Do States Really Seek Peace? Interpretive Saturation and the Behavioral Limits of Structural Peace.

This repository accompanies the article: “Do States Really Seek Peace? Interpretive Saturation and the Behavioral Limits of Structural Peace” (Maillot, 2026) The paper develops a behavioral theory of strategic stability under uncertainty. It argues that conflict persistence cannot be fully explained by material conditions alone, but must be understood through the interaction between effective threat and perceived threat. The central concept introduced is interpretive saturation: a regime in which the material effectiveness of violence declines toward zero, while perceived threat remains persistently positive due to cognitive, doctrinal, and institutional constraints. The framework shows that: - structural stabilization does not necessarily produce behavioral peace - perceived threat may persist even when violence becomes ineffective - conflict may shift from physical to informational and cognitive domains The paper derives testable empirical implications, including: - divergence between effective and perceived threat - persistence of threat rhetoric - continued investment in low-utility military capabilities - displacement of conflict toward non-kinetic domains This work is part of a broader research program on strategic inference under uncertainty, connecting: - interpretive inflation (threat amplification) - interpretive saturation (threat persistence) - escalation dynamics (threshold-based conflict regimes) The results suggest that peace depends not only on constraining violence materially, but also on the alignment of interpretive systems through which strategic reality is constructed.