Books by Zachary C. Shirkey

Building on his earlier volume, Is this a Private Fight or Can Anybody Join?, Zachary C. Shirkey looks at how the decision to join a civil war can be intuitively understood as follows.

Explores why some countries join interstate wars well after the war has begun, waiting months and often years before joining wars and thus changing their beliefs about the wisdom of entering a war. This book argues that unexpected or 'surprising' events in wars cause neutral players to update their expectations about the trajectory of the war.