Why Wars Start

An Introduction to the Tensegrity Model of International Relations

Tensegrity sculpture by R. Buckminster Fuller, Sadao & Zung Architects.

In the wonderful tensegrity sculpture above, many small stiff metal rods are held in place, floating in space, by the tension of a string running through the end of each of the rods. The rods provide compressive stiffness, and the strings provide tension. If engineered correctly, beautiful arrangements of spheres, towers, and spirals can spring into the air, out of what should be a pile of sticks and strings.

A strange type of stability is reached.

Put forth here is an analogous framework for understanding how nations interact with each other.

The Tensegrity Model of International Relations

Tensions Bringing Together and Compressions Keeping Apart

Countries interact with each other in many different ways. Trade is one of the most important, and can be represented as a strong connection between countries. There are positive and negative aspects to trade. Let’s create an example using Britain and Germany.

In 2020, Germany bought almost €2 billion in cars from Britain, and the UK bought about €0.7 billion of meats from Germany. These are examples of beneficial trades that benefit both ends. From a social perspective, they bring the two peoples closer, because some Germans want British cars, and some Brits want German meats. In the Tensegrity framework these types of trade, along with most other trade between the countries, would be represented as a string in tension because it pulls the countries closer together.

A simple Tensegrity Model of some of the things bringing the UK and German together (green) and some of the things pushing them apart (red).

Hypothetically, let’s say that Germany wants to create an internal aluminum¹ industry. They invest heavily in a set of solar-powered aluminum refinery plants, perhaps spending €6 billion. But the UK exports a lot of aluminum to Germany, and sees this as a threat to their German aluminum trade. So the UK companies and government work together to drastically reduce the price of aluminum sold to Germany. This dump of cheap aluminum on the German market makes it much harder for those expensive, new German aluminum plants to turn a profit and stay in business. Dumping of commodities is something that generally pushes countries apart.

Another thing that pushes countries apart is the fact they are countries. Inside each border, different laws typically exist. Therefore, products and labelling might need to be different, some things are differently illegal altogether, inspection methods differ, various accounting practices exist. These all act to keep countries separate in a real sense, like two amoebas bumping into each other. Some molecules might get exchanged, but the amoebas don’t usually merge.

Culture can pull countries together or pull them apart. Common religions and common democratic ideals pull the UK and the Germany together for the most part, while language is a pushing apart force, though one that lessens with time. Leaders often talk of a “friendship” between countries; and this is a real, positive tension drawing them together. And of course there are negative cultural reactions that drive peoples apart.

An important modelling aspect is that the strength/importance of each element can be compared. Here is a more realistic Tensegrity Model of the relationship of the UK and Germany, with arrow thicknesses indicating importance. One can imagine how these strengths ebb and flow over time.

Language differences matter less and less thanks to technological progress in auto-translation services, and the NATO alliance wanes in importance if Russia weakens.

Geography is another huge factor in the Tensegrity Model. If Mexico were in the middle of Asia instead of the middle of North America, then the USA’s connections with them would be extremely different and much, much weaker.² Our long border with Mexico results in a plethora of common interests.

Treaties and alliances, especially common defense alliances, are huge factors in this paradigm. Today, Russia would never invade Poland, because Poland is part of NATO. NATO countries have pledged to all defend together any intrusion of any NATO country. In the Tensegrity Model, it is like there is a strong set of strings connecting every NATO country to every other NATO country. Pushing on one of them causes the entire network of NATO countries to react, and in a way that supports the entire structure from too much deformation.

Pushing on one part of NATO makes the rest react in a way that maintains the structure, thanks to the relations between the members.

Value Exists Within the Resulting Pushing and Pulling

While “tension” may have a bad connotation, the pushing and pulling of this abstract paradigm illuminates that there is real value in the way the structure self-supports. In an open market of international trade, citizens happiness is often maximized when the pulls and pushes between two countries are in a virtuous balance. For instance, British people enjoying an aluminum trade surplus with Germany will have more disposable income to purchase German sausages and vacation in Germany. And when countries act as sovereign entities and negotiate strong trade between themselves, the risk of conflict is much reduced.

Even competition between different exporting countries to a main consuming country can result in many benefits.³ The competition results in optimized supply chains, better products, and more communication between all three countries, even if those communications may be negative at times. Countries discussing detailed import standards rarely shooting at each other.

But When the Bough Breaks…

But sometimes a big change happens: A new political movement, a new technology, a new set of alliances. In these cases, those strings and rods may be put under tremendous stress as the new reality tries to find its resulting new comfortable position. Sometimes the structure breaks down.

Credit: Youtuber “Just Plain Dumb Sh*t!” <sigh>

The invention of the machine gun is an interesting case. When Germany and Prussia realized that the machine gun drastically changes what matters on battlefield, the delicate balance — the tensegrity sculpture — of family-based kingdoms, mercantilist trade alliances, and current army strengths no longer kept the peace. That technology obviated the benefit of charging columns of men with fixed bayonets, effectively snapping the rod that held countries from fighting each other in open warfare. These large, heavy (in 1914) killing machines caused the invention of trench warfare, which also lead to the use of mustard gas.⁴ Technological industrial development arguably became more important to war-making than troop numbers and regiment discipline. This massive reshuffle of defensive priorities took decades, up through World War 2, to reach a new stable, peaceful equilibrium.

The Cuban Revolution in 1958 and the development of ICBMs both were singular changes to the Tensegrity Sculpture. Suddenly, the US had Communism on its doorstep, and then the Soviets found ICBMs on their doorstep, stationed in Turkey. The structure of push and pull, compression and tension, that had kept the Cold War cold began to collapse. It was like someone cut the string of conventional military equality keeping the countries pulled together in fear of large scale war. Quick first strike nuclear weapons placed in Turkey could destroy the command structure of Russia while the generals slept. So the Soviets took advantage of another big change in the Tensegrity Sculpture — the fall of Cuba into Communism — to enact their own fast first strike nuclear bases. This was actually an effort, in a way, to replace the broken rod of conventional military threat with the new rod of equal fast first strike capability. But the reconfiguration almost happened too fast for the humans at the helms of each country to adjust to the new sets of strings and rods…the new equations of stability. The Cuban Missile Crisis almost killed two billion people.

If that shift to imminent nuclear strike had happened more slowly, then the danger would not have been nearly as great. Indeed, just a decade later, both countries had nuclear submarines ostensibly off each other’s coasts — a first strike capability way worse than bases in Turkey and Cuba. But because the leaders had time to absorb this seemingly huge change in the Tensegrity Structure of stability, no world-ending crisis emerged.

Using This Model to Predict and Prevent Wars

Obviously, the most difficult part of using this model is to faithfully represent it, whether qualitatively or quantitatively. And this is no mean feat. But once performed, once can play certain scenarios forward in time to assess the likelihood of War and other unfavorable outcomes.

At the time of the writing of this article, China is again threatening to invade Taiwan. What does the Tensegrity Model of International Relations say about the probability of this happening?

Assuming fairly rational actors (which this author does), one notes the dependence of China on Taiwan for the production of truly cutting edge semiconductor products. No one on the planet can do what Taiwan does. And the recent brain drain from Hong Kong shows that any takeover of Taiwan will very likely set those fabrication factories into a downward spiral of inefficiency and technological stagnation. This need for chips is a string bringing China and Taiwan closer together in peace, less likely to fight. China really needs those chips and also needs the future semiconductor advancements Taiwan most certainly will produce if it remains effectively independent.

As mentioned above, there are also effective alliances between Taiwan and America and a few other major countries. While not codified, everyone knows that the America will likely intervene militarily if China invades Taiwan. And even if one doubts this, the same Taiwanese semiconductor need felt by China is even more strongly felt by the Americans⁵. Count two more strings pulling for peace, connecting America, Taiwan, China, and others.

The stronger a Tensegrity Field, the less likely key players will choose to disturb it.

There is a pushing rod separating China and Taiwan from peace, and this is internal rhetoric of China, who say they see Taiwan as a threat to national unity. But this appears to be somewhat weak, because China has fared well economically in the last 30 years without Taiwan. Even if they had not, the tension in the above-mentioned strings is much more important than the rhetorical or national pride motivations of this pushing rod.

So, even using a fairly coarse version of this Tensegrity Model of International Relations, this author predicts no invasion of Taiwan by China in the coming decades. The Tensegrity Field is just too strong between too many players, and studies have shown that this density often drastically reduces wars in those networks.⁶

Further, it would be easy for any American administration to make such an invasion even less likely, thus preventing War. Simply make it publicly clear to China that a single bomb or boot from China reaching Taiwanese soil will results in the slow but inevitable cessation of trade between China and as many US allies as the US can muster. That string is such a strong pull for peace (and Chinese economic survival) that no sane Chinese leader would ever break it.

Now, an exercise for the reader: If world demand for oil declines precipitously by 2035, what does this mean for War in the Middle East between countries there?

I predict a lot of tension.

1. Yes, they would call it “aluminium,” but they also pronounce “Z” as “zed.”

2. Distance is huge factor in trade volume. Countries that are closer together trade much more with each other.

Eaton, J., & Kortum, S. (2002). Technology, geography, and trade. Econometrica, 70(5), 1741-1779.

This is true not only of true between countries, but at all levels.

3. When a country specializes in trade that fits their comparative advantage, they increase the wealth of both themselves and their trading partners by increasing global efficiency. Although the story is complicated as there can be localized losers

4. PDF: “The Development of the Machine Gun and Its Impact On The Great War”, Maj Jack Northstine. https://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/magazine/issues/2016/JAN-MAR/pdf/13)%20Nothstine_MachineGun.pdf

5. Geopolitically, semiconductors and batteries are the new oil.

6. “Networks of military alliances, wars, and international trade”, Jackson and Nei, 2015. https://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15277?fbclid=IwAR2Y4vD7OoRtrPnxly11PS0celw6lpH9nFqWNCuMrery272UUPWgQwgdqzM