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to the present question is the following: the main contention in the present model was that D
had to demand more than its power could “afford” in order to avoid war in the period between
two agreements, and S cannot rationally grant D a sufficient amount at time t
1
to satisfy D
over the whole [t
1
, t
2
] interval. As a result, D suffers from a opportunity loss and war becomes
rational. Yet the fact remains that, while D is suffering from an opportunity loss, S enjoys an
extra-amount of benefits exactly equal to D’s loss. S cannot, however, offer this “opportunity
gain” to D at time t
1
because it has not enjoyed it yet.
War could be avoided if S could commit to give its extra-amount of benefits back to D at
point t
2
. The commitment problem comes into play because S needs to be credible in its offer
to give its benefits back to D. S’ credible commitment depends, among other, on whether S
and D will have a chance to interact and bargain again in the future (i.e., for example, that S
will not have disappeared, that is, that the game can be repeated). Unfortunately, there are
reasons to believe that when bargaining is infrequent, issues of commitment might be salient,
such that each process reinforces the other. As Schelling has put it (Schelling 1980: 45), “one
of the purposes of piecemeal bargaining is to cultivate the necessary mutual expectations”, in
other words the “shadow of the future” (Axelrod, 1984). Clearly, if bargains are not repeated
frequently, cultivating expectations and mutual trust will not be facilitated and problems of
commitment are likely to prevent possible agreements that would overcome the bargaining
rigidities problem exposed above. Problems of commitment might thus well make bargaining
harder and more rigid, which in turn make issues of commitment more salient. One solution
to the commitment problem is to choose a legal form that makes reneging costlier. Thus,
Snidal writes that “when a commitment is cast as hard law, the reputational effects of a
violation can be generalized to all agreements subject to international law, that is, to most
international agreements”. While casting an agreement in hard law decreases the salience of
the commitment issues, it has the side effect of increasing the costs of re-negotiations and
therefore both increases and decreases the likelihood of war. Which effect dominates remains
Convention