Sustaining the Fight: A Cross-Sectional Time-Series Analysis of Public Support for Ongoing Military Interventions

Abstract

What determines a democratic public's willingness to tolerate the human and material costs of sustaining ongoing military operations to victory? Athough much literature has addressed the factors that affect public attitudes toward the use of military force, few studies adopt either a theoretical perspective or a research method explicitly designed to answer this question. In particular, existing research tends to focus on the costs of war fighting, while ignoring both the tangible and intangible costs of withdrawing from a foreign military engagement. I argue that many of the factors that the public uses to estimate the cost of prosecuting a war-troop strength requirements, whether or not troops are engaged in ground combat and, most importantly, casualties-are also measures of the extent of a state's commitment to achieving its war aims. If the public treats the cost of the state's military commitment simply as an expense, support for sustaining an operation should decrease as the cost of commitment increases. If, however, citizens have a tendency to see military commitments as investments that put the country's reputation on the line or can only be redeemed if the state is victorious in the war, an increase in commitment could actually strengthen the public's determination to sustain the fight. Employing a cross-sectional time-series design with data from 12 U.S. and British military interventions, I explore whether the costs of continuing to prosecute a war or the costs of withdrawing have a greater effect on public willingness to sustain ongoing military operations. The results suggest that public concern about the costs of withdrawing from a conflict can be a more important determinant of willingness to persevere than sensitivity to the costs of war fighting. As a result, there is a considerable disconnect between what the public claims it would support in hypothetical scenarios and the types of military operations the public actually shows a willingness to sustain once they are underway.

When War Brings Peace: A Dynamic Model of the Rivalry Process

“…First, while recent works have found many domestic factors that insulate public opinion, there may be a need to focus on international variables, specifically the level of hostility. If there is a high level of animosity between a state and its adversary, this might allow a leader to frame casualties as an investment instead of an expenditure (Sullivan 2008), creating another barrier to the pacifying influence of casualties. Second, work should continue on how trends in casualties influence public opinion (Gartner 2008).…”

Political Leadership Changes and the Withdrawal from Military Coalition Operations, 1946-2001

“…In addition, the costs stemming from participating in a military coalition operation should arguably be positively related to defections (Goemans ). Some audiences, however, might view costs as investments to be redeemed, which implies a negative correlation between costs and defections (Sullivan ,b). In order to control for this possibility, we take variables measuring (i) the duration of a contribution, (ii) the maximum number of troops contributed by a coalition participant, and (iii) whether an intervention's mission consisted of combat or intimidation (see Regan :105f; Eichenberg )…”

Dictators and Death: Casualty Sensitivity of Autocracies in Militarized Interstate Disputes

“…This constitutes a significant gap in the literature, as casualty sensitivity plays a major role in shaping conflict processes and behavior. Prior work shows that casualty concerns of democratic leaders influence (i) the probability of using military force (Morgan and Campbell 1991); (ii) their preference for the type of military action -such as the use of air strikes versus ground troops (Jentleson and Britton 1998;Byman and Waxman 2000); (iii) military effectiveness and success (Bennett and Stam 1998;Reiter and Stam 1998); and (iv) the duration of wars and other militarized disputes (Goemans 2000;Slantchev 2004;Sullivan 2008). Casualties also entail political consequences pertaining to public approval and support (Mueller 1973;Gartner 2008), election outcomes (Karol and Miguel 2007;Koch 2011), and the postconflict fate of leaders (Bueno de Mesquita and Siverson 1995;Gartner, Segura, and Barratt 2004;Croco 2011).…”