ABSTRACT
Lewis F. Richardson believed that the success of mathematical methods used in constructing theories of physical phenomena could be replicated in the social sciences. Richardson’s approach can be viewed with justifiable skepticism, but only if the main purpose of constructing the model is assumed to have been that of predicting time courses of arms races. Regardless of how Richardson himself viewed his approach, its value lies not in its predictive power but rather in the conceptual framework it suggests for a systematic study of arms races and related phenomena. It is instructive to follow Richardson’s attempts to find proper quantitative indices, in terms of which arms races could be systematically described. The difficulties of quantifying arms races were first thought to be related to the problem of finding the “right” index. The “merchants of death” have been repeatedly blamed for arms races and for the wars which they prepared.
