Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Midwest 2004 Proposal Alliances and Joiners as Sources of
Miscalculation and Misperception part of the project: Is War Rational?
The Extent of Miscalculation and Misperception as Causes of War A
central but often implicit debate in the causes of war literature
centers on the question: is war mostly the rational and Clausewitzian
pursuit of states and groups, or is it primarily the result of
miscalculation and misperception? Explanations for war relying on
offensive realism, expected utility theories, elite manipulation, or
pre-emption all tend to be rational. On the other hand,
hypernationalism, optimistic miscalculation, and the “Cult of the
Offensive” are explanations relying on miscalculation and
misperception. Most theories about the causes of war can be parsed into
either the rational camp or the miscalculation
and misperception camp. Yet little work clashes the two sets of
arguments, or spans multiple methodologies. As part of my project that
examines the extent of miscalculation and misperception in causing war,
I perform statistical analyses to determine how many war initiators
lost wars, how many states started wars against more powerful states
(and won or lost), how many states initially won their wars, but got
balanced against and ended up losing, and so forth. For example, so far
we have found that war initiators only win 53 percent of the time since 1900.
Assuming that most initiators plan on winning, they miscalculate with
high frequency. Databases can shed light on specific sources of
miscalculation and misperception, including the influence of joiners,
force, and power levels on war outcomes. My Midwest paper will report
on the statistical findings of the Is War Rational? project, focusing
on the issue of alliances and joiners as sources of miscalculation and
misperception. There is much to report but two examples include:
* When no joiners enter the war, attackers with threefold power
compared to defenders win 73.68 percent of the time. The victory rate for
attackers with this same level of initial power drops to 55.56 percent when
joiners are present. This suggests that initiators underestimate the
influence of joiners on the outcome of the war, and that alliance and
coalition behavior is a source of optimistic miscalculation.
* Attackers who initiated and won wars in which joiners were present
started with a power factor of 0.34, which jumped to 0.59 when joiners
entered. Attackers who initiated and lost wars with joiners present
started with a power factor of 0.67, and then saw it drop to 0.49 when
they lost. The punchline for this project is when we see states with
low power factors initiating wars and winning with the aid of joiners,
we can assume that they anticipated and correctly calculated the help.
But when they start with high power and lose because of joiners, it
might be because they misperceived the resistance to their aggression.
This suggests that less powerful states who are trying to take on more
powerful states are better calculators and less prone to miscalculation
and misperception than larger states who initiate wars.

Publication Type: Proceeding