Negotiation in War
Eric Min∗
Department of Political Science
Stanford University
October 15, 2016
Draft − Please do not cite or circulate
Abstract
What role do negotiations play in the midst of interstate wars? Extant scholarship has
largely treated negotiations as being irrelevant to understanding a conflict’s trajectory, or
as being a direct reflection of hostilities on the battlefield. Neither view is supported by
historical readings or empirical patterns of intra-war diplomacy. I present an alternative view
of negotiations as being instrumental. Diplomatic bargaining not only occurs in response to
battlefield outcomes, but is also used deceptively by disadvantaged belligerents to stall for
time, manage political pressures, and regroup militarily. Using two new daily-level datasets
of battles and diplomatic activity, I show that negotiations in post-1945 wars extend conflict
when the war initiator has an advantage in fighting, occur in response to lop-sided battle
outcomes, dampen the intensity of combat, and are associated with subsequent improvements
in the war target’s success on the battlefield. This framework of instrumental negotiations
shows that the effect of intra-war diplomacy is conditional on the state of hostilities, and has
substantial implications on our understanding of war termination and conflict resolution.
∗
Author’s e-mail: [email protected]. I thank Jim Fearon, Ken Schultz, Justin Grimmer, and
participants of the Stanford International Relations Workshop (February 2016) and the Annual Meetings
of the Midwest Political Science Association (April 2016) and the American Political Science Association
(September 2016) for their helpful comments. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the National
Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship #DGE-114747. All errors are my own.
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
1 Introduction
Diplomacy plays a fundamental role in the restoration of peace between nations. Two-thirds of
interstate wars since 1816 have been resolved through diplomatic means short of complete military victory or defeat (Phillipson 1916; Pillar 1983; Leventoğlu and Slantchev 2007). Despite the
prominent place that formal negotiations have in concluding wars, few efforts have been made to
explicitly study when and how diplomacy is reintroduced in the midst of hostilities.
This may partially be attributed to scholarship’s predominant understanding of war as a bargaining
failure. Wars begin when diplomacy fails. However, the empirical record of intra-conflict negotiations does not sit well with the implications of most extant war research. Contrary to the notion
that states are free to constantly communicate during hostilities, states treat the act of talking as
a serious and potentially costly activity. While formal models of war expect gradual convergence
toward a settlement, states exhibit a great deal of obstinacy with respect to bargaining, even in
the face of defeats on the battlefield. Such a mismatch suggests that diplomatic negotiations may
pay a critical—but thus far, largely neglected—role in bridging the wide gap between theories and
histories of conflict.
This paper outlines a more comprehensive theory regarding the use and role of negotiations in
war. At its core lies one insight: Depending on the state of the battlefield, states may strategically
use negotiations not to settle conflicts, but instead to help fight and potentially win them. I
call diplomatic bargaining that is designed to achieve objectives antithetical to peace instrumental
negotiation.
On one hand, negotiations are costly because they risk signaling weakness to the adversary. On
the other hand, instrumental negotiation can allow disadvantaged belligerents to create breathing
room to stall for time, alleviate political pressures, and allow for the mobilization and regrouping
of military forces. The ability to temporarily deceive the opponent relies heavily on being able to
disguise whether one’s negotiation efforts are conducted in good or bad faith. I suggest that high
external pressures for peace, as well as lop-sided outcomes on the battlefield, decrease the informational and reputational costs to negotiation, providing an ideal strategic space in which beleaguered
belligerents can successfully engage in instrumental negotiations. Above all, this suggests that the
effect of negotiations on the trajectory of war is not immaterial or unidirectional, but conditional
on the state of hostilities.
To demonstrate the existence and effects of instrumental negotiations, I create two new dailylevel datasets that cover battles and diplomatic behavior across all interstate wars listed in the
Correlates of War (COW). These data allow for an exceptionally detailed investigation of the
interaction between fighting and negotiating, and they provide strong support for the strategic use
of negotiations in the midst of fighting. While negotiations that take place alongside balanced
battlefield outcomes tend to shorten conflict, negotiations occurring in response to imbalanced
battlefield outcomes tend to prolong it. Diplomatic bargaining is additionally associated with
1
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
lower levels of contemporaneous fighting, and the termination of talks is followed by reversals of
fortune favoring parties unprepared for war. Beyond this paper, the data establish foundations for
an extensive research agenda that can finally test many long-standing theories of conflict that have
thus far been limited to case studies and formal models.
The concept of instrumental negotiation has substantial implications on our academic and policymaking approaches to conflict and its resolution. Many of the inconsistencies between theories of
war and the empirical record of intra-war diplomacy can be reconciled by treating negotiations as
a distinct—and not necessarily earnest—strategy to navigate a conflict. The fact that diplomacy
itself can help to extend conflict, reduce military pressures, and reverse battlefield outcomes poses
a severe challenge to extant scholarship that does not seriously contemplate intra-war diplomacy
or consider deviations from history to be in the error term. While it may seem unsurprising that
states can abuse negotiations during war, no study has systematically considered the conditions
under which such behavior should be more common, nor whether those efforts prove successful.
The findings presented in this paper also have natural applications to current-day civil wars. A
more thorough understanding of the uses and effects of negotiation and how they interact with
active hostilities may help to shape a more productive and less reactionary approach to conflict
resolution.
The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2, I summarize and assess the contemporary approaches
to intra-conflict negotiations. Section 3 outlines the core theoretical motivations for instrumental
negotiations and also discusses several key hypotheses that arise from such an understanding. Section 4 describes the daily-level battle and diplomacy data gathered to test the proposed hypotheses.
Section 5 presents the analysis and findings. We then conclude in Section 6.
2
Negotiations as Irrelevant or Epiphenomenal
For the purposes of this paper, “negotiation” refers to direct communication between parties with
the ostensible aim of creating a mutually acceptable agreement. This includes mediation, which is
a form of negotiation that involves an outside party (Greig and Diehl 2012). Note that negotiations
also encompass shuttle diplomacy, where a third party physically travels between two states as an
intermediary.1 Peace missions where the third party fails to get the consent of the warring states
do not qualify, since no direct communications have taken place. As will be made clear in this
paper, the inclusion of the word “ostensible” is important and differs from standard definitions
that presuppose “interests in reaching agreement” (Rubenstein 1982).2
1
United States envoy Anthony Lake’s travels between Ethiopia and Eritrea during the 1998-2000 war over the
Badme Border is one recent example.
2
Iklé (1964) also defines negotiation as “a process in which explicit proposals are put forward ostensibly for the
purpose of reaching agreement on an exchange or on the realization of a common interest where conflicting interests
are present” (3-4; emphasis mine).
2
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
A predominant share of contemporary war research, mainly concerning conflict initiation, is based
on the classic bargaining model where two adversaries exchange offers over how to split some good
(Reiter 2003). These models are agnostic to the manner in which “bargaining” by exchanging offers
occurs. Belligerents may do so tacitly through active hostilities, economic sanctions, relinquishing
of territory, non-use of specific weapons, and other interactions not based on verbal communication
(Schelling 1957; Downs and Rocke 1990). They may also make public speeches or engage in other
discussions. Much of the war literature attributes no unique role to formal negotiations, as they
are considered to be one flavor of bargaining. Moreover, the war itself is treated as a black-boxed,
game-ending costly lottery (Fearon 1995; Powell 2006). This is clearly an assumption made for
tractability’s sake, but is also suggestive of the notion that a conflict’s hostilities and ultimate
outcome can be understood through initial pre-war capabilities without a serious consideration
of intra-war dynamics (Morgenthau 1954; Waltz 1979). Quantitative studies that do analyze war
duration and termination (Bennett and Stam 1996; Goemans 2000a,b; Slantchev 2004; Weisiger
2013) also fall into this non-dynamic category, adopting a “cannonball” approach where fixed and/or
initial characteristics such as democracy, geographical contiguity, and overall military strategy
only adjust the metaphorical cannon’s angle or power.3 These time-invariant approaches do not
rule out the possibility or empirical reality that wars may end with a negotiated settlement, but
such an outcome is merely understood as a way to codify terms dictated by a weighted coin flip.
Furthermore, this does not address why some wars do not involve negotiations at all, or why many
negotiations fail to quickly resolve wars. Diplomatic talks, as well as fighting, are not viewed
through a lens that clarifies the strategy or trajectory of a conflict.
With a dearth of data on intra-war activity, a host of formal models have sought to explicitly
address the dynamics of war while recognizing that many wars end with negotiated agreements
(Wagner 2000; Filson and Werner 2002; Slantchev 2003; Mattes and Morgan 2004; Powell 2004;
Smith and Stam 2004; Leventoğlu and Slantchev 2007; Wolford et al. 2011). A majority of these
models involve alternation between a take-it-or-leave-it offer and a potentially game-ending battle
if the offer is rejected. This process continues with the belligerents updating their offers in response
to information from more battles until one side accepts an offer or is defeated. In these works,
negotiations are treated as a direct and mechanical reflection of the battlefield. Diplomacy only
becomes productive when information from fighting opens a viable bargaining range, and offers
should steadily converge upon a common set of expectations between the belligerents (Slantchev
2003). Negotiations, if they occur, reflect information flowing from the battlefield and are thus
epiphenomenal to fighting. They also indicate growing interest in peace. It is worth noting that
Goemans (2000b), Reiter (2009), and Weisiger (2013) do provide richer historical accounts of several
wars to illustrate how information obtained from fighting may endogeneously influence each side’s
desire to change its war aims or seek a settlement. However, their qualitative findings have not
3
One recent exception is Weisiger (2016), who studies the connection between monthly casualties and war termination. However, he does not account for diplomatic activity.
3
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
been fully mirrored using systematic analysis across wars,4 and they still harbor the belief that
diplomacy only reflects, and does not affect, the battlefield.
These two broad frameworks produce several potential characterizations of intra-war diplomacy.
In all cases, the act of negotiation, independent of positions taken, is seen as a costless activity.
Belligerents should feel free to always or never negotiate, and costs are only derived from any
concessions made. Once a negotiation does occur, it should directly reflect battlefield outcomes,
promote convergence with every new battle that takes place, and augur the cessation of hostilities.5
The historical record does not support these ideas. A rich if unfortunate chronicle of war shows that
leaders take negotiations quite seriously. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Japanese
envoy Kaneko Kentaro asked for president Theodore Roosevelt to propose mediation efforts, and
for him to do so without mentioning Japan’s request. The Japanese government expressly took
these steps to avoid the stigma of being first to ask for peace (White 1964, 208). Given that Japan
was pummeling the Russians on the battlefield, this concern over appearances is especially telling.
Figure 1 uses new diplomatic data that I have collected (described in Section 4) to show the timing
of the first negotiation across all COW interstate wars.6 The plot shows a high degree of variability
in this metric. 74 of 93 conflicts, or about 80%, experience at least one negotiation.
Moreover, of 1,695 battles recorded across all COW interstate wars (also described in Section 4),
only 7.1% were followed by negotiations in the next week.7 Langlois and Langlois (2012) and Fearon
(2013) further note that war negotiations tend not to gradually converge, but instead exhibit a
high degree of obstinacy before the belligerents swiftly reach a settlement. The repeated pattern of
stubborn position-taking, even in the face of shifting fortunes on the battlefield, suggests that the
connection between fighting and bargaining is not as irrelevant or epiphenomenal as many theories
presume.
This substantial divergence between existing theories and the empirical record indicate that we lack
a proper understanding of what negotiations do during a war. In the remainder of this paper, I
develop a framework that deviates from current literature by focusing on negotiations as a crucial
and unique form of wartime interaction. Negotiations are important in their own right because they
not only reflect the battlefield, but under many conditions are also often used to alter it. In that
sense, negotiations should be seen as strategic activity that serves purposes beyond the exchange
of productive offers.
We next begin to build the scaffolding to understand negotiations in war in this light.
4
The quantitative sections in Goemans (2000b) and Weisiger (2013) use methods and data that treat entire
conflicts as the unit of analysis, precluding the consideration of time-variant factors or decision-making.
5
Minor changes in some simple modeling assumptions can also produce indeterminate or contradictory implications about war’s conduct, particularly regarding overall duration (Powell 2004; Leventoğlu and Tarar 2008).
6
Clearly, the duration of a conflict is endogenous to the conflict; belligerents are not aware that they are x% of
the way through a war. I plot conflicts along this ex post measure for illustrative purposes.
7
This number only increases to 9.4% when the window is increased to two weeks. In any case, these estimates
are likely inflated since some battles end on very similar days.
4
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
20
Count
15
Era
Pre−1945
10
Post−1945
5
0
0.0
0.3
0.6
0.9
Proportion of War Elapsed
Figure 1: Proportion of war elapsed prior to first negotiation. The bar right of the vertical black line
represents wars without negotiations.
3
Negotiations as Instrumental
If intra-war negotiations are strategically motivated, then their employment must be associated
with costs and benefits that reflect both political and military realities. To develop a theory of
intra-war negotiations, we must consider these trade-offs.
3.1
Looking Weak but Stemming Costs
The most considerable and obvious cost to seeking negotiations of any form is that it signals
weakness. Schelling (1960) remarks that “one side or both may fear that even a show of willingness
to negotiate will be interpreted as excessive eagerness” (53). Nonetheless, formal models of war
often equate extreme offers with not “truly” negotiating. The lack of distinction between making
absurd proposals and not negotiating implies that no additional costs are incurred from the act of
negotiation itself, regardless of the positions taken. Such an assumption further undermines the
study of negotiations as a calculated choice.
Given that wars are often motivated by information asymmetries, willingness to engage in talks
may signal that a party is unwilling or unable to keep fighting (Kaplow 2016). The previous
anecdote from the Russo-Japanese War illustrates this unease. The appearance of wanting peace
could motivate the opponent to fight harder or to make more extreme demands, as it believes that
the requesting party must be in a dire situation (Pillar 1983; Smith 1995). It may even enervate
the military forces of the requesting state, as it believes that further efforts are futile or that peace
is at hand (Iklé 1971; Lombardi 2009).8 A substantial pool of economics research has made this
general point from the opposite end, suggesting that refusal to negotiate is a manner through which
to signal one’s resolve (Binmore et al. 1986; Admati and Perry 1987; Cramton 1992).
8
In the civil war context, entering negotiations with a rebel group bears the additional cost of granting it legitimacy
(Walter 2006; Svensson 2007; Walter 2009; Kaplow 2016).
5
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Contemporary formal literature has focused on one main benefit to seeking negotiations during war:
the potential to forge a settlement that minimizes losses compared to the continuation of conflict.
Concerns about appearing weak become less important when one’s weakness is increasingly selfevident. Indeed, some models tend to associate the termination of conflict with increasingly decisive
battle victories by one side (Smith 1998; Smith and Stam 2004).
3.2
Shaping the Political Realm
If these considerations were the only cost and benefit to negotiation, it would perhaps be understandable that intra-war diplomatic bargaining is viewed as irrelevant or epiphenomenal to fighting.
Negotiations would only be pertinent in reacting to and/or codifying the end results of hostilities.
Yet history suggests that negotiations can engender a variety of other consequences that actually
support, rather than stymie, a belligerent’s overall war effort. In past qualitative literature on interstate negotiation, Iklé (1964) and Pillar (1983) discuss “side-effects”—the consequences of talks
which are unrelated to forging an agreement. Their discussion of side-effects was cursory, but the
importance of the core insight should not be understated.9 In the remainder of this paper, I refer
to negotiations designed to yield side-effects antithetical to settlement as being instrumental.
One side-effect to instrumental negotiations has received some mild attention: the alleviation of
political pressures for peace, both domestically and internationally. By engaging in artful bad-faith
negotiations, states can revitalize domestic support for the war effort while also currying favor from
external parties. In an ideal scenario, these incidents would update outsiders’ beliefs to the extent
that they would give the belligerent political or material backing (Jönsson 2002; Codevilla 2009).
The pressure that parties at war may feel to negotiate and to engage in actions that superficially
show interest in peace can be overwhelming, independent of whether overall conditions are amenable
to a lasting settlement. Iklé (1964) bluntly highlights the pervasive and unconditional nature of
outside pressures to engage in diplomacy:
Negotiation is thought to be desirable not only because it may prevent conflict by
producing an agreement but . . . because the very process of negotiating is believed to
help maintain contact and provide a substitute for violent action, even if no agreement
is in sight. Given the prevalence of these views, governments are reluctant to refuse
negotiation, no matter how unlikely or undesirable an agreement. They fear that such
refusal would impair the good will of groups important to them—their own parliament,
the public in allied countries, or other governments, for example. . . . Governments that
9
Scholars and practitioners of contract law have independently discussed the importance of negotiating in good
faith, and the myriad temptations not to do so (Cox 1958; Burton 1980; Gillette 1981; Dawkins 2014). The National
Labor Relations Act, which codifies regulations on collective bargaining, requires negotiations to be in good faith.
This disallows, among other acts, failure to meet at reasonable times and intervals, engaging in piecemeal bargaining, refusing to provide relevant information, creating impasses using irrelevant topics, and not signing completed
agreements. The incentives to cheat in negotiations should be even stronger in an anarchic international wartime
environment without strong institutions to identify or punish acts of disingenuous bargaining.
6
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
negotiate in order to win public approval value the act of negotiating as the Pharisee
values prayer. It is not the thoughts behind the prayer that matter, or the purpose
pursued, or the deeds before and after—what counts is that the ceremony be performed
with the proper gestures. (53-54)
Craig and George (1995) further state that “even though the interested parties do not expect or want
an agreement, they may nonetheless begin talks with the goal of gaining propaganda advantages at
the expense of the opponent” (164). Belligerents may engage in negotiations as political theater,
despite knowing that the talks themselves are more than likely to yield no tangible progress toward
settlement. Parties will attempt to feign interest in peace by making offers that are unclear or
calculated to be slightly beyond the rival’s indifference point, providing enough cover to alleviate
political pressures without making their true (dis)interests patently obvious (Wallihan 1998; Lebow
1996; Montgomery 2013).10 One example of this strategy comes from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
As the international community grew impatient with Israeli’s refusal to stop fighting, the newlyfounded nation began supporting efforts to establish a commission with modest powers to examine
the conflict and even partially acceded to United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR)
62, which called for a mutual withdrawal of forces and peace talks. Both actions were taken with
the intent of deflecting criticism and stalling for time: The proposed commission was very limited
in scope, and Israel correctly foresaw that the Arab states would reject UNSCR 62 (Tal 2004).
Extensive research shows that negotiators under the pressure of other constituencies tend to be less
willing to make compromises than when left to their own devices (Druckman and Zechmeister 1973;
Tjosvold 1977; Rubin et al. 1994), and that agents may avoid reaching agreements which benefit
the constituencies but harm the negotiators’ own political aims (Gilmour 1995). More specific to
conflict, peace efforts that occur in unnatural circumstances under heavy external influence are
likelier to fail, hampering the path to resolution (Werner and Yuen 2005).
Importantly, constant pressure from external parties helps to create political cover that unwittingly
decreases the reputational and informational costs of engaging in diplomacy. Belligerents do not
have to make their own overtures and may instead agree to negotiate for the sake of acceding
to international demands. This “discount” offers belligerents less costly opportunities to exploit
instrumental negotiations, which help to prolong the overall conflict.11
10
Groseclose and McCarty (2001) explore a similar mechanism in the context of presidential vetoes of bills from
Congress, and how such bargaining affects third parties’ beliefs.
11
In another part of this overall research project, I argue and show that systemic changes after World War II
provide a source of leverage to test the effects of the heavily diminished costs to negotiating in post-1945 conflicts.
This helps explain my choice to only focus on wars after World War II in this paper. Additional discussion and
preliminary evidence of this idea can be found in the Conclusion.
7
Eric Min
3.3
Negotiation in War
Shaping the Battlefield
We have considered political reasons why belligerents may negotiate even when they are not looking
for peace. Yet if diplomacy and war are truly intertwined, then instrumental negotiations should
also be a tool of war with direct effects on the battlefield.
Negotiations, ostensibly meant to resolve conflicts, also provide time and space for belligerents to
engage in deception that can help to overcome temporary inadequacies in capabilities and strategies.
Substantial literatures in military affairs and business attest to the importance of deception and
misrepresentation as a “force multiplier” and their use, particularly by weaker parties, to gain
a temporary competitive advantage.12 While it may be expected that belligerents use deceptive
tactics during war, it is perhaps less intuitive how instrumental negotiations themselves can have
any link to the battlefield and why other parties would be willing to negotiate when they are aware
of this possibility.
Broadly speaking, lop-sided battlefield outcomes provide a set of ideal conditions in which advantaged and disadvantaged belligerents would be open to negotiations. This can be discussed in
terms of an asymmetric information model. Consider the party suffering poor fighting outcomes.
This side, should it contemplate talks, could be one of two types: good-faith, seeking to genuinely
forge an agreement; or bad-faith, seeking to use negotiations instrumentally. A good-faith negotiator would be more likely to want peace when battlefield outcomes are clearly unpromising and
outweigh the potential costs to further hostilities.13 This party would express real interest in settlement by standing down and decreasing its level of active hostilities—a costly gesture that shows
one’s serious intent to find peace. In order to successfully engage in instrumental negotiations,
a bad-faith negotiator must imitate, at least initially, the motions of a good-faith party, which
critically includes the costly act of toning down its fighting. This mimicry serves a dual purpose
of disguising one’s type, as well as creating breathing room to mobilize and rearm one’s military
forces in a manner that would be unfeasible if fighting went unabated.14 Note that instrumental
negotiations create the distinct possibility, but not guarantee, of weaker parties turning the tide of
battle.
Next, consider the party that is experiencing advantages on the battlefield. At least two factors
explain why this belligerent would be willing to negotiate even at the risk of being deceived through
12
For a sample, see Clausewitz (1976 [1832]); Daniel and Herbig (1982); Lewicki (1983); Tangredi (1985); Grover
(1986); Gerwehr and Glenn (2000); Latimer (2001); Caddell (2004); Joint Chiefs of Staff (2006); Gulsby (2010) and
Handel (2012). Also see Slantchev (2010), who discusses the strategic incentives that stronger parties may have to
feign weakness for a similar effect.
13
It is important and empirically verifiable that many negotiations in response to lop-sided outcomes produce
genuine agreements. Not all negotiations that take place in imbalanced settings are instrumental. Indeed, if this were
the case, a rational belligerent that is asked negotiate would realize that the request was deceptive and reject talks.
14
Note that this reduction in hostilities does not require a ceasefire. Indeed, many recent wars (such as the Second
Laotian War, the War of Attrition, the Football War, and Bangladesh War, and so on) required negotiations in order
to arrange the ceasefire itself. While we should expect ceasefires to markedly reduce active hostilities, negotiations
themselves should also have their own dampening effect.
8
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
instrumental diplomacy. First, lop-sided outcomes create strong incentives for the advantaged side
to attempt to lock in its disparate gains through a diplomatic settlement, even in the face of
potential deception. Provided that the expected gains from a genuine settlement or the probability
of the other party being good-faith is sufficiently high, the advantaged party may opt to take the
gamble of attempting to negotiate an agreement. Second, and as discussed previously, the constant
pressures of third parties urging peace may make it difficult for states to refuse talks or to blatantly
ignore attempts to curtail hostilities. In likely cases where the advantaged party is also the war
initiator, there may be additional condemnation and demand upon the belligerent to stop fighting.
This would further motivate attempts to consolidate battlefield gains through negotiations.
These elements all played a part in the Assam War, which began on October 20, 1962 when
Chinese forces launched offensives across the McMahon Line—a boundary between India and China
determined in 1914. Within three days, Chinese forces had overrun a series of outposts. The
Chinese government then proposed a negotiated settlement of the boundary, which included mutual
withdrawals but recognition of the new lines of control. On October 24, Nehru’s government vaguely
dismissed the Chinese proposal, asked for a series of clarifications, and presented the skeleton of a
counterproposal. These actions were taken to buy time and succeeded on that front. A back-andforth of clarifications lasted until November 14, when Nehru flatly rejected the Chinese proposal
and accused the Chinese of “cold-blooded massive aggression” (Maxwell 1970). Indian forces, which
had prepared for hostilities during these public negotiations, launched several assaults. Although
India’s efforts failed to forge a victory, their burst of activity convinced the Chinese to propose a
ceasefire on November 19 that had far more favorable terms than their plan a month earlier. Nehru
accepted this revised proposal, which gave India two-thirds of the disputed territory, two days later.
The Korean War provides another striking example of negotiations interacting with the battlefield.
Armistice talks began in July 1951, over a year after North Korea’s initial attack across the 38th
parallel and months after the interventions of the United Nations Command (UNC) and China.
Even though both sides agreed that hostilities would continue during negotiations, fighting became
markedly less intense once talks began (Hermes 1966, 32). In the face of false Communist accusations of neutral zone violations, negotiations broke off in August and hostilities began again with
renewed intensity. Discussions began again in October 1951, were halted over disagreements on
prisoners of war in October 1952, and resumed one last time in March 1953 before an armistice was
signed in July. The on-and-off-again nature of negotiations, as well as the introduction of poison
pill proposals, were part of a larger strategy for the Communists. As the psychological warfare
adviser to the UNC delegation, William Vatcher (1958) noted the Communists’ use of instrumental
negotiations and the link between the fighting and negotiating in no uncertain terms:
Having been unsuccessful in attaining their objectives on the Korean field of battle,
they turned to the conference table as a means of achieving their ends. Their use of
the conference table was obvious indeed: to gain precious time while they rebuilt and
strengthened their forces, to obtain every possible benefit from the UNC, and to serve
9
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
War termination
Battlefield
Negotiation
Figure 2: Schematic to illustrate three conceptions of negotiations in war. Thin solid line represents
irrelevant view; thicker solid lines indicate epiphenomenal view; dotted line adds the instrumental view.
as a sounding board for their propaganda. This they attempted to achieve by haggling
over the agenda, demanding the UNC withdraw to the 38th Parallel, manufacturing incidents and pointing to the UNC as instigator, maliciously injecting propaganda into the
substance of the meetings in order to create a false impression of UNC perfidy, presenting irrelevant issues for stalling purposes, and frequently acting in a very discourteous
and arrogant manner. (67)
In sum, the combination of high external pressure for peace at the systemic level and lop-sided
battlefield outcomes at the conflict level create the ideal strategic space for instrumental negotiations
to occur and succeed in shaping the battlefield. At the conflict level (the primary focus of this
paper), beleaguered belligerents of both good and bad faith would seek to slow down fighting,
albeit for different reasons; other parties would be less capable of distinguishing whether such a
gesture was genuine or instrumental; and the advantaged belligerent would also be more willing
to take the risk of being deceived for the hope of consummating its victories.15 At the systemic
level (addressed more fully in another paper and previewed in the Conclusion), constant thirdparty efforts and pressures to forge peace—without regard for the state of battle—help to diminish
the reputational and informational costs of seeking to negotiate, providing greater latitude for a
bad-faith belligerent to negotiate instrumentally and further undermining the other side’s ability
to discern actual intent.
Figure 2 distills the implied causal relationships between battlefield outcomes, war termination,
and negotiations from the three discussed perspectives into a single diagram. The irrelevant view,
most closely linked to the costly lottery/black box notion of war and represented by the thin arrow,
suggests that battlefield outcomes are the primary force behind the termination of conflict. The
epiphenomenal view, represented with the thicker solid arrows, asserts that battlefield outcomes
affect war termination, but largely mediated by negotiations. Lastly, the instrumental view, reflected with a thick dotted line, adds one essential element on top of the epiphenomenal approach:
Negotiations not only reflect the battlefield, but also mold it.
15
In the language of game theory, these conditions promote the existence of pooling and/or semi-equilibria that
would allow bad-faith negotiators to mislead the other side and realize goals antithetical to peace.
10
Eric Min
3.4
Negotiation in War
Hypotheses
The previous discussion naturally raises several testable implications and assumptions that would
provide evidence to assess the relative merits of three views of negotiations as being irrelevant,
epiphenomenal to fighting, or instrumental.
In the first case where negotiations are irrelevant to understanding war, battle outcomes alone
should sufficiently account for when and why wars come to an end. While wars can end through
a diplomatic settlement, works in the costly lottery tradition are silent on why wars do or do not
end with an agreement or why many negotiations occur but fail to yield peace. Overall, then, there
should be no relationship between negotiation and war termination. Decisive fighting itself should
dictate when a war ends, and any negotiations that do occur are an artifact that merely codify
these results.
Hypothesis 1 (Irrelevant) Negotiations have no effect on war termination. Lop-sided battle outcomes hasten the end of wars, while equitable battle outcomes prolong wars.
In the second case where negotiations are merely reflective of or epiphenomenal to battlefield
outcomes, negotiations influence war termination as a mediator for battlefield outcomes. While
battle outcomes may still directly influence when a war ends (especially in wars with severe credible
commitment problems), a meaningful and positive relationship should exist between negotiation
and war termination. Formal models of endogenous war suggest that the start of real diplomatic
bargaining should be a positive sign for peace and portend the convergence of belligerents’ positions.
Hypothesis 2 (Epiphenomenal) Negotiations hasten the end of wars and mediate the
effect of lop-sided battle outcomes on war termination.
Lastly, I have presented a third alternative where a meaningful but conditional relationship exists
between negotiation and war termination. Diplomatic negotiations may not be meant to exchange
meaningful offers but to buy time on both political and military fronts. The conditions for embattled
belligerents to seek respite (permanent or otherwise), as well as for favored belligerents to be least
able to discern bad-faith diplomacy, are both aligned when the battlefield features imbalanced
results.
Hypothesis 3 (Instrumental) Negotiations prolong wars when battle outcomes are lopsided, but hasten the termination of war when battle outcomes are equitable.
Note that in the absence of negotiations, we would expect battlefield outcomes to have opposite
effects on war termination; see Hypothesis 1.
This main proposition for instrumental negotiations, summarized by Hypothesis 3, is girded by
11
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
three additional expectations that roughly comprise one narrative. Analogous expectations for the
two other views of intra-war negotiation are provided in Table 1, but we focus on the instrumental
perspective here. First, we should see negotiations occur more frequently in the face of imbalanced
military outcomes. Disadvantaged parties, whether they are of good faith or not, would suffer lower
costs for looking weak if the battlefield made this seem self-evident. Both would also benefit, though
in different ways: The former type would stem unwanted future costs, while the latter would also
create space to consider other tactics. The more successful party would also hope to lock in its gains,
particularly in an international environment that continuously seeks to stem conflict. Evidence in
support of this dynamic is also consistent with a view of negotiations as epiphenomenal to conflict,
but it is important to the narrative of instrumental diplomacy.
Hypothesis 3a Lop-sided battle outcomes increase the likelihood of negotiations.
Second, regardless of whether negotiations are genuine or instrumental, we should expect to see
some degree of slackening in active hostilities—even in the absence of a concurrent ceasefire. Short
of being wholly defeated, a state seeking peace will commit the costly act of reducing their level of
fighting to show that it is serious about peace. The subset of states hoping to exploit negotiations
would also need to scale back on fighting both to convince the other side to negotiate and to create
the space to rearm and remobilize.16 The other belligerent would reciprocate in order to minimize
unnecessary material and political losses while seeing what comes out of negotiations, as was the
case during the Korean War.17
Hypothesis 3b Periods of negotiations feature lower levels of simultaneous battles.
Third, instrumental negotiations should share some relationship with changes in subsequent battlefield outcomes. If each belligerent were equally prepared for war, we might expect instrumental
negotiations to have an indeterminate or zero mean effect on subsequent fighting. However, longer
delays in the termination of conflict should have much clearer benefits for war targets. Instrumental
negotiations not only help war targets to temporarily stop fighting, but are essential to creating
time and space to translate their latent capabilities into actual forces prepared for combat, thus
nullifying the war initiator’s strategic and tactical advantages.18 Both the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
and the 1962 Assam War follow this narrative where the targets (Israel and India, respectively)
used diplomatic maneuvers to overcome strategic and tactical disadvantages borne of being unprepared for fighting. Battlefield outcomes should therefore typically shift in favor of war targets in
the aftermath of failed negotiations.
16
Note that high external pressure for peace also helps to make this reduction of hostilities less costly.
Of course, this other party can also rearm and remobilize in case talks fall apart. The main point is that,
regardless of what each belligerent does behind the scenes, actual active hostilities will slow down during negotiations.
18
Many works speak to the overall advantages that war initiators and surprise attackers enjoy (Axelrod 1979;
Dupuy 1979; Bueno de Mesquita 1981; Betts 1982; Wang and Ray 1994; Gartner and Siverson 1996; Reiter and Stam
2002; Diehl 2004; Sun-Tzu 2007; Flynn 2008).
17
12
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Irrelevant (H1)
Leaders may negotiate at
war’s end, but the
outcome is primarily
determined by initial
pre-war factors.
Negotiations, if they
occur, reflect final
outcomes of activity on
the battlefield.
Summary
Epiphenomenal (H2)
Instrumental (H3)
Negotiations communicate
changing beliefs in
response to fighting.
Negotiations start when a
bargaining range
(re)opens; they then
continuously reflect the
battlefield.
Leaders, especially when
disadvantaged in fighting,
use negotiations for
strategic ends meant to
shape the battlefield and
buy time. Negotiations
react to but also affect the
battlefield.
Negotiation →
Termination
No relationship, except
perhaps to codify war
once over
Positive relationship
Conditional on battlefield;
lower probability of
termination when fighting
outcomes are extreme
Fighting →
Negotiation
Occurs when war is
effectively over
Occurs in response to
stabilizing expectations
over outcomes
Occurs in response to
imbalanced fighting
outcomes
Negotiation →
Concurrent
Fighting
No link
No theorized effect19
Reduction of active
hostilities
Negotiation →
Subsequent
Fighting
No link
No theorized effect20
Outcomes favoring the
war target
Negotiation Timing
Perhaps used to codify
end of conflict, but not
relevant during war
Initial delays, then
negotiations continue until
eventual settlement
Could slow down conflict
and avoid settlement;
on-off pattern throughout
Sources
Fearon (1995), Bennett
and Stam (1996),
Goemans (2000), Powell
(2006), Weisiger (2013)
Filson and Werner (2002,
2004), Slantchev (2003),
Powell (2004), Leventoğlu
and Slantchev (2007),
Weisiger (2016)
Iklé (1963), Pillar (1983)
Table 1: Overviews of three approaches to negotiation in war.
Hypothesis 3c Periods following the halting of negotiations feature shifts in battlefield
outcomes that favor the war target.
This is not to say that every negotiation is meant to turn the tides of fighting, or that every
attempt to do so proves successful. Nonetheless, evidence of this effect would show that decisions to
negotiate, tone down active hostilities, and stall for time are not simply reflections of the battlefield
or the result of failed yet earnest efforts for peace, but also strategically timed and managed
activities designed to affect the battlefield with hopes of forging a more favorable deal.
Table 1 summarizes the assumptions and implications of three different perspectives to intra-war
negotiations.
13
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
The introduction of instrumental negotiations, as well as the broader notion of intra-war diplomacy
being a strategic act, injects several useful aspects to our understanding of war. First, and at the
most basic level, this perspective adds an additional layer of dynamism to the study of conflict.
If negotiations interact with battlefield activity as well as decisions regarding the termination of
hostilities, it is less reasonable to reduce war to a costly lottery, cannonball, or convergence process.
Second, the framework elevates diplomacy to a more consequential act and another tool in a state’s
war arsenal. No extant war scholarship, particularly in formal theory, has considered the use of
talks to reduce military pressure with the intent to continue fighting. This helps to underscore
the value of the third contribution: The possibilities and pitfalls of instrumental negotiations make
better sense of observed patterns in intra-war negotiation than current scholarship does. Lastly,
instrumental negotiations help fill a theoretical gap in the narrative of gambling for resurrection
(Downs and Rocke 1994; Goemans 2000a). Extant theories outline why beleaguered wartime leaders
may attempt to keep fighting to avoid the consequences of losing the war, but provide little insight
into how leaders would actually accomplish this task. Simply continuing to grind away on the
battlefield and hoping for a propitious reversal does not seem like a prudent way to turn the tides.
The logic of instrumental negotiations suggests that leaders could slow the pace and intensity of
hostilities in order to revive their military forces and amass political sympathy.21
4
Data
In order to test these hypotheses that tie together fighting and bargaining, it is necessary to have
data that reflects each. To that end, I have collected and generated daily-level data on battles and
diplomatic behavior for all interstate wars listed in COW. This was a large undertaking, and given
the central role that these new data play in the remainder of this paper, it is worth discussing them
in some detail.
4.1
Fighting
Battles are a principal unit of combat during war and therefore provide a useful concept through
which to understand armed hostilities between states (Dupuy 1987). In a previous study relating
the results of fighting to the timing of war termination, Ramsay (2008) uses the U.S. Army’s
Concepts Analysis Agency Database of Battles, Version 1990 (CDB90) dataset, which features
information on 660 battles waged between 1600 and 1982. The observations start with the Thirty
19
Most formal models of war alternate between fighting and bargaining so that the two never overlap. This
relationship is a technical artifact of the models and should not be interpreted literally.
20
See footnote 19.
21
That being said, instrumental negotiations are not a mere enrichment of the story of gambling for resurrection.
Leaders do not need to feel their power endangered to engage in duplicitous bargaining, and the aim of placating
international parties through diplomatic theater is not a part of the narrative behind gambling for resurrection, which
is focused on domestic politics.
14
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Years’ War of 1618-1648 and end with the 1982 War over Lebanon.22 Ramsay discusses several
shortcomings of these data: They do not feature any naval battles, contain remarkable omissions
of well-known battles and wars, tend to be biased toward coverage of Western conflicts, may be
double-counting some encounters, are hard to replicate or match with the historical record, and
include many variables that have questionable and inconsistent codings.23 Ramsay’s study uses
only twentieth-century battles in an attempt to alleviate some of these issues, resulting in 379
observations. Nonetheless, this does not fully address the CDB90’s bias toward conflicts involving
Western states and/or major powers that may operate under very different strategic and material
considerations.
I address these issues by amassing a new dataset of 1,695 battles from all COW interstate wars.
The majority of these entries are based on The Dictionary of Battles and Sieges by Jaques (2007),
which defines a battle as “any clash between organised forces of combatants” (xii). Some additional
battles are included from other sources, particularly for a few wars not explored in the dictionary.
For each battle, I code the date(s) on which the battles occurred; which side began the battle (the
“attacker”); which side had to confront the battle (the “defender”); and the outcome of the battle,
ranging from from a decisive victory by the attacker to a decisive victory by the defender. See
Tables 3 and 4.
It is worth clarifying some terminology at this point. Throughout the paper, I use the terms
“initiator” and “target” in reference to the overall war, and “attacker” and “defender” to discuss
individual battles.24 The Central Powers were the initiator and the Allies were the target in World
War I; the Allies were the attacker in the Battle of Amiens, which began the major counteroffensive
against the defending Central Powers in August 1918.
Table 2 provides a comparison of the two datasets’ coverage. The new data eclipses the CDB90 in
comprehensiveness, both in the breadth of wars as well as depth for each war. The only exceptions
lie with the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War, where the CDB90 has two to three times as many
listed battles and is known to have very detailed information on Arab-Israeli conflicts. The new
data does not include many battle-level attributes such as strategy, morale, technology, and the
like, which the CDB90 does. However, these are the sorts of attributes that Ramsay (2008) and
Desch (2002) identify as being unreliable and difficult to replicate. Most of these measures are also
not recorded after World War II. The ability to quadruple the number of observations outweighs
the loss of several incomplete and unreliable measures. Figure 3 shows the distribution of number
of battles recorded for each interstate war.
Table 3 shows the breakdown of outcomes over all 1,695 battles. Table 4 looks at only battles from
after 1945, which is the primary time period for this paper’s study. The general distributions are
not markedly different between the entire battle dataset and the post-1945 subset.25
22
An earlier work by Reiter and Stam (1998) on the military effectiveness of democracies also utilizes this resource.
See Desch (2002) for more details on the last two points.
24
The terms “initiator” and “target” find precedent in other works such as Bueno de Mesquita et al. (1992).
25
Note that this study and data treat conflicts as being between two parties. Intra-alliance war dynamics are an
23
15
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Table 2: Comparison of battles in the new war battle data (WBD) and existing Concepts Analysis Agency
Database of Battles (CDB). Note that the CDB does not distinguish between the two Balkan Wars, instead
listing five battles for “The Balkan Wars.”
#
1
4
7
10
13
16
19
22
25
28
31
34
37
40
43
46
49
52
55
58
60
61
64
65
67
70
73
76
79
82
83
85
88
91
94
97
100
103
106
107
108
109
112
115
116
117
118
121
124
125
127
130
133
War
Pre-1816
Franco-Spanish
First Russo-Turkish
Mexican-American
Austro-Sardinian
First Schleswig-Holstein
Roman Republic
La Plata
Crimean
Anglo-Persian
Italian Unification
First Spanish-Moroccan
Italian-Roman
Neapolitan
Franco-Mexican
Ecuadorian-Colombian
Second Schleswig-Holstein
Lopez
Naval War
Seven Weeks
Franco-Prussian
First Central American
Second Russo-Turkish
War of the Pacific
Conquest of Egypt
Sino-French
Second Central American
First Sino-Japanese
Greco-Turkish
Spanish-American
Boxer Rebellion
Sino-Russian
Russo-Japanese
Third Central American
Fourth Central American
Second Spanish-Moroccan
Italian-Turkish
First Balkan
Second Balkan
World War I
Estonian Liberation
Latvian Liberation
Russo-Polish
Hungarian Adversaries
Second Greco-Turkish
Franco-Turkish
Lithuanian-Polish
Manchurian
Second Sino-Japanese
Chaco
Saudi-Yemeni
Conquest of Ethiopia
Third Sino-Japanese
Changkufeng
WBD
2
6
27
11
7
3
5
30
4
9
3
2
7
29
2
3
32
4
25
57
5
26
13
4
9
1
15
7
17
7
8
18
1
3
4
12
11
8
343
4
3
9
5
18
13
2
14
9
19
1
12
16
1
CDB
156
#
136
139
142
145
147
148
151
153
155
156
158
159
160
163
166
169
170
172
175
176
178
181
184
186
187
189
190
193
199
202
205
207
208
211
215
216
217
219
221
223
225
227
8
1
2
2
1
10
1
6
2.5∗
2.5∗
124
War
Nomonhan
World War II
Russo-Finnish
Franco-Thai
First Kashmir
Arab-Israeli
Korean
Off-shore Islands
Sinai War
Soviet Invasion of Hungary
IfniWar
Taiwan Straits
Assam
Vietnam War, Phase 2
Second Kashmir
Six Day War
Second Laotian, Phase 2
War of Attrition
Football War
Communist Coalition
Bangladesh
Yom Kippur War
Turco-Cypriot
War over Angola
Second Ogaden War, Phase 2
Vietnamese-Cambodian
Ugandian-Tanzanian
Sino-Vietnamese Punitive
Iran-Iraq
Falkland Islands
War over Lebanon
War over the Aouzou Strip
Sino-Vietnamese Border War
Gulf War
Bosnian Independence
Azeri-Armenian
Cenepa Valley
Badme Border
War for Kosovo
Kargil War
Invasion of Afghanistan
Invasion of Iraq
WBD
1
453
8
6
7
25
41
3
6
1
5
1
4
50
8
10
1
10
2
1
14
11
4
18
6
3
2
1
27
6
5
6
5
8
9
4
8
5
1
1
6
6
CDB
193
1
9
11
4
1
22
1
33
1
2
5
1
16
Post-1816, but not in interstate COW
American Civil War
(357)
Zulu War
(10)
Transvaal Revolt
(4)
Egypt and the Sudan
(23)
Boer War
(57)
Spanish Civil War
(41)
49
2
1
2
5
1
Total
Total for COW
Total for 20th c.
660
444
419
1,695
1,695
1,330
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
10
Count
8
Era
6
Pre−1945
Post−1945
4
2
0
0
20
40
60
Number of Battles
Figure 3: Number of battles recorded per war.
The two tables also indicate the manner in which each outcome is recorded. Each battle is given
a score, where positive values indicate a victory for the war initiator and negative values indicate
a victory for the war target. One important facet to identifying the attacking and defending sides
of each battle is that it allows us to further distinguish, at least to some extent, expectations from
fighting. Parties that take the offensive in battles have tactical and strategic advantages, and are
selecting into clashes where they believe they will win. Losing a battle one initiates, or winning
a battle thrust upon oneself, are both surprising and more likely to update belligerents’ beliefs.26
The proportions in both Tables 3 and 4 show this to be the case: The side taking the offensive is
victorious more than 60% of the time. In that sense, losing battles one starts (or winning battles
while on the defensive) is surprising. Battles with such outcomes have a plausible reason to receive
greater informational weight. These outcomes are therefore given a weight v > 1. In this study,
v = 2 to roughly reflect the ratio of clashes won by attackers over defenders.
These raw battle-based scores are used to create daily-level measures of battlefield outcomes. For
this study, I generate three variables.27 The first measure, called RunP rop, is a running proportion
of battles (weighted as described previously) won by the war initiator over the entire conflict.
One potential issue with RunP rop is its permanent memory. The measure includes all battles
starting from the first day and is inherently unable to vary as much as the total number of battles
accumulates. It also may not be plausible for leaders to remember or care about the entire war’s
hostilities when making decisions. Thus, the second variable, called LastMean, tracks the mean
weighted score using the previous ` battles up to the day in question. Here, I use ` = 5.
RunP rop and LastM ean are directional measures that allow us to see whether the effects of lopsided outcomes depend on which side is on top. For my third measure, I use the absolute value of
interesting topic in their own right, but are not the focus of this paper. The diplomatic data, described in the next
subsection, takes a similar bilateral approach.
26
Reiter (2009) also suggests that surprising outcomes are more likely to affect war termination demands. The
ability to roughly weigh “surprising” outcomes also provides one advantage to using battles, rather than casualties
(Weisiger 2016), to gauge information from fighting. Neither raw nor ratio-based measures of casualties provide
appropriate context without knowing leaders’ expectations.
27
More rigorous definitions of these measures are in Appendix A.
17
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
War Initiator
Battle Attacker
Inconclusive
540
(0.318)
1
Inconclusive
War Target
Total
595
(0.351)
−1
1,135
(0.669)
74
(0.044)
0
Battle Defender
241
(0.142)
v
Total
781
(0.460)
74
(0.044)
74
(0.044)
245
(0.145)
−v
486
(0.287)
840
(0.496)
1,695
(1.000)
Table 3: Distribution of all battle victories according to which party started the overall war and which
party started the particular battle in question. Raw counts are on the first line, proportions are on second
line, and values given when creating outcome data are on the third line.
War Initiator
Battle Attacker
Inconclusive
103
(0.311)
1
Inconclusive
War Target
Total
104
(0.314)
−v
207
(0.625)
18
(0.055)
0
Battle Defender
61
(0.184)
v
Total
164
(0.495)
18
(0.055)
18
(0.055)
45
(0.136)
−v
106
(0.320)
149
(0.450)
331
(1.000)
Table 4: Distribution of post-1945 battle victories according to which party started the overall war and
which party started the particular battle in question. Raw counts are on the first line, proportions are on
second line, and values given when creating outcome data are on the third line.
the LastMean measure to test whether simple lop-sidedness, without regard for sides, does a better
job of patterns of negotiations during war. Figure 4 displays the distributions of all three measures.
The first two sub-figures show that battle outcomes do generally favor the war initiator.
Table 5 uses the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 to demonstrate how the battle data translates into
daily-level fighting data. Note that the score only enters the data once the battle comes to an end.
Figure 4 shows the distribution of this fighting measure for the data.
4.2
Negotiating
I utilized over 400 historical texts, primary source documents, and newspaper articles to gather data
on negotiation during interstate wars.28 Since direct negotiations and mediations are somewhat
difficult to distinguish in the post-1945 environment, I create a single dummy variable that indicates
whether either took place on a given day. This also follows my general definition of negotiations
28
A fair portion of the sources are referred to in an annotated bibliography by Shirkey and Weisiger (2012), but
many other sources were also used. A list of almost all references can be provided upon request.
18
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
#
1
Battle
Nezeros
2
Vigla
3
Mati
4
Velestino 1
5
6
Pharsalus
Velestino 2
7
Domokos
Start
End
4/17/1897 4/18/1897
4/18/1897 - 4/19/1897
4/20/1897 4/20/1897
4/20/1897 - 4/22/1897
4/22/1897 4/23/1897
4/23/1897 - 4/29/1897
4/30/1897 4/30/1897
4/30/1897 - 5/4/1897
5/5/1897
5/5/1897
5/5/1897
5/6/1897
5/6/1897 - 5/16/1897
5/17/1897 5/17/1897
5/17/1897 - 5/20/1897
Winner
Greece/Def.
b
2
Window
1−1
Greece/Att.
1
1−2
Turkey/Att.
−1
1−3
Greece/Def.
2
1−4
Turkey/Att.
Greece/Def.
−1
2
1−5
2−6
Turkey/Att.
−1
3−7
RP
2/2
2/2
3/3
3/3
3/4
3/4
5/6
5/6
5/7
7/9
7/9
7/10
7/10
LM
2
2
1.5
1.5
0.67
0.67
1
1
0.6
0.6
0.6
0.2
0.2
Table 5: An example of how the fighting measures RunProp (RP) and LastMean (LM) are made, using
the 1897 Greco-Turkish War. Note that, despite the first recorded battle being started by Turkey, Greece
initiated the war. The data contains seven battles. The “Window” column indicates which battles are used
to make the LM measure (in this case, the most recent five). The daily scores recorded between each of
these battles are displayed in gray.
as being direct communication between parties with the ostensible aim of creating a mutually
acceptable agreement.
In total, these data amount to 39,216 war-day observations on battlefield outcomes and diplomatic
activity. This paper utilizes wars after 1945, resulting in 13,173 total observations between the
1947 Kashmir War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.29 About 28% of these post-1945 observations
involve some form of active negotiations between the belligerents.
4.3
Revisiting the Historical Record with Data
The two sets of data described above can be combined to provide an especially detailed summary
of how each war evolved in hostilities and diplomacy over time. Figure 5 provides three examples
2.0
0.75
1.0
Density
Density
Density
0.4
1.5
0.2
0.50
0.25
0.5
0.0
0.0
0.00
0.25
0.50
RunProp
(a) RunProp
0.75
1.00
0.00
−2
0
2
4
0
LastMean
(b) LastMean
1
2
3
4
5
| LastMean |
(c) |LastM ean|
Figure 4: Distributions of the fighting measures.
29
This number of observations accounts for the removal of three wars due to lack of reliable data on battles
and/or diplomacy: the 1968-1973 Second Laotian War, the 1970-1971 Communist Coalition War, and the five-day
Sino-Vietnamese Border War of 1987.
19
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
spanning much of COW’s temporal spectrum. Several more are located in Appendix C.
We can investigate more general trends using descriptive plots. Figure 6 uses kernel regression
smoothers to summarize the trajectory of wars after 1945. The movement of the line presents a
story that is not reassuring for the existing conceptions of intra-war negotiations. A large mass of
diplomatic interactions occurs in the midst of conflict, especially when the war initiator has made
gains, only to dissipate later on.30 This decrease, since it does not occur at the rightmost end of the
figure, indicates that the negotiations failed to terminate the war. The shade and size of the line
is also based on kernel smoothing over the LastMean measure are also conspicuous. Thick darker
lines correspond with battle outcomes favoring the war initiator, while thin lighter lines correspond
with outcomes closer to parity. The overall rise and fall of negotiations in wars matches with a
major shift in battlefield outcomes that favor the targeted side. Unsuccessful negotiations appear
to be associated with a dilution in the war initiator’s battlefield advantages. Many of these patterns
present suggestive evidence in favor of the instrumental view of negotiations.
Figure 7 shows how the balance of initiative and success shifts over the course of post-1945 wars.
Conflicts generally begin with the war initiator staging and winning many of the battles; attacks
by the war target tend to be routed by the initiator. At some point, approximately halfway into
the overall conflict, a reversal takes place. More of the battles are launched and won by the war
target. Wars tend to begin with the war initiator enjoying an advantage in fighting, and end with
the war target having taken back much of the initiative. Negotiations likely play a significant part
in allowing this turnaround to occur.
5
Analysis
We now turn to the quantitative evaluation of our hypotheses.
5.1
Empirical Strategy
To test the relationship between fighting, negotiating, and war duration/termination, which are
at the center of Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3, I use Cox proportional hazard models with time-varying
covariates. I test whether uneven battlefield outcomes affect negotiation (Hypothesis 3a) using a
logistic regression with the daily binary negotiation variable as the outcome of interest. I assess
the link between periods of negotiation and active fighting (Hypothesis 3b) by using a Poisson
regression with the number of active battles on each day as the dependent variable.31 Lastly,
I analyze potential changes in fighting after negotiations (Hypothesis 3c) through least squares
30
War duration is obviously endogenous to the conflict itself, and belligerents are not aware of what proportion
of the conflict has elapsed when prosecuting a war. My visualization and discussion of when events tend to occur is
retrospective and exploratory in nature.
31
The mean number of daily battles is 0.416, and the variance is 0.665. An overdispersion test fails to reject the
null, justifying the use of a simpler Poisson model over a negative binomial model.
20
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Crimean
Allies
Inconclusive
Russia
1.00
Battle Outcomes
0.75
0.50
0.25
0.00
Events
1854−01
1854−07
1855−01
1855−07
1856−01
Cease
Neg
●●● ●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Bat
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
● ● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
1854−01
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
1854−07
1855−01
1855−07
1856−01
Date
World War II
Axis
Allies
Battle Outcomes
1
0
−1
−2
−3
Events
1940
Cease
Neg
Bat
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
●●●
●
●●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
● ● ●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Date
Iran−Iraq
Battle Outcomes
Iraq
Iran
1
0
−1
−2
Events
1982
1984
1986
1988
Cease
Neg
Bat
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●●
●●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●1982●
●● ●
1984
●
●
●
●
●●
● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
1986
1988
Date
Figure 5: Three example plots illustrating battlefield and diplomatic progress. The RunProp measure for
battlefield outcomes is used here, as it is the easiest to represent visually. The top party is the initiator of
the war. On the bottom of each plot are segments representing: days with ceasefires, days with negotiations,
days with mediation, and the number of battles taking place.
21
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
0.30
Pr(Negotiation)
Fighting
(LastMean)
0.25
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
0.20
0.35
0.40
0.15
0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
Proportion of War Elapsed
Figure 6: Diplomacy and fighting in wars after 1945.
Proportion of Battles
0.5
0.4
Attacker/Winner
Side 1/Side 1
0.3
Side 1/Side 2
Side 2/Side 1
0.2
Side 2/Side 2
0.1
0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
Proportion of War Elapsed
Figure 7: Battle trends in wars after 1945.
regressions. I compare the daily fighting measures on war-days that are two weeks before and after
the termination of negotiations.
Table 6 summarizes these arrangements. Note that the unit of analysis for all four hypotheses is
the war-day. All models use standard errors clustered by war and (excluding the hazard model)
include war fixed effects.
I adopt a selection on observables approach. Key variables worth considering include the following:
• Issue salience: Belligerents may be more willing to fight harder when a conflict involves
existential threats, which are often linked to wars with serious credible commitment issues.
The classification scheme developed by Holsti (1991) is extended to include more recent wars.
Each side’s most important issue area related to the war is categorized as being, in decreasing
order: regime/state survival (2), a territorial or ideological dispute (1), or a commercial or
policy dispute (0). The two sides’ values are added together to gauge overall salience.
• Capability differential: States with greater industrial and military capabilities have an overall
22
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
H
1
2
3
4
Outcome
War duration
Negotiation
Number of battles
Fighting
Explanatory
Negotiation × Fighting
Fighting
Negotiation
Post-negotiation period
Model
Cox PH
Logistic
Poisson
OLS
Table 6: Summary of variables and models used to evaluate the hypotheses.
advantage in wars that could hasten hostilities (Coser 1961; Bennett and Stam 1996). The
Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) measure from the National Material Capabilities dataset is used for this task.32 For each side in the war, the annual CINC measures of
all active belligerents are added together, with adjustments made when belligerents in multilateral wars enter and exit. The total of the target’s capabilities is subtracted from the total
of the initiator. As such, positive values of this variable indicate that the war initiator has
higher overall material capabilities than its target.
• Democracy: A trove of democratic peace literature expects democracies to be more discerning, credible, and effective—yet impatient—belligerents in war (Schultz 1999; Reiter and
Stam 2002; Filson and Werner 2004).33 Indeed, the costs of engaging in negotiation, which
can include the mobilization of opposition parties, may vary between democracies and nondemocracies. A binary measure for each side, based on Polity, is included.34
• Contiguity: Geographic contiguity facilitates more efficient hostilities that might make wars
shorter (Slantchev 2004). I use a contiguity variable derived from COW, which takes a value
of 1 if the two primary belligerents are next to one another.
• Ceasefires: Some concerns may exist that instrumental negotiations only affect the battlefield
when there are ceasefires that explicitly call upon belligerents to stop fighting. I previously
provided a theoretical basis for why this is not true. The inclusion of a binary variable
indicating the existence of a ceasefire can help to statistically evaluate this claim. This
measure comes from my diplomatic data.
• Third-party urging: In order to account for one source of international pressure for peace, I
account for days on which prominent third parties urged the belligerents to cease hostilities.
This typically takes the form of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, but cases where
heads of state make direct appeals also fall into this category. This measure also comes from
my diplomatic data.
• Stagnant fighting: Convergence of beliefs may not (only) be bolstered by the degree of imbalance in fighting, but (also) by the lack of changes in battlefield outcomes—that is, stability.
Ripeness theory, for instance, suggests that parties should be more willing to negotiate when
32
The CINC score is used to provide more holistic results, but any of the individual component measures could
also be used.
33
For two prominent dissenting opinions, see Farber and Gowa (1995) and Desch (2002).
34
I use a binary measure for at least two reasons. First, some studies call Polity’s specific measures into question
(Treier and Jackman 2008). Second, 15% of the observations involve states without precise Polity scores but are
relatively straightforward to classify in a binary manner.
23
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
fighting produces a sustained deadlock (Zartman 1989). I include a running count of the
number of days elapsed without a change in battlefield outcomes.
• Time trend: A straightforward linear time trend, representing the length of the war thus far,
may help capture broad movement in some of the outcome variables.
Descriptive statistics for all quantitative variables are in Appendix B. The presence of multiple
observations per war, which permits fixed effects estimation, also allows us to weaken the selection
on observables assumption (Keele 2015).
5.2
Results
First, we examine whether daily-level changes in battlefield outcomes and diplomacy affect the
likelihood of war termination. For instrumental negotiations to find support, diplomatic bargaining
that takes place alongside uneven battle outcomes should be less likely to end hostilities.
Table 7 displays results of bivariate Cox proportional hazard models that show how fighting and
bargaining individually affect the termination of a war. Models 1 and 2, which use RunProp and
LastMean, exhibit no meaningful connection. Model 3, where |LastM ean| is the main explanatory
variable, does have a significant and positive effect on termination. This suggests that imbalanced
battle outcomes, regardless of which side is winning or losing, hasten the end of the conflict.
Overall, this partially attests to fighting’s independent explanatory power with respect to war
termination—the view of negotiations as irrelevant to conflict (Hypothesis 1). Model 4 includes
only a daily indicator for whether negotiations are taking place. In some support of Hypothesis 2,
days of negotiations appear to be positively associated with the end of a conflict. The particular
coefficient indicates that the existence of negotiations increases the probability of termination by
a factor of e0.892 = 2.44 over the baseline. In Model 5, both negotiations and |LastM ean| retain
their significance. Negotiations do not appear to be a strong mediator for fighting outcomes; both
factors seem to have their own effects on the termination of conflict. That being said, these theories
and models focus only on the independent effects of fighting and negotiating on war.
Table 8 begins to test for instrumental negotiations (Hypothesis 3) in earnest by interacting the
daily fighting measures with the daily binary negotiation variable.35 Across all three measures
of battlefield outcomes, a strong interactive link ties together fighting and bargaining. The interactive effect strongly shows that imbalanced battlefield outcomes during times of negotiations
are detrimental to war termination. Models 4 and 5, using RunP rop and LastM ean, indicate
that negotiations when the war target is losing battles are associated with longer conflicts; Model
6 suggests that negotiations alongside lop-sided outcomes, regardless of winner or loser, reduce
35
In some of these models, the Negotiation variable violates the proportional hazard assumption. The inclusion
of an interaction term with time causes convergence issues due to the Vietnam and Iran-Iraq wars, which are far
longer than all other conflicts in the data. In Appendix D, I provide results that omit these two wars and rectify the
proportional hazard assumption. I present full results despite this violation in the main text since they are similar
to the analysis on the subset of data.
24
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Table 7: Bivariate Cox proportional hazard models.
Dependent variable:
War termination
(1)
RunP rop
(2)
(3)
(4)
−0.083
(0.499)
LastM ean
0.013
(0.162)
0.683∗∗∗
(0.267)
|LastM ean|
0.892∗∗
(0.364)
X
13,173
Negotiation
Clustered SEs (War)
Observations
(5)
X
13,173
X
13,173
X
13,173
∗p
Note:
< 0.1;
∗∗ p
< 0.05;
0.673∗∗∗
(0.270)
0.848∗∗
(0.389)
X
13,173
∗∗∗ p
< 0.01
the likelihood of war termination. In all three cases, this deleterious effect outpaces the positive
independent effect of engaging in diplomacy.36
To make these results more interpretable, Figure 8 illustrates survival curves for various battlefield
outcomes and states of negotiation across all three fighting measures. These survival curves are
based on Models 4, 5, and 6 from Table 8, showing how likely it is for a unit—in our case, a war—to
persist to the next time period or to come to an end. All observations start with probability 1 and
successively fall. Curves that reach 0 more quickly over time indicate wars that are likely end more
quickly. Holding all other variables at their mean or mode values, I vary the state of battle and
whether negotiations are taking place. In the absence of negotiations (left column), we see that
more lop-sided fighting outcomes, especially favoring the war initiator, moderately help to end a
conflict. However, as Hypothesis 3 posits, the effects are essentially flipped and far stronger when
negotiations do occur (right column). Diplomatic efforts string out conflicts when the battlefield is
lop-sided against the war target and hasten their conclusion when the target pushes back against
the initiator.37
Few studies, if any, have identified conditions in which heavy fighting may actually be linked to
delay, or cases in which negotiations do not promote agreement in a continuously non-decreasing
manner. The logic of instrumental negotiations provides a natural avenue through which to predict
when such dynamics should occur. This brings us much closer to capturing the real-world history of
36
In analyses involving interactive terms, the key quantities of interest are the marginal effects and their standard
errors. In our case, we want to know the marginal effect of negotiations on war termination. Appendix D includes plots
that calculates these values and their standard errors for the three fully specified models, as per the recommendations
of Brambor et al. (2006).
37
Confidence intervals are left off to avoid clutter. The plots of marginal effects in Appendix D feature the
appropriate confidence intervals.
25
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Table 8: Cox proportional hazard results with interactions and controls.
Dependent variable:
War termination
(1)
Negotiation
RunP rop
Negotiation × RunP rop
2.175∗∗∗
(0.661)
0.629
(0.633)
−2.519∗∗
(1.140)
LastM ean
(2)
(3)
1.124∗∗∗
(0.385)
1.916∗∗∗
(0.568)
−0.016
(0.497)
0.637∗∗
(0.293)
−1.133∗∗∗
(0.501)
Negotiation × |LastM ean|
3.810∗
(2.276)
−0.360
(0.231)
0.376
(0.448)
0.386
(0.485)
0.401
(0.511)
2.910∗∗∗
(0.539)
1.050∗
(1.320)
−0.368∗
(0.316)
CINC differential
Issue salience
Contiguity
Democratic initiator
Democratic target
Ceasefire
Third-party urging
Active battles
X
13,173
35
(6)
1.403∗
(0.756)
0.453
(0.319)
−1.553∗∗∗
(0.531)
|LastM ean|
Observations
Events
(5)
1.928∗∗
(0.788)
0.618
(0.704)
−4.670∗∗∗
(1.518)
0.354
(0.263)
−0.752∗∗
(0.381)
Negotiation × LastM ean
Clustered SEs (War)
(4)
X
X
13,173
35
13,173
35
X
X
13,173
35
26
X
13,173
35
∗
Note:
5.416∗∗
(2.717)
−0.357∗
(0.230)
0.661∗
(0.484)
0.139
(0.486)
0.333
(0.509)
2.937∗∗∗
(0.554)
0.722
(1.320)
−0.423∗
(0.345)
p < 0.1;
∗∗
0.927∗∗∗
(0.333)
−2.020∗∗∗
(0.785)
4.722∗∗
(2.224)
−0.371∗
(0.215)
0.425
(0.440)
0.294
(0.489)
0.943∗
(0.519)
2.526∗∗∗
(0.527)
0.290
(1.348)
−0.474∗
(0.355)
p < 0.05;
13,173
35
∗∗∗
p < 0.01
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
1.00
RunProp
Pr(War Continues)
Pr(War Continues)
1.00
1.00
0.75
0.75
0.50
0.50
0.25
0.25
RunProp
1.00
0.75
0.75
0.50
0.50
0.25
0.25
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0
1000
2000
Time
3000
0
(a) RunProp, no negotiations
2000
Time
3000
(b) RunProp, negotiations
1.00
1.00
LastMean
Pr(War Continues)
Pr(War Continues)
1000
3
0.75
2
1
0.50
0
0.25
−1
LastMean
3
0.75
2
1
0.50
0
0.25
−1
−2
−2
0.00
0.00
0
1000
2000
Time
3000
0
(c) LastMean, no negotiations
2000
Time
3000
(d) LastMean, negotiations
1.00
| LM |
3
0.75
2
0.50
1
0.25
Pr(War Continues)
1.00
Pr(War Continues)
1000
| LM |
3
0.75
2
0.50
1
0.25
0
0
0.00
0.00
0
1000
2000
Time
3000
0
(e) |LastM ean|, no negotiations
1000
2000
Time
3000
(f ) |LastM ean|, negotiations
Figure 8: Survival curves for different battlefield outcomes and negotiation statuses, using Models 4, 5,
and 6 from Table 8. All other relevant covariates are set at mean or mode values. Note that survival curves
which fall faster indicate situations in which a hypothetical war is likelier to end, while survival curves that
remain at higher levels longer represent situations where a hypothetical war is likelier to persist.
27
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
conflict in which belligerents do not earnestly negotiate or immediately move closer to concessions
in the face of unpromising news. In convincing support of Hypothesis 3, more complex calculations
motivate the use of diplomacy to moderate the pace of war.
Hypothesis 3a postulates that negotiations should be more likely when battlefield outcomes veer
further away from parity. Table 9 presents results of several logistic regressions assessing this claim.
Models 1, 2, and 3 include only a lagged dependent variable and the fighting measure.38 In Model 2,
recent fighting that increasingly favors the war initiator is likelier to trigger negotiations; advantages
for the war target have the opposite effect. Model 3 shows that deviations from battlefield parity
are positively linked with negotiations. The AICs suggest that |LastM ean|, or mere imbalances
regardless of sides, explain propensity to negotiate slightly better. Once a host of controls are
included in Models 4, 5, and 6, the explanatory strength of |LastM ean| becomes even clearer
compared to the two alternatives.39 Figure 9 uses Model 6 to illustrate the predicted likelihood
of negotiation for the range of possible battlefield outcomes, assuming no negotiations occurred on
the previous day. Overall, Hypothesis 3a finds substantial support.
Many of the control variables exhibit results that are consistent with our intuitive expectations.
Wars involving more salient issues are less likely to see negotiations on any given day. Wars between
geographically contiguous states, war-days with ceasefires, and war-days with explicit third-party
urgings for peace are linked to higher likelihood of negotiation. Interestingly, wars involving a
democratic initiator are markedly less likely to experience negotiations. This result merits further
investigation but is consistent with the idea that democracies select into wars they are likely to
win, obviating the need to negotiate during the conflict (Reiter and Stam 2002; Bueno de Mesquita
et al. 2003). It may also suggest that democracies are far more concerned about signaling waning
resolve to their domestic public, particularly given high expectations of victory.
Hypothesis 3b proposed that belligerents seeking to negotiate, genuinely or with deceptive ends in
mind, would want to demonstrate good faith by toning down the intensity of active hostilities and
would also want to avoid unnecessary losses by fighting. The bad-faith negotiator would additionally
seek this pause to regroup militarily prior to renewing hostilities.
Model 1 of Table 10 uses a Poisson regression to show that periods of negotiation are indeed
associated with fewer active battles. Model 2 includes an indicator for ceasefires, which are arguably
the most serious confounding variable for this hypothesis. Ceasefires, as we might expect, have a
larger pacifying effect than negotiations. Nonetheless, the independent effect of negotiations is nontrivial in its own right. Model 3 adds a host of other relevant controls but reveals no fundamental
change to any of the results.
38
The combined use of fixed effects and lagged dependent variables introduces bias to the estimates (Nickell 1981).
However, given that this bias diminishes with increasing numbers of observations over time and the average war is
421 days long, it does not pose a substantial concern.
39
Robustness checks in Appendix E suggest that the significance of LastM ean are largely driven by the Vietnam
War.
28
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Table 9: Logistic regressions regarding propensity to negotiate.
Dependent variable:
Negotiation
(1)
Lagged DV
RunP rop
(2)
∗∗∗
7.736
(0.155)
0.465
(0.397)
(3)
∗∗∗
7.706
(0.155)
(4)
∗∗∗
7.612
(0.156)
Issue salience
Contiguity
Democratic initiator
Democratic target
Ceasefire
Third-party urging
Active battles
Stagnant fighting
Time trend
−4.133∗∗∗
(0.375)
X
X
13,138
1,823.606
−3.955∗∗∗
(0.344)
X
X
13,138
1,818.565
7.402∗∗∗
(0.164)
−0.082
(0.098)
CINC differential
Observations
AIC
7.445
(0.164)
0.689∗∗∗
(0.155)
|LastM ean|
War FEs
Clustered SEs
(6)
∗∗∗
7.448
(0.163)
−0.111
(0.443)
0.256∗∗∗
(0.091)
LastM ean
Constant
(5)
∗∗∗
−4.337∗∗∗
(0.328)
X
X
13,138
1,805.397
11.045∗∗∗
(1.811)
−2.505∗∗∗
(0.535)
2.777∗
(1.448)
−1.848∗∗∗
(0.454)
1.263∗
(0.649)
0.902∗∗∗
(0.244)
3.066∗∗∗
(0.447)
−0.183
(0.116)
−0.0001
(0.001)
−0.0001
(0.0002)
−0.319
(1.800)
X
X
X
X
13,106
1,725.082
∗
Note:
29
11.523∗∗∗
(1.878)
−2.581∗∗∗
(0.519)
2.849∗∗
(1.424)
−1.883∗∗∗
(0.447)
1.277∗∗
(0.651)
0.932∗∗∗
(0.243)
3.074∗∗∗
(0.444)
−0.191∗
(0.114)
−0.0001
(0.001)
−0.0001
(0.0002)
−0.216
(1.744)
X
X
13,106
1,724.594
p < 0.1;
∗∗
0.544∗∗∗
(0.194)
12.009∗∗∗
(1.809)
−2.107∗∗∗
(0.568)
2.323∗
(1.322)
−1.248∗∗∗
(0.432)
1.097∗
(0.651)
0.871∗∗∗
(0.249)
3.074∗∗∗
(0.449)
−0.151
(0.119)
−0.0002
(0.001)
0.0002
(0.0002)
−1.391
(1.741)
p < 0.05;
13,106
1,716.940
∗∗∗
p < 0.01
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Table 10: Poisson regression results for number of active battles on a war-day.
Dependent variable:
Active battles
(1)
Lagged DV
Negotiation
(2)
(3)
1.056∗∗∗
(0.018)
−0.174∗∗∗
(0.030)
1.048∗∗∗
(0.018)
−0.156∗∗∗
(0.030)
−0.742∗∗∗
(0.086)
−1.625∗∗∗
(0.090)
−1.512∗∗∗
(0.098)
Ceasefire
0.993∗∗∗
(0.019)
−0.201∗∗∗
(0.030)
−0.630∗∗∗
(0.086)
−0.366∗∗∗
(0.069)
1.165∗∗
(0.594)
1.499∗∗∗
(0.409)
0.141
(0.161)
−0.930
(0.590)
−0.154∗∗∗
(0.016)
−0.001∗∗∗
(0.0001)
−0.0002∗∗∗
(0.00002)
0.152
(1.189)
Democratic initiator
Democratic target
CINC differential
Contiguity
Issue salience
LastM ean
Stagnant fighting
Time trend
Constant
War FEs
Clustered SEs (War)
Observations
AIC
X
X
X
X
13,138
13,416.400
X
X
13,138
13,362.580
∗p
Note:
30
< 0.1;
∗∗ p
13,106
13103.410
< 0.05;
∗∗∗ p
< 0.01
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Pr(Negotiation)
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0
1
2
3
| LastMean |
4
5
Figure 9: Predicted probability of negotiation using Model 6 in Table 9. All other variables are held at
their mean or mode values. (Note that the modal value of negotiation is 0.) The First Kashmir War is used
as the reference. Ribbon indicates the standard error.
Finally, Hypothesis 3c theorizes that if negotiations are used instrumentally and deceptively to
regroup the military, we should observe some evidence of reversals of fortune on the battlefield.
If we consider the strategic realities of war and the advantages of initiating a conflict on one’s
own terms, we would expect an unprepared target to experience relatively more benefits from
the respite provided by instrumental negotiations. We can evaluate this by looking at battlefield
outcomes before and after the end of a negotiation.40 Figure 10 shows the average value of the
LastMean measure on each day to show how fighting trends change around the time that negotiation
efforts end. The turnaround in battlefield outcomes is evident. The positive values on the y-axis
show that the war initiator generally has the advantage several days before a given negotiation
comes to an end. However, as war targets begin to improve their performance, negotiations are
stopped. The war initiator’s recent battlefield advantages continue to diminish as more battles take
place.41
Table 11 uses ordinary least squares regressions to compare the two weeks prior to the end of
negotiations with the two-week period after. Models 1 and 2 show that post-negotiation periods
do feature battlefield outcomes that favor the war target. The lack of significance for Models 3
and 6, which use |LastM ean| as their dependent variable, suggests that post-negotiation periods
are not explained well as movements back to parity. This may be attributable to several cases
where the war target had already seen success in fighting and then made more gains after talks
ended (movement away from parity), which washes out the other cases in which the war initiator’s
advantage was diminished after negotiations end (movement toward parity).42 The three models
40
I limit my analysis to negotiations that lasted at least three consecutive days. This removes some noisy events
from the data that may be better described as meetings than negotiations. Nevertheless, the results shown below
remain valid when talks of all lengths are included.
41
The median battle length in post-1945 wars is five days.
42
The results become stronger when only using a seven-day window, and remain similar when using a 21-day
window. In the 21-day case, Models 3 and 6 have a significant and positive estimate for post-negotiation periods.
This is driven by the war target’s mounting victories over time, which are large enough to move the general effect
beyond parity.
31
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
LastMean
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
−15
−10
−5
0
5
10
Days Around End of Negotiation
15
Figure 10: Average value of LastMean in the 10 days before and after the end of a negotiation.
together show that failed talks are followed by military outcomes that tip the scale back in favor of
war targets. In terms of RunP rop, a −0.08 drop (Model 4) is a 14% decrease from the mean value
of 0.579. For the more dynamic LastM ean variable, a −0.224 drop (Model 5) represents a 71%
decrease from the measure’s mean value of 0.314. It is also worth reemphasizing that attempts to
use negotiations for militaristic reasons provide no guarantee of success. During the 1974 TurkoCypriot War, the Greeks dragged their feet during ceasefire negotiations in late July and early
August to amass international sympathy, frame the Turkish as military occupiers, and prepare for
hostilities. Nonetheless, their diplomatic stalling was unable to stop Turkey’s advance two weeks
later (Asmussen 2008).43 Instrumental negotiations may not always work as intended, but the
overall effect still favors the war target and provides noteworthy evidence of diplomacy successfully
being used by the weaker party to moderate military activity.
Considered together, these findings paint a relatively complete story that solidly supports the
instrumental view and challenges predominant notions of intra-war negotiations as being irrelevant
or epiphenomenal to conflict. Belligerents are likelier to enter talks when fighting on the ground
teeters away from parity. However, the purpose and result of these negotiations varies widely
depending on the context provided by activity taking place on the battlefield. Fighting that heavily
favors the targeted party is more likely to result in negotiations that hasten the end of hostilities.
On the other hand, diplomatic efforts that take place when the war initiator is doing well tend to
prolong conflicts, as the targeted party uses the guise of negotiations to create space and work to
compensate for its material and strategic disadvantages. The fact that the number of active battles
falls during periods of negotiations attests to the idea that diplomacy buys breathing room while
also demonstrating (supposed) interest in peace. The finding that failed negotiations are generally
followed by a slight reversal of fortune in favor of the target also illustrates the successful use of
diplomacy as a deceptive tool of war that actively influences the battlefield.
43
The battle data supports this story: Turkey wins every encounter during the war.
32
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Table 11: Least squares regressions of fighting outcomes, before and after negotiations end.
Dependent variable:
RunP rop
(1)
LastM ean |LastM ean|
(2)
(3)
∗∗∗
−0.165
(0.031)
Constant
0.459∗∗∗
(0.017)
0.074
(0.065)
0.584∗∗∗
(0.036)
War FEs
Clustered SEs (War)
X
X
X
X
X
X
Post-negotiation
−0.042
(0.010)
∗∗∗
−0.018
(0.024)
CINC differential
Democratic initiator
Democratic target
Issue salience
Negotiation
Contiguity
Ceasefire
Active battles
Stagnant fighting
Time trend
Observations
1,613
1,613
1,613
RunP rop
LastM ean
|LastM ean|
(4)
(5)
(6)
∗∗∗
∗∗∗
−0.080
(0.012)
0.794∗∗∗
(0.243)
−0.235∗∗∗
(0.039)
−0.147∗∗∗
(0.027)
−0.360∗∗∗
(0.040)
−0.068∗∗∗
(0.012)
0.680∗∗∗
(0.043)
−0.052∗∗∗
(0.015)
−0.037∗∗∗
(0.008)
−0.00002
(0.00004)
0.0001∗∗∗
(0.00001)
1.041∗∗∗
(0.083)
−0.224
(0.033)
12.327∗∗∗
(3.162)
−0.623∗∗∗
(0.153)
−0.723∗∗∗
(0.093)
−0.451∗∗∗
(0.154)
−0.138∗∗∗
(0.034)
1.349∗∗∗
(0.171)
0.152∗∗∗
(0.052)
−0.080∗∗∗
(0.021)
−0.0002
(0.0002)
0.0002∗∗∗
(0.0001)
0.602∗
(0.316)
X
X
X
X
1,613
33
X
X
1,613
∗
Note:
p<0.1;
−0.032
(0.025)
−1.272∗∗∗
(0.257)
−1.518∗∗∗
(0.059)
0.113∗
(0.061)
−1.319∗∗∗
(0.061)
−0.030
(0.024)
1.427∗∗∗
(0.075)
0.071∗∗∗
(0.025)
−0.066∗∗∗
(0.017)
0.0002∗
(0.0001)
−0.001∗∗∗
(0.00002)
3.176∗∗∗
(0.138)
∗∗
1,613
p<0.05;
∗∗∗
p<0.01
Eric Min
6
Negotiation in War
Conclusion
Carl von Clausewitz (1976 [1832]) is all too famously remembered for his maxim that “War is a mere
continuation of policy by other means.” The last two decades of war scholarship have been heavily
influenced by this notion of war as a distinct extension of a bargain that failed to be settled through
diplomacy alone. This very productive line of research, however, has developed at the expense of
serious thought regarding the reintroduction of diplomacy in the midst of conflict.44 Leading
theories and models of war tend to overlook negotiations completely or treat them as mechanical
reflections of the battlefield. The conception of negotiations as simply a form of bargaining without
other less well-meaning uses may be buttressed by a heavy focus on signaling theory (Ander-Nissen
2015) or a normative belief that diplomacy should not be exploitative (Joy 1955; Lall 1966; Young
1968; Steibel 1972; Snyder 2000).45 Regardless of the main reasons, much of this research does not
correspond well with observed patterns of negotiations, which are more inconsistent, intransigent,
and intertwined with hostilities than often assumed.
This paper has outlined a different view of negotiation that finds repeated support throughout
history: Negotiation can be used as a tool of war that not only settles conflicts, but helps to
moderate them. Instrumental negotiations make a substantial contribution to our understanding of
the relationship between fighting and bargaining in war. Contrary to the suggestion of many studies,
bad news from the battlefield does not necessarily promote interest in or actions for peace, and
diplomacy’s value does not suddenly dissipate once blood is shed. The battle and diplomatic data
amassed for this undertaking not only help to evaluate key assumptions in extant war scholarship,
but permit the study of intra-war dynamics at a level that was not feasible in the past. These new
resources establish the groundwork for a new research agenda pointed in that direction, as well as the
tools necessary to rigorously evaluate the assumptions and implications of formal models of conflict.
The raw battle data provides ample opportunity to develop other measures of battlefield dynamics
that may shed greater light on what dimensions of combat guide intra-war behavior, including war
termination. The utility of such data, as demonstrated in this paper, could encourage the collection
and analysis of even more related materials.46
44
It is also worth mentioning that a more proper translation states that “War is a mere continuation of policy
with other means” (emphasis mine), which contradicts the common notion—supported by the word “by”—that the
start of war also implies the cessation of all diplomatic interaction.
45
Providing a historical review, Satow’s Guide to Diplomatic Practice (Roberts 2009) briefly discusses diplomacy
during the Renaissance and prior to the Peace of Westphalia in a disdainful manner, as a time in which “good
diplomacy suffered a temporary lapse” (9):
It was during this period that the ‘Machiavellian’ expedients of spying, conspiracy, and deceit brought
the reputation of the resident diplomatic agent to its nadir. Raison d’étre or what in English is called
‘the end justifying the means’ took unquestioned precedence over morality. (10)
Satow argues that the 1648 Peace of Westphalia created a state-based system in which the aristocratic class took
charge of diplomacy. The shared culture of elite officials in the diplomatic corps (who found more in common with
one another than with their own average citizen) helped to restore “well-defined rules and civilized conventions” (11).
46
In another paper, I use declassified military reports and negotiation transcripts to perform an even more finegrained analysis of the relationship between fighting and bargaining during the Korean War.
34
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
The results of this initial effort have meaningful ramifications on contemporary conflict resolution.
Recent negotiations to quell civil conflicts in Syria, Northern Ireland, the Sudan, and (until recently)
Colombia have all been characterized by suspicions, if not accusations, of parties negotiating in bad
faith in order to prepare for renewed hostilities.47 Despite this, scholars have not analyzed the
reasons when and why these duplicitous talks occur. This paper suggests that negotiations should
not be viewed as universally desirable during war; their ability to promote the cessation of violence is
linked to the relative successes and setbacks experienced by each belligerent. Unilateral attempts by
belligerents to open negotiations should be viewed with some degree of caution. While some efforts
may genuinely create a settlement, others may be designed with ulterior motives. Meanwhile, thirdparty efforts to promote diplomacy may always appear useful and get positive press, but should
also be made judiciously with battlefield outcomes in mind. Ill-timed attempts to expedite a war
toward settlement may end up having the opposite effect. The fact that most civil conflicts pit
rebel groups against a vastly more powerful adversary only serves to exacerbate temptations for
deceptive and instrumental negotiations to be harnessed as a weapon of the weak.
The overall costs of negotiation are an important concept worth further investigation on at least
two additional dimensions. Conditional on the battlefield, all leaders feel concerns about indicating
weakness to their adversary during a war. However, domestic politics could also cast a large and
costly shadow on this decision. Democratic leaders may be more concerned about adverse reactions
from their domestic public and/or opposition elites. The negative coefficient for democratic war
initiators in Table 9 provides very preliminary evidence of aversion toward diplomacy. The manner
in which states choose to negotiate could yield valuable insight into the political concerns and
motivations of different belligerents. Such distinctions could also help clarify the differing ways
in which democracies and non-democracies fight, illuminating mechanisms behind the democratic
advantage in war (Reiter and Stam 2002; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 1999, 2003).
This paper’s focus on post-1945 wars is also informed by the importance of seriously analyzing how
the international system affects the costs to diplomacy—and thus, the battlefield. In my new data,
patterns in fighting and bargaining are noticeably different before and after the Second World War.
Figure 11 echoes Figure 6 from earlier, but also displays an analogous plot for the pre-1945 period.
The contrast is dramatic. Pre-1945 wars feature fewer negotiations and often end wars when they do
occur, while post-1945 wars go through many failed diplomatic efforts. While 28% of war-days after
1945 see some form of negotiation, this figure falls to 9% before 1945. Figure 12 shows smoothed
patterns of RunP rop and LastM ean over the course of wars and again exposes a striking divergence
between the two periods. While pre-1945 war initiators tend to consistently mount victories until
the target finally buckles, post-1945 conflicts experience a significant turnaround before the war is
terminated. These differences are troubling for quantitative work, as incorrect inferences may be
47
See “Syrian Civil War: Negotiating in Bad Faith” from Al Jazeera English on April 13, 2016 (http://www.
aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/04/syrian-civil-war-negotiating-bad-faith-160413081829739.html);
“Colombian Farc rebels extend unilateral ceasefire” from BBC News on August 20, 2015 (http://www.bbc.com/
news/world-latin-america-34007732); White (2013); and Collins (2005), respectively.
35
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
drawn if the data from both periods are pooled together.
Fortna (2009) and Fazal (2013) have noted that wars after 1945 feature fewer victories and formal
peace agreements. These scholars outline theories about changes in how wars terminate, but
few other works have taken this historical breakpoint seriously, much less investigated changes in
diplomacy and combat in the midst of war. Subsection 3.2 alludes to the perverse consequences of
constant external pressure for peace, but this paper has largely treated that force as a constant. In
another paper, I suggest that major shifts in norms and institutions promoting peace after World
War II have engendered an immense increase in this pressure, which diminishes the informational
and reputational costs to negotiating during a war, creates the latitude for troubled belligerents to
engage in instrumental diplomacy, and leads to the variation evident in Figure 12.
Contemporary war scholars have overlooked the notion of negotiating being a costly act, but this
insight makes large strides in helping us understand the strategic logic of negotiations in war.48 The
existence of instrumental negotiations, which can undermine peace and extend hostilities, reaffirms
the importance of this endeavor.
Pr(Negotiation)
0.3
Era
Pre−1945
0.2
Post−1945
0.1
0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
Proportion of War Elapsed
Figure 11: Trajectory of negotiations over the duration of wars.
0.4
Era
0.60
LastMean
RunProp
0.64
Pre−1945
Post−1945
Era
0.3
Pre−1945
Post−1945
0.2
0.56
0.1
0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
0.00
Proportion of War Elapsed
0.25
0.50
0.75
Proportion of War Elapsed
(a) RunP rop
(b) LastM ean
Figure 12: Trajectory of battle outcomes over the duration of wars.
48
The overall trend of failed negotiation efforts in Figure 11 is likely driven by this change.
36
1.00
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
References
Admati, Anat R. and Motty Perry. 1987. “Strategic Delay in Bargaining.” Review of Economic
54(3): 345–364.
Ander-Nissen, Rebecca. 2015. “Conclusion: Relationalism or why diplomats find international
relations theory strange.” In Ole Jacob Sending, Vincent Pouliot, Iver B. Neumann, Ole Jacob
Sending, Vincent Pouliot, and Iver B. Neumann (Editors), “Diplomacy and the Making of World
Politics,” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Asmussen, Jan. 2008. Cyprus at War: Diplomacy and Conflict during the 1974 Crisis. London:
I.B. Tauris.
Axelrod, Robert. 1979. “The Rational Timing of Surprise.” World Politics 31(2): 228–246.
Bennett, D. Scott and Allan C. Stam. 1996. “The Duration of Interstate Wars, 1816-1985.” American Political Science Review 90(2): 239–257.
Betts, Richard K. 1982. Surprise Attack: Lessons for Defense Planning. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Binmore, Ken, Ariel Rubenstein, and Asher Wolinsky. 1986. “The Nash Bargaining Solution in
Economic Modelling.” The RAND Journal of Economics 17(2): 176–188.
Brambor, Thomas, William R. Clark, and Matt Golder. 2006. “Understanding Interaction Models:
Improving Empirical Analyses.” Political Analysis 14(1): 63–82.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce. 1981. The War Trap. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, James Morrow, Randolph Siverson, and Alastair Smith. 1999. “An
Institutional Explanation for the Democratic Peace.” American Political Science Review 93(4):
791–807.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Randolph M. Siverson, and Gary Woller. 1992. “War and the Fate of
Regimes: A Comparative Analysis.” American Political Science Review 86(3): 638–646.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow. 2003.
The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Burton, Steven J. 1980. “Breach of Contract and the Common Law Duty to Perform in Good
Faith.” Harvard Law Review 94(2): 369–404.
Caddell, Joseph W. 2004. Deception 101—Primer on Deception. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic
Studies Institute. Strategic Studies Institute.
Clausewitz, Carl von. 1976 [1832]. On War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Translated
by Michael Howard and Peter Paret.
37
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Codevilla, Angelo. 2009. Advice to War Presidents: A Remedial Course in Statecraft. New York:
Basic Books.
Collins, Robert O. 2005. Civil Wars and Revolution in the Sudan: Essays on the Sudan, Southern
Sudan, and Darfur, 1962-2004. Los Angeles: Tsehai Publishers.
Coser, Lewis A. 1961. “The Termination of Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 5(4): 347–353.
Cox, Archibald. 1958. “The Duty to Bargain in Good Faith.” Harvard Law Review 71(8): 1401–
1442.
Craig, Gordon A. and Alexander L. George. 1995. Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of
Our Time. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cramton, Peter C. 1992. “Strategic Delay in Bargaining with Two-Sided Uncertainty.” Review of
Economic Studies 59(1): 205–225.
Daniel, Donald C. and Katherine L. Herbig. 1982. Strategic Military Deception. New York: Pergamon Press.
Dawkins, Cedric E. 2014. “The Principle of Good Faith: Toward Substantive Stakeholder Engagement.” Journal of Business Ethics 121(2): 283–295.
Desch, Michael C. 2002. “Democracy and Victory: Why Regime Type Hardly Matters.” International Security 27(2): 5–47.
Diehl, Paul F. 2004. The Scourge of War: New Extensions on an Old Problem. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press.
Downs, George W. and David M. Rocke. 1990. Tacit Bargaining, Arms Races, and Arms Control.
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Downs, George W. and David M. Rocke. 1994. “Conflict, Agency, and Gambling for Resurrection:
The Principal-Agent Problem Goes to War.” American Journal of Political Science 38(2): 362–
380.
Druckman, Daniel and Kathleen Zechmeister. 1973. “Conflict of Interest and Value Dissensus:
Propositions in the Sociology of Conflict.” Human Relations 26(4): 449–466.
Dupuy, Trevor N. 1979. Numbers, Predictions and War: Using History to Evaluate Combat Factors
and Predict the Outcome of Battles. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
Dupuy, Trevor N. 1987. Understanding War: History and Theory of Combat. New York: Paragon
House.
Farber, Henry S. and Joanne Gowa. 1995. “Polities and Peace.” International Security 20(2):
123–146.
38
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Fazal, Tanisha M. 2013. “The Demise of Peace Treaties in Interstate War.” International Organization 67(4): 695–724.
Fearon, James D. 1995. “Rationalist Explanations for War.” International Organization 49(3):
379–414.
Fearon, James D. 2013. “Fighting Rather than Bargaining.” Working paper, Stanford University.
Filson, Darren and Suzanne Werner. 2002. “A Bargaining Model of War and Peace: Anticipating
the Onset, Duration, and Outcome of War.” American Journal of Political Science 46(4): 819–
837.
Filson, Darren and Suzanne Werner. 2004. “Bargaining and Fighting: The Impact of Regime Type
on War Onset, Duration, and Outcomes.” American Journal of Political Science 48(2): 296–313.
Flynn, Matthew J. 2008. First Strike: Preemptive War in Modern History. New York: Routledge.
Fortna, Virginia P. 2009. “Where Have All the Victories Gone? Peacekeeping and War Outcomes.”
Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Toronto.
Gartner, Scott S. and Randolph M. Siverson. 1996. “War Expansion and War Outcome.” Journal
of Conflict Resolution 40(1): 4–15.
Gerwehr, Scott and Russell W. Glenn. 2000. The Art of Darkness: Deception and Urban Operations.
Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Gillette, Clayton P. 1981. “Limitations on the Obligation of Good Faith.” Duke Law Journal
1981(4): 619–665.
Gilmour, John B. 1995. Strategic Disagreement: Stalemate in American Politics. Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press.
Goemans, Hein E. 2000a. “Fighting for Survival: The Fate of Leaders and the Duration of War.”
Journal of Conflict Resolution 44(5): 555–579.
Goemans, Hein E. 2000b. War and Punishment: The Causes of War Termination and the First
World War. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Greig, J. Michael and Paul F. Diehl. 2012. International Mediation. Cambridge: Polity.
Groseclose, Tim and Nolan McCarty. 2001. “The Politics of Blame: Bargaining before an Audience.” American Journal of Political Science 45(1): 100–119.
Grover, Steven L. 1986. “Lying, Deceit, and Subterfuge: A Model of Dishonesty in the Workplace.”
Organization Science 4(3): 478–495.
Gulsby, Seth A. 2010. “Strategic Asymmetric Deception and Its Role in the Current Threat
Environment.” Journal of Strategic Security 3(1): 65–70.
39
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Handel, Michael I. 2012. “Intelligence and Deception.” In John Gooch (Editor), “Military Deception
and Strategic Surprise,” London: London.
Hermes, Walter G. 1966. Truce Tent and Fighting Front. Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of
Military History, United States Army.
Holsti, Kalevi J. 1991. Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order 1648-1989.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Iklé, Fred C. 1964. How Nations Negotiate. New York: Praeger.
Iklé, Fred C. 1971. Every War Must End. New York: Columbia University Press.
Jaques, Tony. 2007. Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity
through the Twenty-first Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Joint Chiefs of Staff. 2006. “Military Deception.” Joint Publication 3-13.4, United States Department of Defense.
Jönsson, Christer. 2002. “Diplomacy, Bargaining, Negotiation.” In Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas
Risse, and Beth A. Simmons (Editors), “Handbook of International Relations,” London: Sage.
Joy, Charles T. 1955. How Communists Negotiate. New York: Macmillan.
Kaplow, Jeffrey M. 2016. “The Negotiation Calculus: Why Parties to Civil Conflict Refuse to
Talk.” International Studies Quarterly 60(1): 38–46.
Keele, Luke. 2015. “The Statistics of Causal Inference: A View from Political Methodology.”
Political Analysis 23(3): 313–335.
Kleinbaum, David G. and Mitchel Klein. 2012. Survival Analysis: A Self-Learning Text, Third
Edition. New York: Springer.
Lall, Arthur S. 1966. Modern International Negotiation: Principles and Practice. New York:
Columbia University Press.
Langlois, Jean-Pierre P. and Catherine C Langlois. 2012. “Does the Principle of Convergence
Really Hold? War, Uncertainty and the Failure of Bargaining.” British Journal of Political
Science 42(3): 511–536.
Latimer, Jon. 2001. Deception in War. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press.
Lebow, Richard N. 1996. The Art of Bargaining. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Leventoğlu, Bahar and Branislav L. Slantchev. 2007. “The Armed Peace: A Punctuated Equilibrium Theory of War.” American Journal of Political Science 51(4): 755–771.
Leventoğlu, Bahar and Ahmer Tarar. 2008. “Does Private Information Lead to Delay or War in
Crisis Bargaining?” International Studies Quarterly 52(3): 533–553.
40
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Lewicki, R. J. 1983. “Lying and Deception: A Behavioral Model.” In Max H. Bazerman and Roy J.
Lewicki (Editors), “Negotiating in Organizations,” Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Lombardi, Ben. 2009. “Talking to the Enemy: Some thoughts on what that means.” Technical
report, Centre for Operational Research and Analysis.
Mattes, Michaela and T. Clifton Morgan. 2004. “When Do They Stop? Modeling the Termination
of War.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 21(3): 179–193.
Maxwell, Neville. 1970. India’s China War. London: Jonathan Cape Limited.
Montgomery, Evan B. 2013. “Counterfeit Diplomacy and Mobilization in Democracies.” Security
Studies 22(1): 33–67.
Morgenthau, Hans. 1954. Politics Among Nations. New York: Knopf.
Nickell, Stephen. 1981. “Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects.” Econometrica 49(6):
1417–1426.
Phillipson, Coleman. 1916. Termination of War and Treaties of Peace. London: T.F. Unwin Ltd.
Pillar, Paul R. 1983. Negotiating Peace: War Termination as a Bargaining Process. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Powell, Robert. 2004. “Bargaining and Learning While Fighting.” American Journal of Political
Science 48(2): 344–361.
Powell, Robert. 2006. “War as a Commitment Problem.” International Organization 60(1): 169–
203.
Ramsay, Kristopher W. 2008. “Settling It on the Field: Battlefield Events and War Termination.”
Journal of Conflict Resolution 52(6): 850–879.
Reiter, Dan. 2003. “Exploring the Bargaining Model of War.” Perspectives on Politics 1(1): 27–43.
Reiter, Dan. 2009. How Wars End. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Reiter, Dan and Allan C. Stam. 1998. “Democracy and Battlefield Military Effectiveness.” Journal
of Conflict Resolution 42(3): 259–277.
Reiter, Dan and Allan C. Stam. 2002. Democracies at War. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Roberts, Ivor. 2009. Satow’s Diplomatic Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rubenstein, Ariel. 1982. “Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model.” Econometrica 50(1): 97–
109.
Rubin, Jeffrey, Dean G. Pruitt, and Sung Hee Kim. 1994. Social Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate,
and Settlement. New York: McGraw-Hill.
41
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Schelling, Thomas. 1960. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schelling, Thomas C. 1957. “Bargaining, communication, and limited war.” Journal of Conflict
Resolution 1(1): 19–36.
Schultz, Kenneth A. 1999. “Do Democratic Institutions Constrain or Inform? Contrasting Two
Institutional Perspectives on Democracy and War.” International Organization 53(2): 233–266.
Shirkey, Zachary and Alex Weisiger. 2012. “An Annotated Bibliography for the Correlates of
Interstate Wars Database.” Manuscript, CUNY Hunter College and Colombia University.
Slantchev, Branislav. 2003. “The Principle of Convergence in Wartime Negotiations.” American
Political Science Review 97(4): 621–632.
Slantchev, Branislav. 2004. “How Initiators End Their Wars: The Duration of War and the Terms
of Peace.” American Journal of Political Science 48(4): 813–829.
Slantchev, Branislav L. 2010. “Feigning Weakness.” International Organization 64(3): 357–388.
Smith, Alastair. 1998. “Fighting Battles, Winning Wars.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42(3):
301–320.
Smith, Alastair and Allan C. Stam. 2004. “Bargaining and the Nature of War.” Journal of Conflict
Resolution 48(6): 783–813.
Smith, James D.D. 1995. Stopping Wars: Defining the Obstacles to Cease-fire. Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
Snyder, Scott. 2000. “Negotiating on the Edge: Patterns in North Korea’s Diplomatic Style.”
World Affairs 163(1): 3–17.
Steibel, Gerald L. 1972. How Can We Negotiate with the Communists?
New York: National
Strategy Information Center.
Sun-Tzu. 2007. The Art of War. New York: Columbia University Press. Translated by Victor H.
Mair.
Svensson, Isak. 2007. “Bargaining, Bias and Peace Brokers: How Rebels Commit to Peace.” Journal
of Peace Research 44(2): 177–194.
Tal, David. 2004. War in Palestine 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy. London: Routledge.
Tangredi, Sam J. 1985. Negotiation from Weakness: Achieving National Security Objectives from
a Position of Strategic Inferiority. Master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA.
Tjosvold, Dean. 1977. “Commitment to Justice in Conflict between Unequal Status Persons.”
Journal of Applied Social Psychology 7(1): 149–162.
42
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Treier, Shawn and Simon Jackman. 2008. “Democracy as a Latent Variable.” American Journal
of Political Science 52(1): 201–217.
Vatcher, William H. 1958. Panmunjom: The Story of the Korean Military Armistice Negotiations.
New York: Praeger.
Wagner, R. Harrison. 2000. “Bargaining and War.” American Journal of Political Science 44(3):
469–484.
Wallihan, James. 1998. “Negotiating to Avoid Agreement.” Negotiation Journal 14(3): 257–268.
Walter, Barbara F. 2006. “Building Reputation: Why Governments Fight Some Separatists but
Not Others.” American Journal of Political Science 50(2): 313–330.
Walter, Barbara F. 2009. Reputation and Civil War: Why Separatist Conflicts Are So Violent.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Wang, Kevin and James Lee Ray. 1994. “Beginners and Winners: The Fate of Initiators of Interstate
Wars Involving Great Powers Since 1495.” International Studies Quarterly 38(1): 139–154.
Weisiger, Alex. 2013. Logics of War: Explanations for Limited and Unlimited Conflicts. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press.
Weisiger, Alex. 2016. “Learning from the Battlefield: Information, Domestic Politics, and Interstate
War Duration.” International Organization 70(2): 347–375.
Werner, Suzanne and Amy Yuen. 2005. “Making and Keeping Peace.” International Organization
59(2): 261–292.
White, John A. 1964. The Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
White, Timothy J. 2013. Lessons from the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Madison, WI: University
of Wisconsin Press.
Wolford, Scott, Dan Reiter, and Clifford J. Carrubba. 2011. “Information, Commitment, and War.”
Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(4): 556–579.
Young, Kenneth T. 1968. Negotiating with the Chinese Communists: The United States Experience,
1953-1967. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Zartman, I. William. 1989. Ripe for Resolution: Conflict and Intervention in Africa. New York:
Oxford University Press.
43
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Appendix A: Definitions of the Measures of Fighting
For a war w, each constituent battle is expressed as bw,i , where i is an index that orders battles
chronologically by their end date. Note that bw,i ∈ {−v, −1, 0, 1, v} depending on the specific
outcome; see Tables 3 and 4. On some day t of war w, n battles have been completed.
The first measure, RunProp, is a running proportion of battles (weighted as described previously)
won by the war initiator over the entirety of the conflict. Recalling that battles won by the initiator
receive positive weights, RunP rop is formally defined as:
Pn
RunP ropw,t =
> 0}
i=1 1{b
Pnw,i
i=1 |bw,i |
· bw,i
The second variable, called LastMean, tracks the mean score using the previous ` battles up to the
day in question. I use ` = 5 in this study.49 Formally:
Pn
LastM eanw,t =
i=n−`+1 bw,i
`
The third variable, |LastM ean|, is the absolute value of the LastMean.
Pn
i=n−`+1 bw,i |LastM eanw,t | = `
49
More precisely, I use the last five days on which battles come to an end; some days see the conclusion of multiple
battles.
44
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Appendix B: More Descriptive Statistics
Below are descriptive statistics for all wars, also broken down to pre-1945 and post-1945. Table 12
provides some summaries of several features of war, such as their average length, proportion of time
spent in negotiations, and so on. Tables 13 and 14 present summary statistics of the variables used
in the statistical analysis.
Figure 13 below shows the distribution of mean values for each fighting measure per war.
Note that this paper almost exclusively uses post-1945 war data.
Table 12: Summary statistics at the war level.
War length (days)
Battle length (days)
Negotiation length (days)
Number of negotiations
Total battles
Prop. w/ negotiations
Prop. w/ ceasefire
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
Min.
5.00
14.00
5.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
45
1Q
62.00
75.00
42.25
1.00
1.00
2.00
1.00
2.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
3.00
3.00
2.00
0.01
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Med.
163.00
200.00
103.00
3.00
3.00
5.00
6.50
9.00
4.00
2.00
2.00
2.00
6.00
6.00
5.00
0.06
0.06
0.11
0.00
0.00
0.01
Mean
421.70
423.20
419.30
20.50
21.64
14.89
29.99
20.62
39.61
3.09
2.65
3.74
17.81
23.29
8.22
0.16
0.11
0.23
0.09
0.07
0.13
3Q
457.00
507.00
334.20
13.00
13.00
14.00
22.25
29.00
13.00
3.00
3.75
3.00
12.25
14.25
8.00
0.23
0.15
0.47
0.10
0.07
0.18
Max.
3735.00
2175.00
3735.00
2075.00
2075.00
326.00
1306.00
187.00
1306.00
18.00
11.00
18.00
446.00
446.00
45.00
1.00
0.52
1.00
0.87
0.87
0.82
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
2.5
0.75
Era
1.5
Density
Density
2.0
Post−1945
1.0
Pre−1945
Era
0.50
Post−1945
Pre−1945
0.25
0.5
0.0
0.00
0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
RunProp
1.00
−2
(a) RunProp
−1
0
1
LastMean
2
(b) LastMean
Density
2
Era
Post−1945
Pre−1945
1
0
0
1
2
| LastMean |
3
(c) |LastM ean|
Figure 13: Distributions of the fighting measures before and after 1945.
46
3
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Table 13: Summary statistics for continuous variables.
RunProp
LastMean
| LastMean |
Active battles
CINC differential
Issue salience
Stagnant fighting
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
Min.
0.03
0.03
0.08
-1.64
-1.47
-1.64
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
-0.68
-0.51
-0.37
0.00
0.00
0
0.00
0.00
0.00
1Q
0.33
0.36
0.33
-0.44
-0.44
-0.42
0.48
0.53
0.45
0.00
0.00
0.00
-0.03
-0.03
-0.00
2.00
2.00
2.00
12.00
8.00
20.00
Med.
0.59
0.61
0.51
0.28
0.36
0.22
0.69
0.69
0.66
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
2.00
2.00
2.00
44.00
31.00
70.00
Mean
0.58
0.59
0.55
0.2
0.15
0.27
0.74
0.70
0.80
0.98
1.28
0.42
-0.01
-0.01
0.02
2.29
2.29
2.82
100.40
65.47
128.8
3Q
0.82
0.86
0.79
0.72
0.72
0.73
0.92
0.91
0.99
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.05
0.05
0.09
3.00
3.00
4.00
129.00
85.00
185.00
Table 14: Summary statistics for binary variables.
Negotiation
Ceasefire
Democratic initiator
Democratic target
Contiguity
Third-party urging
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
All
Pre-1945
Post-1945
47
0 (No)
33,031
21,616
9.422
35,253
22,601
10,559
34,697
21,315
11,234
32,237
19,907
11,075
16,884
11,015
5,869
39,067
23,866
13,053
1 (Yes)
6,185
2,279
3,751
3,963
1,294
2,614
4,519
2,580
1,939
6,979
3,988
2,098
20,390
12,880
7,304
149
29
120
Max.
1.00
1.00
1.00
3.78
1.11
3.78
3.78
1.47
3.78
23.00
23.00
8.00
0.46
0.46
0.26
4.00
4.00
4.00
913.00
541.00
788.00
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Appendix C: Additional War Plots
Four additional plots of wars, ranging across time and space, are displayed below. I use RunP rop
as the fighting measure, as it is easiest to visualize.
War of the Pacific
Chile
Inconclusive
Peru/Bolivia
1.00
Battle Outcomes
0.75
0.50
0.25
0.00
Events
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
Cease
Neg
Bat
● ●●1880●●
●
●
●● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
1879
1881
1882
1883
1884
Date
Figure 14: War of the Pacific (1879 - 1883)
Russo−Japanese
Japan
Inconclusive
Russia
1.00
Battle Outcomes
0.75
0.50
0.25
0.00
Events
Apr 1904
Jul 1904
Oct 1904
Jan 1905
Apr 1905
Jul 1905
Oct 1905
Cease
Neg
Bat
●
● ●
●
● ● ● ●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Apr 1904
Jul 1904
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Oct 1904
Jan 1905
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Apr 1905
Jul 1905
Date
Figure 15: Russo-Japanese War (1904 - 1905)
48
Oct 1905
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Korean
North Korea
South Korea
2
Battle Outcomes
1
0
−1
−2
Events
1950−07
Cease
Neg
Bat
1951−01 1951−07
1952−01 1952−07
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
1950−07
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
● ●
●
●
●
1951−01 1951−07
1953−01 1953−07
●
●●
●
●
● ●●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
● ●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
1952−01 1952−07
● ●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●●
●
●
●
1953−01 1953−07
Date
Figure 16: Korean War (1950 - 1953)
Cenepa Valley
Ecuador
Inconclusive
Peru
1.00
Battle Outcomes
0.75
0.50
0.25
0.00
Events
Jan 15
Feb 01
Feb 15
Mar 01
Cease
Neg
Bat
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Jan 15
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●●●
●●Feb
●●●
●●●●●●●●●●●Feb
01
15
●
●
●
●
Date
Figure 17: Cenepa Valley War (1995)
49
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
Mar 01
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Appendix D: Additional Results for Hypothesis 3
D.1: Marginal Effects for Table 8
Brambor et al. (2006) emphasize that the main findings of interest in interactive models are marginal
effects and their standard errors. These marginal effects, as well as their associated standard errors,
are plotted in Figure 18. Note that these plots involve the linear predictors. Negative values
indicate that negotiations slow down the termination of conflict, while positive values indicate that
negotiations hasten it. Reflecting the results of Table 8 and Figure 8, we see that imbalanced
fighting outcomes—particularly in favor of the war initiator—do undermine the termination of
conflict. Less extreme fighting outcomes, or those that favor the war target, help to hasten the end
of war.
2
0
−2
−4
Marginal Effect of Negotiations
Marginal Effect of Negotiations
Marginal Effect of Negotiations
2.5
5.0
2.5
0.0
−2.5
0.0
−2.5
−5.0
−5.0
0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
−2
−1
RunProp
(a) RunP rop
0
1
LastMean
(b) LastM ean
2
3
0
1
2
3
| LastMean |
(c) |LastM ean|
Figure 18: Marginal effects of negotiations on war termination. Note that these figures illustrate the linear
predictors for the hazard model.
D.2: Removing Long Wars
As mentioned in footnote 35, some of the battlefield outcome measures violate the proportional
hazard assumption. The primary manner to address this is to include an interaction term between
the violating variable and time (Kleinbaum and Klein 2012). However, the Vietnam and Iran-Iraq
Wars cause convergence issues with this approach due to their exceptionally long durations. The
conflicts last 3,735 days and 2,890 days long respectively. Note that the average war duration is
421.7 days when the Vietnam and Iran-Iraq Wars are included and 358.1 when excluded.
Table 15 is a replication of Table 8, but with the Vietnam and Iran-Iraq Wars removed from the data.
Figure 19 show the survival curves for different configurations of fighting outcomes and negotiation.
For Subfigure 19d, I look at a narrower range of LastM ean to produce more informative plots.
The results from the main text are preserved in these survival curves. Figure 20 plots the marginal
effect of negotiation on war termination (on the linear predictors), conditional on different states
of battle. While the marginal effects are not as significant with respect to RunP rop, the other two
fighting measures remain largely the same.
50
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Table 15: Adjusted Cox proportional hazard model results, omitting the Vietnam and Iran-Iraq Wars.
Dependent variable:
War termination
(1)
Negotiation
RunP rop
Negotiation × RunP rop
2.105∗∗∗
(0.799)
0.084
(0.673)
−4.396∗∗
(1.688)
LastM ean
(2)
(3)
0.906∗∗
(0.423)
0.995
(0.683)
−1.172∗
(0.839)
0.714∗∗∗
(0.267)
−1.338∗∗∗
(0.559)
Negotiation × |LastM ean|
12.827∗∗∗
(3.700)
−0.200
(0.296)
1.681∗∗
(0.851)
0.072
(0.554)
0.275
(0.592)
3.453∗∗∗
(0.653)
−0.059
(1.750)
−0.344
(0.338)
CINC differential
Issue salience
Contiguity
Democratic initiator
Democratic target
Ceasefire
Third-party urging
Active battles
X
6,548
33
(6)
0.669
(0.787)
0.998∗∗∗
(0.370)
−4.204∗∗∗
(1.180)
|LastM ean|
Observations
Events
(5)
2.653∗
(1.080)
−0.263
(0.844)
−8.433∗∗
(2.430)
0.491
(0.290)
−2.426∗∗∗
(0.787)
Negotiation × LastM ean
Clustered SEs (War)
(4)
X
X
6,548
33
6,548
33
X
X
6,548
33
51
X
6,548
33
∗
Note:
17.931∗∗∗
(4.207)
−0.093
(0.291)
1.557∗∗
(0.686)
−0.254
(0.629)
2.051∗∗∗
(0.841)
3.534∗∗∗
(0.698)
0.120
(2.038)
−0.486
(0.388)
p < 0.1;
∗∗
1.142∗∗∗
(0.326)
−1.812∗∗∗
(0.789)
9.887∗∗∗
(3.048)
−0.241
(0.251)
0.288
(0.484)
0.047
(0.517)
0.723
(0.526)
2.897∗∗∗
(0.586)
0.169
(1.456)
−0.332
(0.352)
p < 0.05;
6,548
33
∗∗∗
p < 0.01
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
1.00
RunProp
Pr(War Continues)
Pr(War Continues)
1.00
1.00
0.75
0.75
0.50
0.50
0.25
0.25
RunProp
1.00
0.75
0.75
0.50
0.50
0.25
0.25
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0
1000
2000
Time
3000
0
(a) RunProp, no negotiations
2000
Time
3000
(b) RunProp, negotiations
1.00
1.00
LastMean
Pr(War Continues)
Pr(War Continues)
1000
3
0.75
2
1
0.50
0
0.25
−1
LastMean
3
0.75
2
1
0.50
0
0.25
−1
−2
−2
0.00
0.00
0
1000
2000
Time
3000
0
(c) LastMean, no negotiations
2000
Time
3000
(d) LastMean, negotiations
1.00
| LM |
3
0.75
2
0.50
1
0.25
Pr(War Continues)
1.00
Pr(War Continues)
1000
| LM |
3
0.75
2
0.50
1
0.25
0
0
0.00
0.00
0
1000
2000
Time
3000
0
(e) |LastM ean|, no negotiations
1000
2000
Time
3000
(f ) |LastM ean|, negotiations
Figure 19: Survival curves for different battlefield outcomes and negotiation statuses, using Models 4, 5,
and 6 from Table 8. Vietnam and Iran-Iraq Wars are removed. All other relevant covariates are set at mean
or mode values.
52
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
5.0
7.5
2.5
0.0
−2.5
Marginal Effect of Negotiations
Marginal Effect of Negotiations
Marginal Effect of Negotiations
2.5
5.0
2.5
0.0
−2.5
0.0
−2.5
−5.0
−5.0
−5.0
0.00
0.25
0.50
RunProp
(a) RunP rop
0.75
1.00
−2
−1
0
1
LastMean
(b) LastM ean
2
3
0
1
2
3
| LastMean |
(c) |LastM ean|
Figure 20: Marginal effects of negotiations on war termination, removing the Vietnam and Iran-Iraq Wars.
Note that these figures illustrate the linear predictors for the hazard model.
53
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Appendix E: Additional Results for Hypothesis 3a
The Vietnam War contributes a very large proportion of war-days with negotiations in post-1945
conflicts. Of 3,751 war-days with negotiations, 2,132 are from the Vietnam War. There may be
concerns that this single conflict is driving all results for the logistic regressions that are testing
Hypothesis 3a. Table 16 performs the same regressions as those in Table 9 in the main text, but
removing all observations from the Vietnam War. The results indicate that deviations from parity,
|LastM ean|, continue to have a significant effect on propensity to negotiate. LastM ean, which
was moderately significant in Table 9, is not a useful explanatory variable in this subset of data.
Hypothesis 3a remains valid in its simplest form: Lop-sided outcomes, regardless of which side has
the advantage, are more likely to trigger negotiations.
Also note that even when the Vietnam War is removed from consideration, 17.2% of war-days after
1945 feature negotiations. This is still double the rate of pre-1945 conflicts (9.5%).
54
Eric Min
Negotiation in War
Table 16: Logistic regressions omitting the Vietnam War.
Dependent variable:
Negotiation
(1)
Lagged DV
RunP rop
(2)
∗∗∗
7.019
(0.175)
−0.490
(0.471)
(3)
∗∗∗
7.026
(0.175)
(4)
∗∗∗
6.993
(0.176)
7.103
(0.184)
Contiguity
Issue salience
Democratic initiator
Democratic target
Ceasefire
Third-party urging
Active battles
Stagnant fighting
Time trend
−3.265∗∗∗
(0.355)
X
X
9,404
1,375.899
−3.533∗∗∗
(0.227)
X
X
9,404
1,376.396
7.041∗∗∗
(0.185)
−0.030
(0.112)
CINC differential
Observations
AIC
7.098
(0.184)
−0.398
(0.555)
0.346∗∗
(0.167)
|LastM ean|
War FEs
Clustered SEs
(6)
∗∗∗
−0.084
(0.095)
LastM ean
Constant
(5)
∗∗∗
−3.783∗∗∗
(0.272)
X
X
9,404
1,373.021
−54.230∗∗∗
(15.470)
2.515∗∗
(1.272)
−1.653∗∗∗
(0.632)
−1.584∗∗∗
(0.417)
−0.002
(0.611)
0.649
(0.427)
3.559∗∗∗
(0.412)
−0.098
(0.145)
−0.0003
(0.001)
0.0003
(0.0002)
−1.536
(1.783)
X
X
X
X
9,404
1,315.285
∗
Note:
55
−56.892∗∗∗
(16.044)
2.372∗
(1.254)
−1.640∗∗∗
(0.634)
−1.578∗∗∗
(0.425)
0.018
(0.613)
0.654
(0.428)
3.549∗∗∗
(0.412)
−0.090
(0.146)
−0.0004
(0.001)
0.0003
(0.0002)
−1.675
(1.750)
9,404
1,315.751
p < 0.1;
∗∗
p < 0.05;
0.528∗∗∗
(0.176)
−62.668∗∗∗
(17.163)
1.851
(1.148)
−1.347∗∗
(0.662)
−1.112∗∗
(0.460)
−0.017
(0.641)
0.738
(0.451)
3.551∗∗∗
(0.417)
−0.062
(0.147)
−0.0004
(0.001)
0.001∗∗
(0.0002)
−2.431
(1.744)
X
X
9,404
1,308.780
∗∗∗
p < 0.01