other hand, keeping all the variables to their maximum values while assigning one variable to its minimum value resulted in a peaceful outcome. In other words, no single variable is able to change the outcome if all the other variables are set to their possible maximum values for NN. A similar experiment conducted for SVM shows that it is not able to pick the influence of a variable using the same approach, as it is possible with NN. That is, whether the variables are set to their minimum or maximum gives a peace outcome. 

 2) *Experiment two***: This experiment was done to measure the sensitivity of the variables in the** 
spirit of partial derivatives as (Zeng, 1999) has put it. The idea is basically to see the change in the output for a change in one of the input variables. The experiment looks at how the MID varies when one variable is assigned to its possible maximum and minimum values while keeping all the other variables constant. The results found for both NN and SVM are shown in II. Our test data set has 26737 cases of peace and 392 cases of war. The first line of the table shows the correct number of peace and war prediction when all variables are used. Assigning each variable to take its possible maximum and minimum values while keeping the other variables fixed then generated different testing data sets. Each subsequent line of the table depicts the number of correct prediction of peace and war. 

NN result: It shows *democracy level* **has the maximum effect in reducing conflict while** 
capability ratio is second in conformance to the first experiment. Allowing *democracy* **to have its** possible maximum value for the whole data set was able to avoid conflict totally. *Capability ratio* reduced the occurrence of conflict by 98%. Maximising alliance between the dyads reduced the number of conflicts by 20%. Maximising *dependency* **has a 6% effect in reducing possible** 
conflicts. Reducing *major power* **was able to cut the number of conflicts by 3%. Minimising the** 
contiguity of the dyads to their possible lower values and maximising the *distance* reduced the 