Rational Defeat: How Leaders Benefit from Poor Battlefield Performance

• In Event: Poster Session: Public Policy & Society, Extremism, and Democratic Backsliding
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Society, Extremism, and Democratic Backsliding

Abstract

Why do leaders choose to fight? While conventional wisdom focuses on the benefits of victory, few mention leaders could also benefit from war even when they could not win the war. Drawing from two historical Chinese wars and the Iran-Iraq War, this article argues that leaders could use poor battlefield performance to undermine domestic rivals. Costs of war are not equally distributed among domestic actors, so leaders could strengthen their relative strength vis-a-vis domestic rivals if they could pass on losses to rivals. In both Chinese cases, leaders waged war in order to force domestic rivals to fight against an external enemy. In the Iraq-Iran War, leaders in both countries blamed the regular army for poor performance and justified their expansion of the military forces that were directly loyal to them. As a result, leaders could consolidate their control over political power by undermining the powers of potential domestic rivals.

Author

• Xiao Han, Shanghai University