ABSTRACT
Intra-species conflict is considered resolved if the outcome of this resolution persists for a time comparable to a generation of the species in question. Among humans, a conflict will be defined as resolved if it remains in that state for a period of twenty years. This chapter discusses that the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union has common characteristics with the practice of posturing, a phenomenon that is only only readily observable in the animal world, but which has also played an important role in resolving conflicts in the time of the recorded history of man. It examines any beneficial traits this commonality of characteristics with posturing may bestow to some forms of the arms race. The chapter describes that a modified form of the arms race may indeed be a stable and credible channel of non-combative resolution of conflict between nations of comparable technological development.
