The preventive motive for war arises because states cannot commit to limit the use of their growing power. This commitment problem can lead to war when there are not enough resources available to compensate the declining state for their expected losses. In this article, we show how capital markets affect preventive war incentives by introducing a profit-maximizing bond market to the canonical bargaining model of war. We find that the nature of the power shift and fundamentals of the market for debt interact to determine when a preventive motive is more likely to lead to war. Two main results show that (1) less probable but more extreme power shifts are most dangerous and (2) unlike the direct effect of interest rates on the cost of war, higher interest on sovereign debt makes war more likely. We present evidence for the latter effect by extending Lemke’s (2003) study of preventive war for major-power dyads between 1816 and 1992.

战争的预防动机之所以出现，是因为国家无法承诺限制其不断增长的力量的使用。当没有足够的可用资源来补偿衰落国家的预期损失时，这种承诺问题可能导致战争。在本文中，我们通过将利润最大化债券市场引入战争的规范谈判模型来展示资本市场如何影响预防性战争激励。我们发现，权力转移的性质和债务市场的基本面相互作用，以确定预防性动机何时更有可能导致战争。两个主要结果表明：(1) 不太可能但更极端的权力转移是最危险的；(2) 与利率对战争成本的直接影响不同，主权债务的更高利息使战争更有可能发生。