Existing rationalist theories on the causes of war hold that the calculation of expected utility about future gains and losses of war plays a dominant role in states’ choices of conflict behavior. The inclusion of sunk costs and various past interactions into utility calculation is regarded as irrational under the above theoretical path. This theoretical bias limits the explanatory power of rationalist theories on the causes of war. In fact, concerns about sunk costs related to material and time lead to extreme sensitivity to relative gains when state actors interact with each other. In order to avoid the power imbalance caused by the excessive accumulation of relative material gains or time advantages of a specific party, the state that thinks itself to be in the frame of loss will from time to time claim retrospective compensations that cannot be accepted by the other party, so that the common ground on which the conflict settlement plan can be reached is greatly compressed. In addition, the cognitive gap between two parties when judging the decision-making framework of the other side increases the willingness to take risks and leads to an overestimation of the other side’s hostility and an underestimation of the other side’s determination to get engaged in the conflict, which increases the likelihood of the conflict escalating into war. The Ukraine Crisis and the pre-World War Ⅰ military mobilization can be regarded as two typical cases to demonstrate, respectively, the victim-perpetrator strategic interactions around the competition for material interests and the posterior strategy to gain a time advantage.

大量既有研究认为主导国将主观认知的最大威胁来源国选定为首要战略对手并对其加以遏制,忽视了主导国采用接触性政策与最有可能挑战其霸权地位的国家"化敌为友"的可能性.本文提出一个理论假设,即当诸大国群体性崛起时,由于体系主导国战略资源的广泛分布,特定崛起国可能会在某些区域或议题领域取得相对主导国而言的...>>详细大量既有研究认为主导国将主观认知的最大威胁来源国选定为首要战略对手并对其加以遏制,忽视了主导国采用接触性政策与最有可能挑战其霸权地位的国家"化敌为友"的可能性.本文提出一个理论假设,即当诸大国群体性崛起时,由于体系主导国战略资源的广泛分布,特定崛起国可能会在某些区域或议题领域取得相对主导国而言的不对称优势.一旦某个崛起国能够针对主导国无法放弃的核心战略利益制造出超出其应对能力范围的威胁或不可或缺的合作需求时,主导国将受到战略牵制并被迫与该崛起国消极但和平共存.进而,本文通过考察一战前英国利用协约管控难以应对的俄国威胁而选择对抗威胁有限的德国的历史案例,验证战略牵制的可行性.