War and Unreason

WAR AND UNREASON Bounded Learning Theory and War Duration MARCO NILSSON Distribution Marco Nilsson Department of Political Science University of Gothenburg Box 711 405 30 Gothenburg Sweden War and Unreason Bounded Learning Theory and War Duration Marco Nilsson ISBN: 978-91-89246-46-1 ISSN: 0346-5942 http://hdl.handle.net/2077/21522 © 2010 Marco Nilsson Layout: Henny Östlund Printed by Litorapid Media AB, Göteborg This dissertation is included as number 122 in the series Gothenburg Studies in Politics, edited by Bo Rothstein, Department of Political Science, Uni- versity of Gothenburg. CONTENTS Acknowledgements 5 1. Introduction 7 1.1. The Puzzle at Hand 7 1.2. Does Systemic Offense Dominance Shorten War Duration? 12 2. Realism, Security Dilemma and the Offense-Defense Balance 23 2.1. Introduction 23 2.2. Anarchy and Trust Deficit 25 2.3. Offense-Defense Balance and Qualitative Arms Reduction? 28 3. Bounded Learning Theory 33 3.1. Introduction 33 3.2. Short War Duration when Offense is Dominant 39 3.3. Long War Duration when Offense is Dominant 40 3.3.1. Limitations to Offensive Potential 41 A. Permanent and Temporary Factors 44 B. Institutional Factors 48 3.3.2. Expected Ability to Use Offensive Military Factors and Stakes 52 A. Asymmetric Information 53 B. Expansive Ideology 56 B.1. Asymmetric Causal Beliefs 58 B.2. Stakes 60 3.4. Short War Duration when Defense is Dominant 64 3.5. Long War Duration when Defense is Dominant 65 3.6. Conclusion 65 4. Method 71 4.1. Introduction 71 4.2. Small-N Analysis: Case Selection for a Comparative Analysis 71 4.2.1. Selection on the Dependent Variable and Logic of Comparison 71 4.2.2. Four Cases 73 4.3. Small-N Analysis: Process-Tracing 76 4.4. Problem of Evidence 77 5. The Winter War 85 5.1. The Road to War 85 5.2. Theoretical Expectations 86 5.3. The War 87 3 5.4. Finnish Nationalism 92 5.5. Soviet Ideology 96 5.6. Final Analysis 98 6. The Continuation War 105 6.1. The Road to War 105 6.2. Theoretical Expectations 107 6.3. Early Phases of the War 108 6.4. Finnish Offensive Nationalism 110 6.5. Soviet Offensive Ideology 114 6.6. A War of Stagnation and Asymmetric Information 117 6.7. Bargaining Space Opens Up 121 6.8. Final Analysis 128 7. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 137 7.1. The Road to War 137 7.2. Theoretical Expectations 139 7.3. The War 140 7.4. Pakistani Religious Nationalism 145 7.5. Indian Secularism 147 7.6. Final Analysis 149 8. The Iran-Iraq War 155 8.1. The Road to War 155 8.2. Theoretical Expectations 156 8.3. Early Phases of the War: Saddam’s High Hopes 157 8.4. Iran at a Crossroads: Increasing Offensive Expectations 160 8.5. Iranian Offensive Religion 162 8.6. Iraqi Nationalism 167 8.7. Bargaining Space Opens Up 169 8.8. Final Analysis 172 9. Summing Up the Four Cases 179 10. Conclusion 185 10.1. Six Worlds of the Security Dilemma 185 10.2. Force Ratios and First-Move Advantage 190 10.3. Final Reflections 195 Bibliography 203 Svensk sammanfattning (Summary in Swedish) 215 Appendix A 225 Appendix B 226 Appendix C 228 4 ACkNOWLEDgEMENTS The road to completing this Ph.D. dissertation has been a long one and has given me an opportunity to study at Purdue University, Duke Uni- versity and finally at the University of Gothenburg. I want to thank especially Roger Larocca, Keith Shimko, Joseph Grieco, Peter Malin, Ann- Marie Ekengren, Rutger Lindahl and my advisers Ulf Bjereld and Mette Anthonsen for inspiring and helping me during the process. I also want to thank my wife Sheida for her patience during all these years and to dedi- cate my work to our children Olivia and Emilia. May the future world of theirs be a more peaceful one. 5 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. The Puzzle at Hand How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy. (Friedrich Nietzsche) Why are some wars longer than others? The subject of the duration of wars has not received as wide coverage as the study of the causes of war as scholars perhaps fear that they might confer legitimacy on limited wars (Fox 1970). However, understanding the causes of war duration should not be less important considering the often high costs of especially long military confrontations. The puzzle at hand in the current study is that, even in the modern era when ever more efficient weapons of offensive warfare are created, long wars occur. The trend is clear in both grand systemic conflicts such as WWII and regional territorial disputes such as the Iran- Iraq War. Neither does the presence of offense dominant weapons systems always result in a swift collapse of one of the belligerents nor can the belligerents always quickly agree on terms of peace. In his seminal article Cooperation under the Security Dilemma, which is regarded as one of the most influential articles on international relations, Jervis (1978) makes far-reaching claims about both war duration and the nature of the security dilemma1 when offense has the advantage. In brief, he argues that wars are shorter and it is impossible to create security without threatening others when attacking is easier than defending. I believe Jervis is wrong on both accounts. A more complete analysis of war duration and the security dilemma requires taking into account the limitations to offense dominance, which make a fast victory less probable. Also variables such as ideas and asymmetric information that can make the finding of a mutually acceptable negotiation solution a long process must be consid- ered. 1 The essence of the security dilemma is that “many of the means by which a state tries to increase its security decrease the security of others” (Jervis 1978: 169). 7 The first aim of this study is to empirically test whether various measures of the systemic offense-defense balance2 are statistically associated with the length of interstate wars. After this empirical critique of Jervis, the second aim is a theoretical refinement of our understanding of war duration with a focus on learning, or lack of learning, from the combatants’ battlefield performance and especially their ability to use offensive military technol- ogy and tactics. The results of the statistical testing and the theoretical refinement also make it possible to logically draw different conclusions about the security dilemma when offense is dominant: if wars are not shorter in offense dominant eras than when defense has the advantage, the expected utility of warfare should not be higher and the security dilemma and the risk of war ought not to be as great as Jervis (1978) claims. This study contributes to the study of war duration in two ways. First, against the background of common but seldom systematized knowledge about the limitations to the use of military force, I define the factors that make offense dominance often far from absolute. This means that a swift victory cannot always be taken for granted by relying merely on offensive military factors such as offensive tactics and weapons systems. Second, when a swift victory is not in sight, I argue that not even an early negoti- ated outcome can always be expected to materialize. In order to better understand the length of the process of finding a mutually acceptable negotiation solution, I develop the bounded learning theory. Much of the work on understanding war duration has been based on a rational choice approach, which has neglected the role of ideas and offensive expectations in the negotiation processes. The bounded learning theory in turn argues that both asymmetric information about offensive expectations and expansive ideology (offensive stakes and asymmetric causal beliefs) have an impact on the length of interstate wars. Accord- ing to the theory, these two factors account for deviations from a rational choice baseline expectation of how states should negotiate in times of war, namely, lower their aims when battlefield events are not favorable and vice versa. Thus, agreeing on the terms of peace becomes an increasingly pro- tracted process. 2 Jervis defines offense-defense balance as whether it is easier to attack or to defend ter- ritory (Jervis 1978: 178). The essence of the offense-defense theory is the assumption that some weapons systems make attacking easier and others make defending easier. Levy (1984:225) argues that that tactical mobility is the primary determinant of offense dominance whereas protection contributes to the defense. Tactical mobility was a cha- racteristic of, for example, German Blitzkrieg with tanks and aircraft during WWII. 8 The title of the study, War and Unreason, and the initial words of Nietzsche refer to two things. First, this study aims to contribute to the realist discourse, where there has been tendency in political realism (Mor- genthau 1948/85), especially offensive realism (Mearsheimer 2001), to proscribe war as a rational tool in the hands of decision-makers without considering the often limited nature of offense dominance and the effect of expansive ideology and asymmetric information on the length of wars. Offense-defense theorists (Jervis 1978; Van Evera 1999), by exaggerating the prevalence of short and decisive wars when offense has the advantage, also contribute to creating a window of perceived offensive opportunities to be exploited by rational state leaders. Second, as the bounded learning theory will argue, the length of wars is not always decided by fully informed rational calculations unaffected by the beliefs and expectations created by offense dominance and expansive ideology.

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