Order within Anarchy: The Laws of War as an International Institution

462 Pages·2014·3.77 MB·English

by  James D. Morrow

Order within Anarchy
Order within Anarchy focuses on how the laws of war create strategic
expectations about how states and their soldiers will act during war, which can
help produce restraint. International law as a political institution helps to create
such expectations by specifying how violence should be limited and clarifying
which actors should comply with those limits. The success of the laws of war
depends on three related factors: compliance between warring states, compliance
between soldiers on the battlefield, and control of soldiers by their militaries. A
statistical study of compliance of the laws of war during the twentieth century
shows that joint ratification strengthens both compliance and reciprocity, that
compliance varies across issues with the scope for individual violations, and that
violations occur early in war. Close study of the treatment of prisoners of war
during World Wars I and II demonstrates the difficulties posed by states’ varied
willingness to limit violence, a lack of clarity about what restraint means, and
the practical problems of restraint on the battlefield.
JAMES D. MORROW is A. F. K. Organski Collegiate Professor of World
Politics and Research Professor at the Center for Political Studies, University of
Michigan. He previously taught at the Graduate Institute of International Studies,
Stanford University, the University of Rochester, and Michigan State University.
He is the author of Game Theory for Political Scientists, co-author of The Logic
of Political Survival, and author of more than sixty articles in refereed journals
and other publications. He was president of the Peace Science Society
(International) in 2008–2009. Morrow received the Karl Deutsch Award from
the International Studies Association in 1994 and has been a National Fellow at
the Hoover Institution and an Advanced Research Fellow in Foreign Policy
Studies for the Social Science Research Council.
Order within Anarchy
The Laws of War as an International Institution
James D. Morrow
University of Michigan
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA
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© James D. Morrow 2014
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part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University
Press.
First published 2014
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
Morrow, James D., 1957– author.
Order within anarchy : the laws of war as an international institution / James D.
Morrow, University of Michigan.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-04896-6 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-10762677-5 (paperback)
1. War (International law) I. Title.
KZ6385.M67 2014
341.6–dc23 2013048952
ISBN 978-1-107-04896-6 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-10762677-5 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this
publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will
remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
Law Fosters Strategic Expectations
Self-Enforcing Institutions and International Law
Institutions and Norms in International Relations Theory and
International Law
The Game-Theoretic Critique of Realism and Constructivism
Realism, Idealism, and International Law
Law as an Institutional Equilibrium
The Essential Social Nature of Game Theory
The Plan of the Book
2 Common Conjectures, Norms, and Identities
Strategic Expectations and Common Conjectures
Social Facts: Norms, Identities, and Justifications
Common Conjectures in Iterated Prisoners’ Dilemma
Elaborations of Iterated Prisoners’ Dilemma
Reciprocity, Common Conjectures, and Norms
Identities and Common Conjectures
Communication and Common Conjectures
Identities and Interests versus Preferences
Common Conjectures and Law
3 The Laws of War in Their Strategic Context
The Laws of War
Problems Facing the Laws of War at the State Level
Deliberation Violation as State Policy
Opportunistic Defection
Self-Interested Interpretation of the Rules
Problems Facing the Laws of War at the Individual Level: Agency and
Noise
Violations by Individuals
Inadvertent Violations
Perfidy
Three Strategic Problems Facing an Effective System of Law of War
On the Battlefield
Military Discipline
State-to-State Compliance
Fusing the Models into One
Screening through Ratification
Firewalls
Elements of the Laws of War Not in the Model: Drawing “Bright
Lines”
Issues in the Laws of War from the Perspective of the Model
Summary of Testable Hypotheses from the Model
3′ Modeling Minutia
The Three Models
On the Battlefield
Military Discipline
State-to-State Deterrence
Violations and Compliance across the Three Models
Screening through Ratification
4 Patterns of Compliance with the Laws of War during the Twentieth Century
Factors that Might Affect Compliance and Reciprocity
Legal Obligation
Regime Type
Different Issues
Relative Power
A Brief Description of the Data
The Correlation of Compliance
Ratification Status and Regime Type
State versus Individual Violations
Legal Clarity
Differences across Issues
Other Variables
Comparisons across Variables
Explaining the Patterns
Analysis of Outlying and Discordant Cases
Searching for Firewalls
Timing of First Violations
Cases of First Use Late in a War
Cases of Early First Use
Conclusion
4′ Statistical Gore
The Data Collection
Clarifications of What Acts Are Violations
Coding Decisions for Specific Issue Areas
Measuring Compliance
Measures of Independent Variables
Treaty Status of Both States in Question
Power Relationship
Other Independent Variables
Estimation Issues
When Do States Comply?
Declaration of War
The Main Analyses
Multivariate Analysis of Reciprocity and Total Compliance
Searching for Firewalls with Numbers
Duration Analysis of First Violations
Dry Holes
5 Spoilt Darlings? Treatment of Prisoners of War during the World Wars
The POW Treaties and the Obligations They Impose
The Strategic Logic of Prisoners of War
The Logic of the Battlefield
After Capture and before Imprisonment
Treatment while a Prisoner
POWs in World War I
Death Rates and Treatment in POW Camps
On the Battlefield
POWs in World War II
Death Rates in Camps
The War between Germany and the Western Allies
At the State Level and in the Camps
On the Battlefield
The Eastern Front
Between Totalitarian Governments
In the Camps
On the Battlefield
The War in the Pacific: No Game of Cricket
Between the Warring Parties
On the Battlefield
After the Shooting Stopped
An Alternative Explanation: Culture
Testing the Conclusions of the Model with the Cases
6 Assessing Variation across Issues: Aerial Bombing, Chemical Weapons,
Treatment of Civilians, and Conduct on the High Seas
Chemical Weapons
Aerial Bombing
Conduct on the High Seas
Treatment of Civilians
Other Explanations
Conclusion
7 Dynamics of Common Conjectures: The Rational Evolution of Norms
The Sources and Ways of Change in Norms According to
Constructivists
The Sources of Common Conjectures
What Is Evolutionary Game Theory?
The Dynamics of Conventions
Rational Evolution of Political Institutions
The Evolution of How Prisoners of War Should Be Treated
8 Conclusion: Current Issues and Policy Insights
Does the Present Look Like the Past?
Challenges for the Laws of War in the Twenty-First Century
Terrorism and the Control of Violence: The Criminal Model versus the
Combat Model
The Criminal Model
The Combat Model
Terrorism: The Gray Space between Criminality and Combat
The Perils of Universalism and Unilateralism
The Limits of International Law
Power and Legitimacy
References
Index
Tables
3.1 Parameters and predictions for issues in the laws of war
4.1 Cross-tabulation of the compliance of both warring parties in a directed
dyad
4.2 List of cases where one side complies fully while the other is noncompliant
or has low compliance
4.3 Cases of late first use classified by status of fighting at the time of the first
violation
4.4 List of outlying cases of first violations
4′.1 Examples of major and minor violations in each of the issue areas
4′.2 Standardized coding used for cases lacking evidence
4′.3 Cross-tabulations of magnitude and frequency of violations
4′.4 Ordered probit analysis predicting failure to declare war
4′.5 Probit analysis predicting war initiation
4′.6 Ordered probit analysis of noncompliance with the laws of war
4′.7 Coefficients for reciprocal variables from instrumental variable analyses
of noncompliance with the laws of war
4′.8 Estimated reciprocal effects of ratification, legal clarity, and centralization
4′.9 Estimated unilateral effects of ratification status and regime type
4′.10 Ordered probit analysis predicting noncompliance with the laws of war
dropping aerial bombing
4′.11 Ordered probit analysis of reciprocity
4′.12 Ordered probit analysis of total compliance
4′.13 Correlations of residuals between warring parties across issues
4′.14 Correlations of residuals within warring parties across issues
4′.15 Results of parametric survival models not including retaliation
4′.16 Results of parametric survival model including retaliation
5.1 Death rates of POWs in captivity during World War I
5.2 Death rates of POWs in captivity during World War II