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THIS ARTICLE ARGUES THAT KEEPING TO THE TRADITIONAL APPROACHES TO NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE POST COLD WAR WORLD IS NEITHER POSSIBLE, NOR RELEVANT. IT EXAMINES SOME SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHANGED MILITARY-POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT. THE MILITARY-POLITICAL SITUATION IN THE BALKANS IS SUCH THAT BULGARIA MIGHT GET INVOLVED IN A MILITARY CONFLICT EVEN BECAUSE OF A "SPILL" OF CRISES IN COUNTRIES AND SUBREGIONS CLOSE TO ITS BOUNDARIES. TO BE PREPARED IN THIS CASE MEANS TO BE PREPARED FOR THE WHOLE SPECTRUM OF CONFLICTS.

Using examples for each type of model, we consider dynamic games, differential games, and simulation as alternative ways of extending the standard static economic model of conflict to study patterns of conflict dynamics. It turns out that computational requirements and theoretical difficulties impose tight limits on what can be achieved using the first two approaches. In particular, we are unable to study dynamic military conflict as a series of 'battles' that are resolved individually. A simulation study based on a new model of adaptive, boundedly rational decision making, however, is shown not to be subject to this limitation. Plausible patterns of conflict dynamics emerge, which we can link to both historical conflict and standard tenets of military theory.

There is a large literature on the economic costs of military conflict, which uses a variety of methods including accounting procedures, statistical models and event studies of how stock markets respond to news of conflict. This literature is not only subject to all the criticisms directed against cost-benefit analysis but also introduces an element of arbitrariness by not considering benefits. This article uses four questions to structure a discussion of the calculation of conflict costs. The first concerns the purpose of the calculation: why is it being done? The second concerns the counterfactual: what comparison is being made? The third concerns the data: where do the numbers come from? The fourth concerns aggregation and valuation: how are the elements of costs (over outcomes, time and individuals) combined? The literature is often not clear on the answers to these questions, tending to take them for granted. However, the answers are crucial to the calculation and are not merely technical matters but rest on both the underlying objective of the calculation and fundamental philosophical and ethical judgements. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

View that future warfare will be shaped more by the result of the changed structure of international politics than by advances in military technology. Assesses relative strength of offensive forces, threat of military operations to civil society, political aims and military means, and outside intervention; some focus of the Persian Gulf and the Balkans.

There is a large literature on the economic costs of military conflict, which uses a variety of methods including accounting procedures, statistical models and event studies of how stock markets respond to news of conflict. This literature is not only subject to all the criticisms directed against cost–benefit analysis but also introduces an element of arbitrariness by not considering benefits. This article uses four questions to structure a discussion of the calculation of conflict costs. The first concerns the purpose of the calculation: why is it being done? The second concerns the counterfactual: what comparison is being made? The third concerns the data: where do the numbers come from? The fourth concerns aggregation and valuation: how are the elements of costs (over outcomes, time and individuals) combined? The literature is often not clear on the answers to these questions, tending to take them for granted. However, the answers are crucial to the calculation and are not merely technical matters but rest on both the underlying objective of the calculation and fundamental philosophical and ethical judgements.

Abstract
This paper is concerned with methods for analysing patterns of conflict. We survey dynamic games, differential games, and simulation as alternative ways of extending the standard static economic model of conflict to study patterns of conflict dynamics, giving examples for each type of model.
It turns out that computational requirements and theoretical difficulties impose tight limits on what can be achieved using the first two approaches. In particular, we appear to be forced to model the outcome of conflict as being decided in a single final confrontation if we employ non-linear contest success functions.
A simulation study based on a new model of adaptive, boundedly rational decision making, however, is shown not to be subject to this limitation. Plausible patterns of conflict dynamics emerge, which we can link to both historical conflict and standard tenets of military theory.