A Formal Calculus for International Relations Computation and Evaluation
This work addresses a gap in computational methods for international relations, potentially aiding government decision-makers in areas like foreign policy and defense, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing theories like Bayesian inference.
The authors tackled the lack of a formal calculus for international relations by proposing a relation algebra method based on mathematical modeling, which enables previously subjective and incomputable relation computations, as demonstrated through three case studies.
This publication presents a relation computation or calculus for international relations using a mathematical modeling. It examined trust for international relations and its calculus, which related to Bayesian inference, Dempster-Shafer theory and subjective logic. Based on an observation in the literature, we found no literature discussing the calculus method for the international relations. To bridge this research gap, we propose a relation algebra method for international relations computation. The proposed method will allow a relation computation which is previously subjective and incomputable. We also present three international relations as case studies to demonstrate the proposed method is a real-world scenario. The method will deliver the relation computation for the international relations that to support decision makers in a government such as foreign ministry, defense ministry, presidential or prime minister office. The Department of Defense (DoD) may use our method to determine a nation that can be identified as a friendly, neutral or hostile nation.