Deterrence Theory (From Sociology Point of View)

Introduction

Professor Nigel Walker (1980) Director of the UK Institute of Criminology, argued that ‘limiting principles’ exist indicating when the criminal law should or should not be used, eg.

• It is better to prevent than punish
• The law should not be used to penalize behavior that does no harm;
• The law should not be used to compel people to act in their own best interests.; etc.

Deterrence is founded on the first mentioned principle. However, deterrence is never the sole or primary goal of the law (legal system).

Defining Deterrence

Deterrence involves the threat of punishment via some form of sanction.Deterrence is a way of achieving control through fear. 

If motorists do not refrain from offending out of fear of consequences they are, by definition, not deterred.

Deterrence, in general, is the control of behavior that is affected because the potential offender does not consider the behavior worth risking for fear of its consequences.

Beyleveld (1979) defines the essence of deterrence by two criteria:

Given X’s negative attitude towards the imagined experience of undergoing what he believed were the actual penalties he risked if he committed C1., his positive motivation to commit C1, and the chance he believed existed of having what he believed were the risked penalties being inflicted upon him if he committed (or attempted to commit) C1, and the chance he believed existed of successfully fulfilling his motivation to commit.C1, X “decided” that the personal utility of not committing C1 exceeded the personal utility of committing (or attempting to commit C1 . (16) This ‘calculation’ of utility was the reason why X did not commit C1. (Whatever other factors may have weighed towards X not committing C1,this calculation was necessary for X not to have committed C1, and the calculation alone or in conjunction with other factors was sufficient for X not to have committed C1).” (p.209)

A “deterrent effect” of sanctions is the preventive effect of the sanction(s) resulting from the fear that the sanction(s) will be implemented.
Thus “deterrence” refers to any process by which the threatened act is not committed (or is at least hindered) because of the deterrent sanction. Strictly defined (Beyleveld 1979,p.207) 

“A person is deterred from offending by a sanction if, and only if, he refrains from that act because he fears the implementation of the sanctions, and, for no other reason.”

Deterrence is therefore but one compliance-gaining mechanism.

How Does the Deterrence Operate?

The mere presence or introduction of a sanction may hinder or prevent an offense in a number in different ways:

1. Knowledge of the sanction affects the perception of the cost of offending so that compliance is seen as more attractive than offending;
2. Knowledge of the sanction, coupled with a belief in the sanctity of law or unquestioning legal authority, may be sufficient for compliance;
3. Sanctions may also have moral-educative and habituative effects so that they may be causally involved in the generation of moral beliefs and inhibitions, and laws may be obeyed purely by force of habit;
4. The implementation of sanctions, rather than the mere threat may reduce offenses by incapacitating potential offenders, reforming them or by creating via stigmatization of the offender, informal pressures to comply. 

Deterrence refers to some combinations of these different mechanisms but for strict usage  (i) above must always be present or else the compliance gaining strategy is something other than deterrence. This statement refers to the notion that people weigh up the costs and benefits in deciding not to offend and the cost is the penalties that are threatened.

The philosophy underpinning deterrence is that the risk to the lawbreaker must be made so great and the punishment so severe, that people believe they have more to lose than to gain from the offense.

Deterrence in the literature, and in practice, is usually only in reference to a legal sanction but non-legal sanctions such as fear of ostracism or the disapproval of others are also capable of acting as deterrents.

Total War: Origin & Overview

Total war is a military conflict in which nations mobilize all available resources in order to destroy another nation's ability to engage in war. Total war has been practiced for centuries, but outright total warfare was first demonstrated in the nineteenth century and flourished with conflicts in the twentieth century. When one side of a conflict participates in total war, they dedicate not only their military to victory but the civilian population still at home to working for victory as well. It becomes an ideological state of mind for those involved, and therefore, represents a very dangerous methodology, for the losses are great whether they win or lose.

With the advent of nuclear weapons, the threat of total devastation to the earth and humankind through nuclear warfare in the mid-twentieth century caused a change in thinking. Such a war does not require the mobilization of the whole population, although it would result in their destruction. Since that time, therefore, the arena of war has retreated to smaller powers, and major powers have not been involved in a total war scenario.

However, this has not necessarily reduced the casualties or the suffering of those involved in wars and the threat of widespread violence remains. Ultimately, humankind must move beyond the age of resolving differences through acts of violence, and establish a world in which war, total or otherwise, no longer exists.

The concept of total war is often traced back to Carl von Clausewitz and his writings Vom Kriege (On War), but Clausewitz was actually concerned with the related philosophical concept of absolute war, a war free from any political constraints, which Clausewitz held was impossible. The two terms, absolute war, and total war, are often confused:

Clausewitz's concept of absolute war is quite distinct from the later concept of "total war." Total war was a prescription for the actual waging of war typified by the ideas of General Erich von Ludendorff, who actually assumed control of the German war effort during World War One. Total war in this sense involved the total subordination of politics to the war effort—an idea Clausewitz emphatically rejected, and the assumption that total victory or total defeat was the only options

A U.S. poster

produced during

World War II.

Indeed, it is General Erich von Ludendorff during World War I (and in his 1935 book, Der Totale Krieg—The Total War) who first reversed the formula of Clausewitz, calling for total war—the complete mobilization of all resources, including policy and social systems, to the winning of the war.

There are several reasons for the changing concept and recognition of total war in the nineteenth century. The main reason is industrialization. As countries' natural and capital resources grew, it became clear that some forms of conflict demanded more resources than others. 

For example, if the United States was to subdue a Native American tribe in an extended campaign lasting years, it still took much fewer resources than waging a month of war during the American Civil War. Consequently, the greater cost of warfare became evident. An industrialized nation could distinguish and then choose the intensity of warfare that it wished to engage in.

Additionally, this was the time when warfare was becoming more mechanized. A factory and its workers in a city would have a greater connection with warfare than before. The factory itself would become a target because it contributed to the war effort. It follows that the factory's workers would also be targets. 

Total war also resulted in the mobilization of the home front. Propaganda became a required component of total war in order to boost production and maintain morale. Rationing took place to provide more material for waging war.

There is no single definition of total war, but there is general agreement among historians that the First World War and Second World War were both examples. Thus, definitions do vary, but most hold to the spirit offered by Roger Chickering:

Total war is distinguished by its unprecedented intensity and extent. Theaters of operations span the globe; the scale of battle is practically limitless. Total war is fought heedless of the restraints of morality, custom, or international law, for the combatants are inspired by hatreds born of modern ideologies. Total war requires the mobilization not only of armed forces but also of whole populations. The most crucial determinant of total war is the widespread, indiscriminate, and deliberate inclusion of civilians as legitimate military targets

Reference: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org

Erich Ludendorff's Concept of Total War

General Erich Ludendorff, the ‘Brains’ of the Imperial German war machine for the last two years of the war and progenitor of the German concept of ‘Total War’. On the right is the implementation of gas at Flanders, an extension of the idea that the war had to be fought with every tool, every tactic, every strategy that could be put forth for the very survival of the nation.


"The military staff must be composed of the right men, of the best and ablest men, efficient in the domain of war on land, on the sea, and in the air, in propaganda, war techniques, economics and politics, and they must be intimately acquainted with national life... They have no right to give orders."  - Erich Ludendorff
The last two years of the Great War for Germany are a great illustrative example as to the Ludendorff concept of ‘total war’.By late 1916, both Ludendorff and Hindenburg had effectively phased Wilhelm II and much of the Reichstag and diplomatic elements of the government from the decision making processes and were unilaterally making said decisions devoid of a clear chain of responsibility.

They were, in effect, the perpetual military dictators of Imperial Germany for the remainder of the war.

In Ludendorff’s concept of ‘total war’, the military was the goto, be all for any and all decisions, both political and diplomatic, as they had the chance, whether minute or massive, of influencing the war effort. In effect, the civilian aspects of the government only made policy in response to the needs of the military, not vice-versa, whatever the military needed it received. This concept reserved no place for strategic input by the civilian statesman in the government, the military command was the totality of power within the government and the final body of decision with any policies that had a nationwide effect.

True to the maxim of ‘Prussia is an Army with a State’, Ludendorff envisioned that the military would become the central component of the government which fell in line with his Social Darwinism which saw the notion of ‘peace’ as a temporary reality that interspliced the various period of war that came to dominate the globe and was the main diplomatic tools nations chose to wield.

Ludendorff chose to take this concept to the next level with a more real politik approach as to the strategic aims a ‘total war’ envisioned in accomplishing:

Ludendorff specified the missing strategic aim: ‘Total war is not only aimed against the armed forces but also directly against the people.’
Although the idea was ultimately legitimized by a defensive political objective –– survival of the nation –– this strategic aim had to be pursued by offensive means. The best security for the nation followed from the total annihilation of other nations. Total war thus involved the total mobilization by the total state for the pursuit of total –– political and strategic –– aims.

However horrific we might now think Ludendorff’s product was, this was a coherent and seemingly practical concept of war that was adjusted directly to political demands.
For Ludendorff, war didn’t just end with the defeat of your opponent, it had to be concluded to finality, the ultimate annihilation of any nation that threatened the very survival of one’s own.

This was a more….extreme take on the Clausewitzian principle of the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces by arguing that in the Modern Age, this goal was no longer a possibility and had to be taken one step further, the complete elimination of every citizen as an enemy and therefore a legitimate target as a potential resource for further conflict.

In essence, ‘total war’ for Ludendorff was just that, the very ‘life and death’ struggle, David and Goliath-esque conflict of nations where the stronger came out on top through the ruthless prosecution of a war that vindicated the principles of Social Darwinism.

He argued that the entire physical and moral forces of the nation should be mobilized at all times, because, according to him, peace was merely an interval between wars.

Ludendorff was a Social Darwinist who believed that war was the "foundation of human society," and that military dictatorship was the normal form of government in a society in which every resource must be mobilized.

Historian Margaret Anderson notes that after the war, Ludendorff wanted Germany to go to war against all of Europe and that he became a pagan worshiper of the Nordic god Odin; he detested not only Judaism but also Christianity, which he regarded as a weakening force.

Murphy's Law of Combat

• If the enemy is in range, so are you.
• Incoming fire has the right of way.
• Don't look conspicuous, it draws fire.
• There is always a way.
• The easy way is always mined.
• Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.
• Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous.
• The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions: 

a. When you're ready for them                 

b. When you're not ready for them.

• Teamwork is essential, it gives them someone else to shoot at.
• If you can't remember, the claymore is pointed at you.
• The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack.
• A "sucking chest wound" is natures way of telling you to slow down.
• If your attack is going well, you have walked into an ambush.
• Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you.
• Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing.
• Make it tough enough for the enemy to get in and you won't be able to get out.
• Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
• If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in a combat zone.
• When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy.
• Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.  
• Friendly Fire Isn't.

Principles of War

The Principles of War are the principles expressing the rules of military thought and actions that serve as the permanent basis for combat doctrine. The application of the Principles of War differs at different levels and for different operations. Their relative importance can be expected to vary from event to event.

The list of principles is a methodological tool that differs from army to army and from era to era. While the principles remain the same, the list morphs according to time and place, with application always dependent on context.


The Principles of War have evolved over a long period of time. The evolution can be categorized into three stages:

• Pre-BC to Napoleonic war era.
• Napoleonic era to the end of World War II.
• Post-World War II era.

Pre-BC to Napoleonic War Era

Kautilya: Two remarkable treatises in the pre-BC era from Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Kautilya’s Arthashastra is the oldest treatise known to exist which throws some light on the ancient Indian strategic culture. Kautilya enunciated the following factors involved in planning a campaign:

• Power in terms of strength of fighting forces, enthusiasm and energy.
• Place of operation, type of terrain and selection of ground of own choosing.
• Time of military engagement.
• Season for marching towards the battleground.
• When to mobilise different types of forces.
• The possibility of revolts and rebellions in the rear.
• Likely losses, expenses, and gains.
• Likely dangers.

Sun Tzu: Around 500 BC, Sun Tzu in his book, The Art of War, captured how military operations are influenced by uncontrollable factors. The major guidelines that Sun Tzu used to explain how military operations should be conducted are deception, intelligence, initiative, maneuver, logistics, leadership, and morale. Niccolo Machiavelli: Niccolo Machiavelli published his book, The Art of War, in 1521. Machiavelli puts forth what he calls general rules for military discipline. Some of the conclusions that can be drawn from his rules are: the importance of morale, security, surprise, discipline, need for reserves, know yourself and know your enemy, use of terrain, logistics, intelligence, and objective.

Maurice de Saxe: Maurice de Saxe was one of the most successful and colorful military leaders in Europe. The theory of Saxe is found in his book Reveries, which was published in 1757. Saxe did not present a list of principles, rules or maxims in his work. But in his short book, he provided clear instructions. Saxe placed emphasis on the need for administration, logistics, morale, deception, initiative, leadership and discipline.

Frederick the Great: One man who learned from the theories of Saxe was Frederick the Great. Frederick’s book, Instructions for the Generals, is the theory of a great military commander. Though he offered no list of principles, Frederick’s book does offer maxims for success. The aspects that Frederick the Great stressed in his work are logistics, maneuver, security, cultural awareness, morale, initiative, and leadership.

Napoleonic Era to World War II

Napoleon: The successes of Frederick the Great were dwarfed by the man some call the greatest military leader of all time. Napoleon fought more battles than Alexander, Hannibal and Caesar combined. His methods revolutionized warfare and dominated military thinking for most of the 19th century. The military exploits of Napoleon contributed greatly to the evolution of the Principles of War. Napoleon never wrote his theories of war, but his maxims were recorded and provide some insights to his genius, Napoleon’s maxims clearly illustrate what he thought to be important for victory in war.
Napoleon points to discipline, leadership, momentum, maneuver, mass, firepower, logistics, intelligence, morale, security, initiative, objective and unity of command.

Jomini: The most important theorist to interpret the successes of Napoleon was Antoine-Henri Jomini (1779-1869). Jomini perhaps did more for the Principles of War than any theorist before him and he certainly became the catalyst for those who would follow. Jomini, born in Switzerland, joined the French Army under Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon recognised Jomini and, in admiration of his brilliant mind, awarded him with a regular Colonel’s Commission. However, he was denied promotion as a result of the treachery of Berthier, Napoleon’s Chief of Staff and his arch rival. Jomini resigned from the French Army and accepted a commission as full general in the Russian Army under Alexander. He founded the Nicholas Military Academy in Moscow in 1832. Before his death at the age of 90, Jomini wrote 27 volumes on the subject of military history and theory. Jomini wrote a summary of the Art of War. He defined the principles in four maxims:

• How men should be directed at decisive points against enemy lines of communication while protecting your own.
• Manoeuvre with strength against enemy weakness.
• Throw the mass of force onto the enemy’s decisive point.
• A mass force so it is not only used against the decisive point but at the proper time with the proper amount of force.

Carl von Clausewitz: Carl Von Clausewitz, 1780-1831, a prolific writer on the strategy of the same period, produced On War and The Principles of War. Jomini and Clausewitz disagreed over the question of whether war is a science or an art. Yet, in many aspects, they were in striking agreement with each other. Carl von Clausewitz was outspoken in his arguments against Jomini’s works. Clausewitz viewed Jomini’s theory as being “one-sided” and strove to provide a more complete, well-rounded approach to the theory of warfare through the creation of numerous works. On War achieved widespread acclaim and was probably his greatest work.
However, while Clausewitz is today considered as an outstanding theorist of war, his works are complex and difficult to read, with his true meaning often obscure. In contrast, Jomini’s lucid and prescriptive works, in particular, his exposition of the fundamental Principles of War, have brought both clarity to military planning and operations, and a valuable, well-used framework for the study and teaching of warfare. Clausewitz may be more significant for scholars, but for two centuries, Jomini has proved of more use to practical military professionals.

Ferdinand Foch: Foch struggled with the moral and material factors of war and attempted to explain them by combining the two. Foch’s ideas reflect the work of another great French soldier, Ardant du Pieq, who wrote about the influence of morale and the human element in war. Foch’s ideas are
credited by some historians to be the birth of the modern list of principles. Foch was able to combine the ideas from both sides of the debate over the Principles of War into his theory, which he insisted to first consist of a number of principles. Foch never claimed how many principles there were, but he listed four: economy of force, freedom of action, free disposition of forces, and security.
World War I forced every country to review its doctrine in the light of the costly lessons learned in the war. The Principles of War again became the subject of debate in most major militaries. Great Britain appointed a committee to review the Principles of War and what role they should have in doctrine. The committee was formed in 1919 and among the invited guests to address the committee was J F C Fuller. Fuller urged the committee to consider the inclusion of the principles in the British military doctrine. Fuller definitely influenced the committee on the need to include the principles of
doctrine and perhaps what form they should take.

Principles of War, Great Britain, 1920

In 1920, the British Army published what they claimed to be the “Principles of War.” The eight principles included a title and a brief definition. They closely resembled Fuller’s principles of strategy. The difference was that the list was titled the Principles of War, not of strategy or tactics. The titles of the eight principles were:

• Maintenance of the Objective.
• Offensive Action.
• Surprise.
• Concentration.
• Economy of Force.
• Security
• Mobility
• Cooperation.

This was not the origin of the Principles of War, just as Fuller’s article was not the origin, but a definite mutation along their long evolutionary path. It was the emergence of the Principles of War into accepted operational terminology, no longer just in theory, but doctrine. In the years that followed, many militaries, including of the United States, would adopt the Principles of War into doctrine, but it was the British who did it first.
The United States Army published the Principles of War in a doctrine barely a year after the British Army. Like the British Army, the United States Army was also influenced by the work of J F C Fuller. Unlike the British, who expanded on the list of Fuller, the United States adopted Fuller’s list completely, with only one exception: adding the principle of simplicity.

During World War II, one of the most famous leaders in the British Army was Field Marshal Bernard I Montgomery. During the war, Montgomery published several pamphlets for his forces. In one pamphlet, he listed eight Principles of War significantly different from those published at the time. Montgomery introduced air power, administration, and morale to the modern list; he also adopted the principle of simplicity. After the war, Montgomery led the way to change the Principles of War in the British doctrine. The British adopted ten principles which have remained very similar to this day.

Post-World War II Era

In 1949, the Principles of War that were adapted to the US doctrine were:

• The Objective.
• Simplicity.
• Unity of Command.
• The Offensive.
• Manoeuvre.
• Mass.
• Economy of Forces.
• Surprise.
• Security.

Subsequently, the US Army doctrine, Operation Field Manual FM 100 – 5, has been revised number of times. However, the basic Principles of War remain the same. It is by and large true for all the other armed forces of the world.

Analysis of the Present Principles of War

British Defence Doctrine Joint Warfare publication 0-01 (JWP 0-01) dated October 2001 gives the Principles of War as:

• Selection and Maintenance of the Aim.
• Maintenance of Morale.
• Offensive Action.
• Security.
• Surprise.
• Concentration of Force.
• Economy of Effort.
• Flexibility.
• Cooperation.
• Sustainability.

In 1990, the US military introduced principles for “Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW)” as:

• Objective.
• Unity of Effort.
• Legitimacy.
• Perseverance.
• Restraint.
• Security.

This implied that there is a difference between war operations and other military operations. The US military has since recognised the fallacy of different Principles of War for MOOTW. In the Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States Joint Publications (JP–1) the original nine Principles of War (i.e. Objective, Offensive, Mass, Economy of Force, Manoeuvre, Unity of Command, Security, Surprise, and Simplicity) are included and three unique Principles of MOOTW – Restraint, Perseverance, and Legitimacy – have been added. These three additional Principles of War are explained below:

Perseverance: The purpose of perseverance is to ensure the commitment necessary to attain the national strategic end state. The patient, resolute and persistent pursuit of national goals and objectives often is a requirement for success. This will frequently involve diplomatic, economic and informational measures to supplement military efforts.

Legitimacy: The purpose of legitimacy is to develop and maintain the will necessary to attain the national strategic end state. Legitimacy is based on the legality, morality, and rightness of the actions undertaken.

Restraint: The purpose of restraint is to limit collateral damage and prevent the unnecessary use of force. A single act could cause significant military and political consequences; therefore, judicious use of force is necessary. Restraint requires the careful and disciplined balancing of the need for security, the conduct of military operations and the national strategic end state.

Some of the Commonwealth countries have followed the British set of Principles of War. It is interesting to note that the German Army has not laid down any Principles of War. This has been done deliberately by them since they want to avoid the dangers of oversimplification and encapsulation of military concepts and principles. The Germans believe that only by an in-depth and continuing study of war can one develop the judgment to make good decisions in specific situations. They think that no simple set of rules or principles can substitute for a true understanding of the complexity of war. The Germans insist that their officers must develop an in-depth knowledge of military history. They could then apply the knowledge and thought processes developed in that study to the specific inevitably unique situation they faced.

The Economics of War

1. Total War

The market economy involves peaceful cooperation. The division of labor cannot function effectively amidst a war. Warfare among primitive tribes did not suffer this drawback because the warring parties had not been engaged in a trade before the hostilities. Thus they engaged in total war.

Things were different in Europe (before the French Revolution) when the military, financial, and political circumstances produced limited warfare. Wars were generally waged by small armies of professional soldiers, who generally did not involve noncombatants or their property. In this context, philosophers concluded that, because the citizens only suffered from warfare, the way to eliminate war was to dethrone the despots. The spread of democracy, many thought, would coincide with everlasting peace.

What these thinkers overlooked was that it is only democratic liberalism that ensures peace. In modern times, states wage total war against each other because interventionism and central planning lead to genuine conflict between citizens of rival states. Under classical liberalism, political boundaries are irrelevant; free trade and free mobility of labor mean that one's standard of living is unaffected by territorial expansion. Yet under National Socialism (and the interventionism of their neighbors), the citizens of Nazi Germany really stood to materially gain from conquest.

Ultimately, treaties and international organizations cannot ensure world peace. Only a widespread adoption of liberal policies will end war.

Also Read: The Economics of War By David Friedman

2. War and the Market Economy

It is a widespread myth that the market economy may be tolerated in peacetime, but in emergency situations — such as a war — the government must seize control of production. During a war, resources that normally go into consumer goods must be diverted into products for the military; private consumption must fall.

Entrepreneurs can most efficiently effect this switch if they are allowed to earn profits and cater to the new demand, emanating from the government as it spends funds on military items. Whether the government raises its revenues from higher taxes, increased borrowing, or even inflation, in the end the citizens will have less purchasing power, and their reduced consumption frees up the real resources to produce items for the war effort.

In the United States during the Second World War, this process was short-circuited because the government clung to the union doctrine that the workers' real take-home pay must not be allowed to fall, even during wartime. Consequently, the government was reluctant to levy higher taxes, and it imposed price controls to prevent "war profiteering." Given these realities, the only solution was to further intervene in the market, by imposing rationing schemes and other controls, designed to ensure an adequate flow of resources into the war industries.

Modern wars are won with a material. Capitalist countries defeat their socialist rivals because private entrepreneurs are more efficient in churning out products, whether consumer goods during peacetime or weapons for their governments. Even so, ultimately war and the market economy are incompatible, as the market relies on peaceful cooperation.

3. War and Autarky

If a tailor and Baker go to war with each other, it is significant that the baker can wait longer for a new suit than the tailor can go without bread. In an analogous fashion, Germany lost both world wars because it could not blockade Great Britain, nor could it maintain its own maritime supply lines.

The German militarists were aware of their vulnerability and so stressed the need for centrally planned autarky. They placed their hopes in Ersatz, the substitute, a replacement that was either of inferior quality, higher cost, or both, compared to what the unfettered market would have imported from abroad. Yet the inferiority of ersatz items is not a relic of the capitalist mind. Poorly equipped soldiers will fare worse against armies using the most advantageous materials, and higher costs of production mean that fewer finished goods can be produced from given resources.

4. The Futility of War

Interventionism generates economic nationalism, which in turn generates bellicosity. This tendency is internally consistent; only laissez-faire policies are consistent with durable peace.

Why It Matters

Contrary to popular belief, government controls do not enhance a country's military prowess. Entrepreneurs are more efficient than central planners in the production of tanks as well as the production of television sets.

In the long run, however, the market economy relies on the division of labor, which requires peaceful cooperation. The rise of total war in the modern age is due to the rise of "statolatry" and interventionism.

This article is excerpted from Study Guide to Human Action, chapter 34, "The Economics of War" (2008).

The Economics of War-2

By David Friedman

"The science of war is moving live men like blocks."

Stephen Vincent Benet

John Brown's Body

To most non-economists, economics has something to do with money, and the economics of war presumably has to do with how we pay for the bombs and bullets. Economists have different and broader ideas of what their field is; my own favorite definition is that economics is that approach to understanding human behavior which starts from the assumption that individuals have objectives and tend to choose the correct way to achieve them. From this standpoint, the potential subject matter is all of the human behavior (some of my colleagues would include animal behavior as well) and the only test of whether the behavior is or is not economic is the ability of our basic assumption to explain or predict it.

Given such a broad definition of economics, one might almost say that all of warfare reduces to the technical problem of making guns that will shoot and the economic problem of getting someone to shoot them, preferably in the right direction. Board games, strategic simulations and popular articles tend to emphasize the technical problems how far a tank will shoot, what kind of armor it will go through and how many tanks (or knights or hoplites) each side has; they generally take it for granted that the playing pieces will go where they are moved. In real battles they frequently do not. The economic problem is why they do not and what can be done about it.

Read: The Economics of War

Economics assumes that individuals have objectives. We do not know all of the objectives that any individual has, but we do know that for most of us, staying alive is high on the list. The general commanding an army and the soldier in the front line have, in one sense, the same objectives. Both want their side to win, and both want both of them to survive the battle. The soldier, however, is likely to rank his own survival a good deal higher and the general's survival a good deal lower in importance than the general does. One consequence of that disagreement is that the general may rationally tell the soldier to do something and the soldier may rationally not do it. Neither is necessarily making a mistake; each may be correctly perceiving how to achieve his ends. 

Consider a simple case. You are one of a line of men on foot with long spears; you are being charged by men on horses, also carrying spears (and swords and maces and...). You have a simple choice: you can stand and fight or you can run away. If everyone runs away, the line collapses and most of you get killed; if everyone stands, you have a good chance of stopping the charge and surviving the battle. Obviously you should stand.

It is not so obvious. I have described the consequences if everyone runs or everyone stands, but you are not everyone; all you control is whether you run or fight. If you are in a large army, your decision to run will only very slightly weaken it. If you run and everyone else fights and wins, some of them will be killed and you will not. If you run and everyone else fights and loses, at least they will slow down the attack giving you some chance of getting away. If everyone runs and you stand to fight, you will certainly be killed; if everyone runs and you run first, you at least have a chance of getting away. It follows that whatever everyone else is going to do, unless you believe that your running away will have a significant effect on who wins (unlikely with large armies), you are better off running. Everyone follows this argument, everyone runs, the line collapses, you lose the battle and most of you get killed.

The conclusion seems paradoxical; I started by assuming that people want to live and correctly choose the means of doing so and ended by predicting that people will behave in a way that gets most of them killed. But rationality is an assumption about individuals, not about groups. Each individual, in my simple example of the economics of war, is making the correct decision about how he should act in order to keep himself alive. It so happens that the correct decision for me (running away) decreases the chance of being killed for me but increases it for everyone else on my side, and similarly for everyone else's correct decision; individually, each of us is better off (given what everyone else is doing) than if he stood and fought, but we are all worse off than we would be if each of us had failed to reach the correct conclusion and we had all stood and fought.

If this still seems paradoxical to you, consider a more homely example an economic problem that occurs twice a day two blocks from where I am sitting. The scene is the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood, said to be the busiest in the world. The time is rush hour. As the light on Wilshire goes green, the traffic surges forward. As it turns yellow, a last few cars try to make it across. Since Wilshire is packed with cars, they fail and end up in the intersection, blocking the cars on Westwood, which now have a green light. Gradually the cars in the intersection make it across, allowing the traffic on Westwood to surge forward just as the light changes again, trapping another batch of cars in the intersection. 

If drivers on both streets refrained from entering an intersection unless there was clearly enough room for them on the far side, the jam would not occur, traffic would flow faster and they would all get where they are going sooner which is presumably their objective. Yet each individual driver is behaving rationally. My aggressive driving on Wilshire benefits me (I may make it across before the light changes, and at worst I will get far enough into the intersection not to be blocked by cars going the other way at the next stage of the jam) and harms drivers on Westwood; your aggressive driving on Westwood benefits you and harms drivers (possibly including me) on Wilshire. The harm is much larger than the benefit, so on net we are all worse off. But I receive all of the benefit and none of the harm from the particular decision I control. I am correctly choosing the action that best achieves my objective but if we all made a mistake and drove less aggressively, we would all be better off.

I am not saying that rationality implies selfishness that is a parody of economics. Drivers may value other people's time as well as their own, or they may value a self-image that requires them to act in a polite and considerate way; if so, rational behavior (in pursuit of those goals) may prevent the jam instead of causing it. The "paradox" is not that rational behavior always leads to undesirable results it does not. In the two cases I have described, it does. What is paradoxical is that the results are undesirable in terms of precisely the same objectives (staying alive in the one case and getting home earlier in the other) that the individual behavior is correctly calculated to achieve. 

Let us now return to the battlefield, replacing spears with guns. One of the less well-known facts about modern warfare is that in combat a substantial percentage of the soldiers (almost four-fifths, according to one source) do not fire their guns and those that do frequently do not aim them; this is one of the reasons that about 100,000 bullets are fired for every enemy killed. Such behavior seems irrational from the standpoint of the army soldiers are given guns in order that they may shoot the enemy with them but it may be entirely rational from the standpoint of the soldier. It is difficult to hide in a foxhole and take a carefully aimed shot at the enemy at the same time. If you can see him, he may be able to see you, and if you are taking the time to aim at him, you may be giving him, or his buddy, a chance to aim at you. If your objective is to stay alive, there is much to be said for climbing into a convenient hole and firing your gun, if at all, in the general direction of the enemy.

In discussing my first example, I pointed out that the desirability of running away depended, among other things, on how likely you thought your defection was to make your side lose the battle. The same argument applies here. At one extreme, consider a "battle" with one man on each side; hiding in a hole and firing random shots is not a sensible way of getting through it alive. At the other extreme, consider a battle with massed armies of tens of thousands of men, all shooting at each other at once. Whether you fight or hide is very unlikely to affect the outcome, so the sensible thing to do is to hide assuming, as is usually the case, that the lives of your fellow soldiers are very much less valuable to you than your own.

Many real battles represent an intermediate situation. How hard you fight is unlikely to affect who wins the battle, but it may well affect the particular part of the battle immediately around you. In such a case, the soldier must decide which of his alternatives is less likely to get him killed. The more influence he believes his actions will have on the outcome of the fight, the more likely he is to shoot instead of hiding. 

I recently came across an interesting fact that fits quite neatly into this economic prediction. A study of the behavior of G.I.'s in World War II found that the soldiers most likely to fire their weapons were those carrying B.A.R.πs (Browning Automatic Rifles). A B.A.R. is a substantially more powerful weapon than an ordinary rifle; the decision to fight or hide by the man carrying it is more likely to determine what happens on his part of the battlefield and hence whether his position is overrun and he is killed than the decision to fight or hide by other members of the squad.

So far I have discussed the economic problem of war without saying anything about solutions. Obviously I am not the first person in history to realize that soldiers sometimes run away, or even the first to suggest that they do so, not because they are struck with some mysterious panic, but as a sensible response to the circumstances they find themselves in. Commanders throughout history have been confronted with the problem and have come up with a variety of ways to make it in the interest of their soldiers to fight and, if possible, in the interest of the enemy soldiers to run away.

One solution has become proverbial. You march your army across a bridge, line it up for the battle with a river (hopefully unswimmable) behind it, then burn the bridge. Since there is now nowhere to run to, much of the argument for running away disappears. Of course, if you lose the battle, you all get killed. This is called burning your bridges behind you.

Another solution is to punish soldiers who run away. One way is to have a second line of soldiers whose job is to kill any member of the first line who runs. This unfortunately ties up quite a lot of your army; if the front line all gets killed, the second line runs away, unless there is a third line to kill them for doing so. A less expensive (but also less effective) solution is to keep track of who runs away and hang them after the battle. In order for this to work, you have to have a pretty good chance of winning the battle, or at least surviving it with your command structure intact; an army that has just been routed is unlikely to have time to punish the soldiers who ran first. This suggests one reason why some commanders are so much more successful than others; once a commander has won a few battles, his soldiers expect him to win the next one. If the battle is going to be won, it is prudent not to run away and since nobody runs away, the battle is won. This is what is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. A French military theorist, Ardant du Pica, argued that the traditional picture of a charge, in which the charging column smashes into the defending line, is mythical. At some point in a real charge, either the column decides that the line is not going to run and stops, or the line decides that the column is not going to stop, and runs.

This brings me to the much-maligned British army of the eighteenth century, We all learn in elementary school about the foolish British, who dressed up their troops in bright scarlet uniforms and lined them up in rigid formations for the brave American revolutionaries to shoot at. The assumption (as in the nationalistic histories of most nations) is that we were smart and they were dumb and that explains it all. I am in no sense an expert in eighteenth-century military history, but I think I have a more plausible explanation. The British troops were armed with short-range muskets and bayonets, hence the relevant decision for them, as for the spearmen of a few centuries before, was to fight or to run. In order to make sure they fought, their commanders had to be able to see if someone was starting to run; rigid geometric formations and bright uniforms are a sensible way of doing so.

Bright uniforms serve the same purpose in another way as wellãthey make it more difficult for soldiers who run away to hide from the victorious enemy, and thus decrease the gain from running away. Of course the fugitive can always take off his uniform, assuming he has enough time (perhaps that was why they had so many buttons), but young men running around the countryside in their underwear are almost as conspicuous as soldiers in red uniforms.

Why does the range of weapons matter? With short-range weapons, the choice is fight or run; if you try to hide in a hole, someone will eventually come over and stick a spear in you. With long-range weapons, running away is hazardous, but warfare is much more likely to involve an extended exchange of fire from fixed positions, so if you hide (and enough other people on your side fight), the enemy may never get close enough to kill you.

So far all of the solutions I have discussed involve raising the cost of running away by penalizing it in one way or another. An alternative approach is to change the objectives of the fighters. If the most important thing to you is not surviving the battle but dying gloriously, the incentive to run away disappears although it may be replaced by an incentive to die gloriously in some stupid attack that loses the battle for your side. 

A set of objectives that ranks glory and heroism far above mere survival is a popular theme of heroic literature and frequently appears in descriptions of exotic foreign warriors, preferably "barbarian," but it is not very common in the real world. While I have no statistics on the subject, I do have an interesting anecdote. One of the most famous of heroic warrior cultures was the Norse; the ideals of Viking warriors certainly ranked heroic death far above cowardly survival. For the operation of those ideals in the real world, I give you the following story; the source (which tells it in somewhat more detail) is Njal Saga:

Sigurd, the Jarl of the Orkneys, had a raven banner of which it was said that as long as it flew, the army would always advance, but whatever man carried it would die. At the battle of Clontarf, Sigurd led part of an army of Irish and Vikings against an Irish army commanded by the High King of Ireland. The fighting was heavy; Sigurd's forces advanced but the banner-carrier was killed. Another man took the banner; he too was killed. Sigurd told a third man to take the banner. The third man refused. Sigurd, after trying to get someone else to carry it, took the banner off the staff, tied it around his waist and led his army into battle. The army advanced, Sigurd was killed. No one would take up the banner, and the battle was lost.

So even in an army of Vikings, there were only three men (counting the Jarl) who were willing to give their lives for victory.

The desire for a hero's death is not the only objective that can keep soldiers from running away. If the soldier puts a high value on the cause he is fighting for or on the lives of his comrades, he may decide that even a small increase in the chance of losing the battle is too high a price to pay for an improved chance of his own survival. Alternatively, if the soldier puts a high value on his own reputation for courage, the shame of being seen to run away even the shame of knowing he once ran away may be sufficient to make him fight. Feelings of comradeship and an extraordinary emphasis on personal courage are sentiments traditionally associated with soldiers, and a wise commander will encourage them. 

Perhaps the most famous historical example of this solution is a The ban military unit called the Sacred Band. It was said to consist of pairs of homosexual lovers. Since no man would abandon his lover or show cowardice in his presence, the Sacred Band never ran. Eventually they encountered Philip of Macedon and died to a man. This illustrates one disadvantage of courage as a solution; just as with burning your bridges behind you, the results are unpleasant when you lose.

So far I have discussed the problem from the point of view of the commander of the army that might run away. The conflict of interest between the individual soldier and the army of which he is a part is also a subject of considerable interest to the opposing commander. In playing a war game, one must actually destroy the other player's units. In fighting a war, it is sufficient to create a situation in which the members of a particular unit find it in their interest to run; having done so, one then goes on to the next unit. I conjecture that a considerable part of generalship is the ability to exploit the conflict of interest between the enemy soldiers and the army they make up.

One of my hobbies for many years has been the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group that does various medieval things for fun, including medieval hand-to-hand combat done as a rather rough sport. In order not to get anyone killed, we tend to use real armor and fake weapons; the latter are mostly made out of rattan, with reasonably realistic weight and balance but no cutting edge. The rules are supposed to define the winner as the person who would have survived the fight if both armor and weapons were real. In practice there are many difficulties, not the least being that nobody really knows how hard you have to hit chain mail with a medieval sword in order to kill the man wearing the mail.

We also do group fighting; the largest of the annual wars features armies of three or four hundred fighters on each side. The group fighting suffers from a fundamental flaw. Since being "killed" means at worst a bruise, everyone is a hero; units almost never surrender, and individual fighters never run away (except to find another fight elsewhere on the field). The battles are great fun, but considered as experimental archaeology, they are a failure; they omit one of the most essential features of real medieval battles.

There is one exception. I once participated in a melee tournament (a melee is a group fight) under rules that did, to some extent, recreate the conflict of interest between the individual and the army. The tournament consisted of a series of melees with randomly chosen teams. After each melee the fighters on the winning side received points according to their condition; an uninjured fighter received the most points, a fighter who died (but whose side won) received the fewest. At the end of the day, the fighter with the most points won. Under such a system, the fighter has an incentive to help his side win, but he also has an incentive to let someone else get killed in the front line while he bravely defends the rear. If we fought such tourneys more often, and if the winners received sufficiently valuable prizes, we might learn more about how medieval armies really worked.

This is supposed to be a book about the warfare of the future, but so far I have talked about the present and the past. My justification for doing so is that so far, at least, the economics of war in the sense in which I use the term economics has been much more stable than its technology. There has been enormous progress in weaponry over the last few millennia, but the economic problem is essentially the same, the only important change being the substitution of hiding for running as a result of the increased range of our weapons. It is possible that all this will change in the future; one can imagine a robot battlefield on which all of the problems are technical. In some respects we already have that; I presume that a soldier manning an ICBM is safer inside the silo firing the missile than running across the landscape as the warheads fall. But then, the same thing may well have been true eight hundred years ago for the soldier firing a trebuchet at a besieged castle. It remains the case now as then that a lot of soldiering involves a sharp conflict between the interest of the soldier and the interest of the soldiers, and it is likely to remain the case at least as long as the human brain continues to be a better weapons-control mechanism than anything else we can put in that small a box.

Disarmament

Disarmament is the act of reducing, limiting, or abolishing weapons. Disarmament generally refers to a country's military or a specific type of weaponry. Disarmament is often taken to mean total elimination of weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear arms. General and Complete Disarmament was defined by the UN General Assembly as the elimination of all WMD, coupled with the “balanced reduction of armed forces and conventional armaments, based on the principle of undiminished security of the parties with a view to promoting or enhancing stability at a lower military level,taking into account the need of all States to protect their security.”

Definitions of disarmament 

In his definition of "disarmament", David Carlton writes in the Oxford University Press Political dictionary, "

But confidence in such measures of arms control, especially when unaccompanied by extensive means of verification, has not been strengthened by the revelation that the Soviet Union in its last years successfully concealed consistent and systematic cheating on its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention." 

He also notes, 

"Now a freeze or a mutually agreed increase is not strictly speaking disarmament at all. And such measures may not even be intended to be the first step towards any kind of reduction or abolition. For the aim may simply be to promote stability in force structures. Hence a new term to cover such cases has become fashionable since the 1960s, namely, arms control."

The book by Seymour Melman, Inspection for Disarmament, addresses various problems related to the problem of inspection for disarmament, evasion teams, and capabilities and limitations of aerial inspection. Gradually, as the idea of arms control displaced the idea of disarmament, the weaknesses of the present arms control paradigm have created problems for the idea of disarmament itself.

History

Before World War I at the Hague Peace Conferences in 1899 and 1907 government delegations debated about disarmament and the creation of an international court with binding powers. The court was considered necessary because it was understood that nation-states could not disarm into a vacuum.After the war revulsion at the futility and tremendous cost of the war were widespread. A commonly held belief was that the cause of the war had been the escalating buildup of armaments in the previous half-century among the great powers (see Anglo-German naval arms race). Although the Treaty of Versailles effectively disarmed Germany, a clause was inserted that called on all the great powers to likewise progressively disarm over a period of time. The newly formed League of Nations made this an explicit goal in the covenant of the league, which committed its signatories to reduce armaments ‘to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations’.

One of the earliest successful achievements in disarmament was obtained with the Washington Naval Treaty. Signed by the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy, it prevented the continued construction of capital ships and limited ships of other classification to under 10,000 tons displacement. The size of the three country's navies (the Royal Navy, United States Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy) was set at the ratio:5-5-3.

In 1921 the Temporary Mixed Commission on Armaments was set up by the League of Nations to explore possibilities for disarmament. Proposals ranged from abolishing chemical warfare and strategic bombing to the limitation of more conventional weapons, such as tanks. A draft treaty was assembled in 1923 that made aggressive war illegal and bound the member states to defend victims of aggression by force. Since the onus of responsibility would, in practice, be on the great powers of the League, it was vetoed by the British, who feared that this pledge would strain its own commitment to police the empire.

A further commission in 1926, set up to explore the possibilities for the reduction of army size, met similar difficulties, prompting the French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg to draft a treaty known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which denounced war of aggression. Although there were 65 signatories to the pact, it achieved nothing, as it set out no guidelines for action in the event of a war.

A final attempt was made at the Geneva Disarmament Conference from 1932–37, chaired by former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson. Germany demanded the revision of the Versailles Treaty and the granting of military parity with the other powers, while France was determined to keep Germany demilitarized for its own security. Meanwhile, the British and Americans were not willing to offer France security commitments in exchange for conciliation with Germany. The talks broke down in 1933 when Adolf Hitler withdrew Germany from the conference.

Nuclear disarmament

Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated.

In the United Kingdom, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament held an inaugural public meeting at Central Hall, Westminster, on 17 February 1958, attended by five thousand people. After the meeting, a few hundred left to demonstrate at Downing Street.

CND's declared policies were the unconditional renunciation of the use, production of or dependence upon nuclear weapons by Britain and the bringing about of a general disarmament convention. The first Aldermaston March was organised by the CND and took place at Easter1958, when several thousand people marched for four days from Trafalgar Square, London, to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment close to Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, to demonstrate their opposition to nuclear weapons. The Aldermaston marches continued into the late 1960s when tens of thousands of people took part in the four-day marches.

In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy gave a speech before the UN General Assembly where he announced the US "intention to challenge the Soviet Union, not to an arms race, but to a peace race - to advance together step by step, stage by stage, until general and complete disarmament has been achieved." He went on to call for a global general and complete disarmament, offering a rough outline for how this could be accomplished:

“ The program to be presented to this assembly - for general and complete disarmament under effective international control - moves to bridge the gap between those who insist on a gradual approach and those who talk only of the final and total achievement. It would create machinery to keep the peace as it destroys the machinery of war. It would proceed through balanced and safeguarded stages designed to give no state a military advantage over another. It would place the final responsibility for verification and control where it belongs, not with the big powers alone, not with one's adversary or one's self, but in an international organization within the framework of the United Nations. It would assure that indispensable condition of disarmament - true inspection - and apply it in stages proportionate to the stage of disarmament. It would cover delivery systems as well as weapons. It would ultimately halt their production as well as their testing, their transfer as well as their possession. It would achieve under the eyes of an international disarmament organization, a steady reduction in force, both nuclear and conventional, until it has abolished all armies and all weapons except those needed for internal order and a new United Nations Peace Force. And it starts that process now, today, even as the talks begin. In short, general and complete disarmament must no longer be a slogan, used to resist the first steps. It is no longer to be a goal without means of achieving it, without means of verifying its progress, without means of keeping the peace. It is now a realistic plan, and a test - a test of those only willing to talk and a test of those willing to act.” 

Major nuclear disarmament groups include Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Greenpeace and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. There have been many large anti-nuclear demonstrations and protests. On June 12, 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race. It was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history.

Disarmament conferences and treaties

• 1675: Strasbourg Agreement (1675)
• 1899: Hague Peace Conference
• 1919: Treaty of Versailles
• 1925: Locarno Treaties
• 1927: Kellogg-Briand Pact
• 1932-34: World Disarmament Conference
• 1960: Ten-Nation Disarmament Committee
• 1962-1968: Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee
• 1969-1978: Conference of the Committee on Disarmament
• 1979–present: Conference on Disarmament (CD)

Naval

• 1908–1909: London Naval Conference
• 1921–1922: Washington Naval Conference
• 1927: Geneva Naval Conference
• 1930: London Naval Conference leading to the London Naval Treaty
• 1935: London Naval Conference leading to the Second London Naval Treaty