[bradclark1]

I do not understand your point and to my poor brain it seems you contradict yourself by saying on the one hand nations only go to war if they think they can win, and on the other hand the possession of superior firepower is the only assurance of peace. Surely if you think you have superior firepower, how can you not also think you can win a fight?

Let me put it like this. If France had superior firepower Germany would not have attacked. If Germany was better informed and more aware about the Soviet military Germany would not have attacked in WW2.
If I have a knife and you have a 357 magnum I won't attack you. I wouldn't even want to make you mad at me. If that is the case there is no fight. You have superior firepower therefore I won't attack. Turn that around. I have a 357 magnum and all you have is a knife, you are toast my friend. Understand?

There are hundreds of books detailing the origin of WW1, and many of them will cite the arms race between the great powers as being one of the primary causes. This was coupled with a belief in the power of the offensive and a failure to grasp that at that time the strategic balance had shifted strongly in favour of the defensive. Along with lots of other reasons too..

Hate to tell you but you don't know what you are talking about.
The arms race was naval only. Germany wanted to be "the" naval superpower. My take on the reason for the war was ill feelings over the war of 1870 and the lands that France took plus the huge amount of steel and coal mines on that land. Those natural resources had to be brought in by ship because Germany had very small quantities within there borders.
Austria thought they were badder then what they actually were and thought they would teach the Serbs a lesson. Throw in all the treaties that were out there and you have a mess.
From 1870 to 1945 was one big war with breaks in between. It was a lot about anger and payback to put it as simply as possible.

An arms race being excatly the situation whereby each power tries to attain superiority of firepower without decisive results. Clearly in this case the fact that no one power had superiority did not lead to peace.

You are putting the cart before the horse. The only race was naval power. The Kaiser thought GB wouldn't even get involved so this "arms race" wasn't even a factor. I haven't read a book yet that call "arms race" a factor. You talk like it was decided in advance who would be involved. That is a way wrong assumption. If the war had gone according to plan GB and Russia wouldn't have even been in it. The low lands would have just rolled over and let Germany use them as an invasion route to take France from the flank. So before reality set in Germany and Austria thought they had the superiority to win.

However, on the otherhand, the reason Iraq invaded Kuwait was because it did believe it had superiority of firepower. It also believed that noone else would think it worth fighting about becasue the strength of his army would deter others.

The US on the otherhand felt it had ample superiority of firepower to go ahead and fight the Gulf War with reasonable expectations of winning at low cost to themselves in terms of blood.

Right about the first part wrong about the second. Iraq took a gamble that the west would not intervene. He lost the gamble. Also it was a coalition led by the U.S. not just the U.S.

However look at the second Gulf War. The reason the US attacked Iraq with such blithe disregard for the consequences is precisely because of confidence in the vast superiority of its firepower.

No. What the U.S. did was think that Iraqis would be so grateful for making them free. They won the war then the Arab reality kicked in.
They didn't have a blithe disregard they totally misunderstood the Arab mind. This is a whole other topic.

And I put it to you that the reason neither the US nor the USSR attacked each other was because neither power believed it had the superiorty of firepower necessary to win at acceptable loss to themselves.

I'd say that was common sense. They each had a 357 magnum pointing at each others head.

Thus in conclusion i say that the relationship of superiority of firepower to the incidence of war is not as simple as you stated

Without writing a volume it is as simply stated as possible. If you want to argue history read up on it a little. Not trying to be smart ass when I say that.