les schaffer
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DOES CHAOS AFFECT THE COURSE OF AN ARMS RACE? Yes, it may, particularly when great disparities exist between two nations' economies (as is the case with the US and Iraq), according to a new mathematical model developed by researchers in Japan (Mitsuo Kono, Chuo University, kono at fps.chuo-u.ac.jp, 011-81- 426-74-4161). In an attempt to mathematically model the feedback between two adversarial nations as each builds up arms stocks, British scientist Lewis F. Richardson published in 1949 a well- known set of equations with variables describing such things as a nation's military spending levels and parameters quantifying factors such as a nation's internal pressure against military spending. This model suffered from shortcomings, most notably that its linear equations provided all too predictable results; critics noted that many arms races spiral unpredictably out of control. In the Japanese researchers' model a nation's reaction to an enemy's weapons buildup is not automatically to build more weapons but is instead a function of the difference in weapons and military spending between two nations. This approach leads to more realistic nonlinear differential equations which quantify concepts normally unknown to physics, concepts such as fear, threat, grievance, and fatigue. Their model shows an arms race can progress in a mathematically chaotic fashion when the economic situation of the two countries is different, but is more predictable when the economies are more comparable (Tomochi and Kono in the journal Chaos, December 1998.)