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We present a model of war duration which incorporates both realpolitik and domestic political variables. We hypothesize that strategy, terrain, capabilities, and government type, among other variables, will play key roles in determining the duration of war. We test these hypotheses using hazard analysis and find empirical support for our key arguments. We find that the realpolitik variables play a greater role than regime behavior and type in determining war duration. We also find that historically, on average, mobilization and strategic surprise have little effect on war duration and that wars are not duration dependent.

How do nation-states' political institutions affect the relations between states? This article addresses that question by testing the predictions of different theories linking political institutions to war outcomes. Specifically, rent-seeking and regime legitimacy theories predict that all democratic belligerents are more likely to win wars because they fight more effectively. Alternatively, other theories focusing on the domestic political vulnerability of leaders and the marketplace of ideas predict that democracies are likely to be more careful about choosing when to start war. This would mean that only democratic initiators are more likely to win. Analyzing all interstate wars from 1816 to 1982 with a multivariate probit model, we find that democratic initiators are significantly more likely to win wars; democratic targets are also more likely to win, though the relationship is not as strong. We also find empirical support for several control variables, including strategy, terrain, and capability.

A model of bargaining embedded within a random-walk model of warfare is developed. The conflict model contains aspects of both lottery-based and war-of-attrition models of conflict. Results show that future disputes are less likely to lead to armed conflict following long rather than short wars. Furthermore, should a subsequent dispute lead to armed conflict, the higher the cost and the longer the previous war, the shorter the conflict is likely to last. Nationsfightwhentheydisagreeaboutthenatureofwhatawarbetweenthemwould be like. In particular, when states disagree about who is likely to win or the costs of fighting, then they can fail to find a bargain that settles their differences (Blainey 1973). Nations therefore fight to resolve their differences of opinions. The act of waging war reveals information about the relative strengths of each side. As a war progresses, each side's beliefs about the likely outcome of continuing the war converge. Once the warring parties'beliefs have converged sufficiently, they can find a bargained solution to the conflict.The contemporary modeling tradition in international relations has conventionally thought of war as the breakdown of bargaining. Early models portrayed war as a oneshot lottery. Empirically, however, wars vary vastly in their intensity and duration. Moreover, few wars are fought to complete disarmament of one side or the other. Instead, most wars end when both sides prefer a division of the stakes at issue to continued conflict. Rather than continuing to fight until one side eliminates the other, the two sides reach a bargain or negotiated settlement. Our model is one of a growing number of models that opens the black box of warfare and treats conflict as part of the bargaining process rather than the end of the bargaining process (

In this article, the authors investigate the relationship between states'political leaders'ages, their regime type, and the likelihood of militarized dispute initiation and escalation. They examine more than 100,000 interstate dyads between 1875 and 2002 to systematically test the relationship between leader age and militarized disputes. The results show that, in general, as the age of leaders increases, they become more likely to both initiate and escalate militarized disputes. In addition, the interaction of age and regime type is significant. In personalist regimes, the general effect reverses; as age increases, the relative risk of conflict declines in comparison to other types of regimes. Increasing leader age in democracies increases the relative risk propensity for conflict initiation at a higher level than for personalist regimes, while the impact of increasing leader age is most substantial in intermediate regimes.

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