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Dissatisfaction is the trigger for states to initiate war according to power transition theory. The more a state is dissatisfied, the more likely it will initiate war. Traditionally, scholars use military buildups and alliance portfolios to measure states' dissatisfaction. Those measures do not express state dissatisfaction directly but provide, at best, circumstantial evidence. This paper introduces a direct measure of state dissatisfaction by counting requests and threats made by one state to another state. Four types of cases are selected from combinations of state dissatisfaction and initiation of war. The analyses are based on a selected-focus-dyad unit and quantified data sets. Using Boolean algebra, this article demonstrates that military parity and dissatisfaction expressed by territorial threats are more likely to trigger war. The results also show what elements of power parity and state dissatisfaction contribute to noninitiation of war. Last, the case studies highlight the nuances in the decision to initiate war among various states.

Among war scholars, power shifts between states have been a persuasive explanation of the occurrence of war, with Power Transition Theory (PTT), in particular, demonstrating powerful and systemic research. Their deduction of the conditions of war matches the empirical phenomena. However, extant studies fail to explain why in some cases power shifts and dissatisfaction lead to war while in some cases they do not. This paper argues that the story of power shifts and war is not completely told. There are other options that states can choose from in a period of power parity. For instance, the rational choice approach can discover and compare the utilities of the options. To be specific, scholars who are concerned for power shifts have taken states as individual actors in the international system for granted, but the goal, preference orders, and utilities of actors should be illuminated. Hence, this paper adopts an interaction framework of actors to demonstrate how states may act and react in a period of power shifts. Two cases, namely, Britain and Germany before WWII and the U.S. and Japan in 1980s, demonstrate how well the interaction framework fits the reality. Overall, the framework discloses the interaction of the players and strengthens the explanation of PTT. More importantly, the story behind power shifts and war is fully told.