that relies on uncertainty as a key cause of conflict and for policymakers faced with evaluating foreign military assessments.

中文翻译：

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国际关系不确定性的决定因素

军事力量的不确定性被广泛认为是国际冲突的重要决定因素，但国际关系研究对不确定性的起源提供的指导相对较少。哪些因素会影响参与者对军事能力评估的有效性？什么时候可以预期军事能力的不确定性会特别高或特别低？我们研究了一系列能够解释国际关系不确定性来源的因素，假设评估的不确定性是被评估国家的特征和整体战略环境的函数。我们使用从分析公开可用的国家军事能力估计中得出的新的不确定性度量来检验我们的理论。