Diplomat: Every major war in the last 200 years has been preceded by a short, sharp increase in the acquisition of weapons by the nations that subsequently became participants in those conflicts.
Conclusion
Arms control agreements will preserve peace
Evidence
Every major war in the last 200 years has been preceded by an abrupt uptick in weapons acquisition by the eventual warring nations.
Evaluation
This seems to hint at several famous flaws. There is Conditional Logic, triggered by "every", so we might be looking out for Necessary vs. Sufficient: big war past 200yrs → preceded by arms buildup
The author's reasoning isn't messing up the conditional logic, since it's trying to reason through the contrapositive: no arms buildup → no war (arms control → peace)
The problem is really a Temporal Flaw, where the author assumes that what was true in the past will be true in the future. Or we could say that this is a Causal Flaw, in that the author seems to be thinking that since an arms buildup came before each war, the arms buildup caused the war. Thus, in her mind, if we get rid of the arms buildup, we get rid of the cause of major wars.
Goal
Look for an answer describing the Temporal or Causal assumption the author is making.