I don't have at hand any actual research per se, but an obvious example would be nuclear weapons and the fact that the USA and USSR never ended up in a full-scale World War III (even if there were close cases). http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_101.html is a more general essay on the topic - the logic seems sound to me, though I'm not qualified to truly criticize it.
Of course, it's admittable that nuclear weapons are an extreme case, and it could be that the principle doesn't necessarily always apply on smaller scales. Still, I'd believe any nation to seriously take the opponent's armament level into consideration before going to war. I'm limiting myself to discussion of nation-to-nation wars here - obviously the principle is less applicable to terrorist groups and fanatics who have less to lose.
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Of course, it's admittable that nuclear weapons are an extreme case, and it could be that the principle doesn't necessarily always apply on smaller scales. Still, I'd believe any nation to seriously take the opponent's armament level into consideration before going to war. I'm limiting myself to discussion of nation-to-nation wars here - obviously the principle is less applicable to terrorist groups and fanatics who have less to lose.