Assessing the Efficacy of the Laws of War

这个项目测试了战争法的正式模型--寻求限制战时暴力的正式条约。这些国际法特别令人感兴趣，因为它们在一定程度上塑造了行为，使当事方可以相互强制执行这些法律，或尊重它们自己的限制。它们构成了政治机构自我强制性质的极端情况。该项目是对两个国家之间存在战略竞争的战争的正式对待。他们在消耗战模式中争夺奖品，在这种模式下，他们每轮支付的成本取决于目前两者之间的军事平衡。在每一轮中，他们打一场“战斗”，其中一个固定的战略形式，零和代表每一场战斗的竞争。这场“战斗”游戏的结果取决于他们选择的战略，这决定了这一轮军事平衡的转变。在均衡中，如果军事平衡对一方不利，超过了游戏的内生性“断点”，一方就会退出。该模型的一个变种是，在给定回合中的成本取决于战斗博弈中的策略以及当前的军事平衡。在这个模型中，战争法则被表示为战前双方达成的不玩一套战斗博弈策略的协议。问题是，此类协议什么时候才能保持平衡。考虑脱离此类协议的一方在以下情况下权衡使用被禁止策略的短期好处：a)另一方无法报复；b)双方都可以自由使用协议涵盖的任何策略的长期后果；c)任何受众因第一个违反协议而蒙受损失。叛逃的动机是通过叛逃后双方的“转折点”如何转移来评估的。该项目通过收集20世纪违反战争法的数据集来检验这些结论。这些数据包括有效的主要条约，涉及战俘和化学武器等问题，以及未在条约中合法化的协议的候选者，如空中轰炸。制定了侵犯范围和程度的编码规则，并通过咨询历史资料，主要是次要资料，评估了交战国在20世纪的一系列单小战争中对这些协定的遵守情况。这种数据收集导致了对模型的两项实证测试：第一，比较模型判断的可执行协议是否实际上比被判定为不可执行的限制更频繁地得到遵守；第二，测试违规的时机，它们是否倾向于在战争期间很早就倒下，以及当一方似乎即将失败时，获胜的一方是否更有可能成为违规者。

This project tests a formal model of the laws of war-formal treaties that seek to limit violence during wartime. These international laws are of particular interest because they shape behavior to the extent that the parties can enforce them on one another or respect their limits on their own. They form the extreme case of the self-enforcing nature of political institutions. The project is a formal treatment of war where there is a strategic competition between two states. They contend for a prize in a war of attrition model where the costs they pay each round depend on the current military balance between the two. In each round, they fight a "battle" where a fixed strategic-form, zero-sum represents the contest of each battle. The outcome of the "battle" game depends on their chosen strategies This determines the shift in the military balance in this round. In equilibrium, a side quits if the military balance moves against them beyond its "break point", which is endogenous to the game. A variant of this game has the costs in a given round depend on the strategies played in the battle game as well as the current military balance.In this model the laws of war are represented as a prewar agreement by both players not to play a set of strategies of the battle game. The question is when such agreements hold in equilibrium. A side considering defecting from such an agreement weighs the short-run benefits of using a banned strategy when: a) the other side cannot retaliate; b) the long-run consequences of both sides being free to use any strategy covered by the agreement; and c) any audience costs it suffers for being the first violator of the agreement. The incentive to defect is assessed by how the "break points" of the two sides shift as a consequence of a defection. The project tests these conclusions by collecting a data set on violations of the laws of war in the 20th century. These data include the major treaties in effect, addressing issues like prisoners of war and chemical weapons, and candidates for agreements that were not legalized in a treaty, such as aerial bombardment. Coding rules for extent and degree of violations are created and compliance with these agreements by warring states in the set of Singer-Small wars during the 20`h century are assessed through consultation with historical sources, primarily secondary sources. This data collection leads to two empirical tests of the models: first, a comparison of whether enforceable agreements as judged by the model are actually observed more often than limits judged unenforceable, and second, a test of the timing of violations, whether they tend to fall early during a war and whether the winning side is more likely to be the violator when they occur when it appears that one side is about to lose.