Globalization is routinely blamed for various ills, including fueling conflict in strategic locations. To investigate whether these accusations are well founded, we have built a database to assess any given location’s strategic importance. Consistent with our game-theoretic model of strategic interaction, we find that overall fighting is more frequent in strategic locations close to maritime choke points (e.g., straits or capes), but that booming world trade openness considerably reduces the risks of conflict erupting in such strategic locations. The impact is quantitatively sizable, as moving one SD (1,100 km) closer to a choke point increases the conflict likelihood by 25% of the baseline risk in periods of low globalization, while reducing it during world trade booms. Our results have important policy implications for supranational coordination.

全球化经常被归咎于各种弊病，包括在战略地点助长冲突。为了调查这些指控是否有根据，我们建立了一个数据库来评估任何给定地点的战略重要性。与我们的战略互动博弈论模型一致，我们发现在靠近海上咽喉要道（例如海峡或海角）的战略位置，整体战斗更为频繁，但蓬勃发展的世界贸易开放大大降低了在这些地区爆发冲突的风险。战略位置。这种影响在数量上是相当大的，因为将一个 SD（1,100 公里）移近一个阻塞点，在全球化程度较低的时期，冲突的可能性会增加 25% 的基线风险，而在世界贸易繁荣时期则会降低。我们的研究结果对超国家协调具有重要的政策意义。