His research is broadly motivated by an interest in factors affecting the likelihood of international conflict. He identifies a number of particularly important factors that have been understudied in the existing literature, or require re-thinking. These factors are various sources of uncertainty in crisis interactions; emergence and spread of new military technologies, and in particular, nuclear weapons; and changes in the natural environment such as climate change or natural disasters. In order to address these substantive questions appropriately, Bas develops a number of new statistical methods on strategic interaction, some of which can be fruitfully utilized in other areas of international relations and political science.