Domestic Politics of Asymmetric Wars.

Abstract

Most of the military engagements of the developed countries since the end of the Cold War have been asymmetric wars. These conflicts are characterized by a considerable imbalance of power between the two sides, but the issues that are at stake in these wars are often not issues of great national interest to the strong side. If these wars are not won by the strong side, they usually end because of a withdrawal rather than a military defeat. Since core national interests of the strong side are not at stake in asymmetric wars, whether to fight these wars or not, how to fight them, and when to withdraw from them are more subject to domestic politics than in other types of war. These questions are the focus of this dissertation. The results paint an overall pessimistic picture: developed states, and democracies in particular, have serious limitations on how they fight asymmetric wars and cannot continue fighting these wars for long. In particular, it is shown that duration of a war has a negative impact on citizens’ attitudes toward the war effort that has an effect independent of total costs of war and that developed states, especially democracies, have a tendency to have fewer soldiers than needed. Importantly, these results are obtained while assuming that citizens are rational and the type of war is publicly known.