ABSTRACT
The Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to maintain troops or build fortifications in the area. By moving troops into the Rhineland, Germany would be in a better position to both threaten France and defend against French attack, thereby shifting the balancing of power. However, German remilitarization was also motivated by a desire to restore national pride, creating some uncertainty over long-run German intentions. The model helps to better explain the dynamics of balancing and buck-passing. Depending on what forces on each side were counted as part of the standing military, and there were disagreements as to what were equivalent forces, France's peacetime army was only half the size of Germany's. Gamelin assumed that any military action against Germany would lead to full-blown war a war which he believed would result in initial deadlock and long-run defeat for France. The model provides several insights into balancing and commitment problems and offers prospects for future developments in the research of balancing behavior.
