Time is of the essence: The causal effect of duration on support for war
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343319834984 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Time is of the essence: The causal effect
of duration on support for war
Ali Sanaei
Faculty of Economics & Political Science, Shahid Beheshti University
Abstract
It is often observed that public support for asymmetric wars diminishes over time, but the micro foundations of this
observation are not fully understood. I present a modified war of attrition model for asymmetric wars which shows
that as time passes, belligerents’ expectations for the remaining duration of war increase and they find fighting less
favorable. Even when we keep the average rate of casualty accrual constant, the anticipated length of fighting into the
future affects expected remaining costs of war. Therefore, in a cost-benefit calculation, observed duration causally
affects expected remaining costs of war and, hence, leads to lower levels of support for war over time. The longer the
war lasts, the more it will look like a never-ending war which may encourage the strong side to cut its losses short and
stop the war. Because duration and aggregate costs are highly correlated in observational data, I use a randomized
survey experiment to separate the effect of duration from the effect of costs on support for war. The result is that
duration has a negative effect on public support which is independent of aggregate costs. This helps us better
understand the limits of democratic states’ capabilities in fighting asymmetric wars and suggests that when military
planners ignore the role of time, they deploy weaker-than-optimal forces.
Keywords
asymmetric wars, public opinion, survey experiments, war duration
Introduction
Most of the militaryengagements of the United States and
other developed countries since the end of the Cold War
have been asymmetric wars. These wars are characterized
by a stark imbalance of power between the two sides and
by the fact that the issues at stake are not issues of highest
national priority to the strong side. In asymmetric wars,
military superiority does not automatically translate into
victory, and strong states have frequently failed to win
these wars.
1
As Mack (1975) famously put it, in ‘every
case, success for the insurgents arose not from a military
victory on the ground – though military successes may
have been a contributory cause – but rather from the
progressive attrition of their opponents’ political capability
to wage war’. At least in democracies, political capability
to wage a war and continue fighting is related to public
support for the war.
2
Despite the extent of research since
the Vietnam war, the causal mechanisms driving public
support for war are vaguely understood (Gartner, 2008).
The changes in public support for war have been
explained by elite cues (Zaller, 1994; Berinsky, 2007),
aggregate costs of war (Mueller, 1973), the trends of the
costs of war (Gartner, 2008; Gartner, Segura & Wilken-
ing, 1997), local casualties (Gartner & Segura, 1998;
Althaus, Bramlett & Gimpel, 2012; Kriner & Shen,
Corresponding author:
a_sanaei@sbu.ac.ir
1
This observationhas been attributed to a variety of reasons including
inefficient military strategies, norms that limit the behavior of armed
forces of democratic states, and domestic politics in democratic states
(Mack, 1975; Arreguin-Toft, 2001; Merom, 2003).
2
Aldrich et al. (2006: 496) write: ‘a mounting body of evi dence
suggests that the foreign policies of American presidents – and
democratic leaders more generally – have been influenced by their
understanding of the public’s foreign policy views’.
Journal of Peace Research
2019, Vol. 56(6) 783–796
ªThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343319834984
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