Changing Horses Midstream: Military Commander Accountability During Wartime

• In Event: Poster Session: International Security I

Abstract

Why do some political leaders retain military commanders during wartime when the armed forces suffer losses or fail to meet objectives, whereas other leaders choose to replace their commanders? Conversely, how do political leaders’ attempts to control military performance affect the military’s battlefield effectiveness during wartime? Political scientists know little about why some militaries can recover form unexpected losses better than others during war, because until recently, little quantitative research has been done below the aggregate level of war. In part, the lack of research in this area has been due to limitations in the availability or reliable, disaggregated battle event data. However, recent work using new battle-level data has offered fresh opportunities to explore these issues in greater depth. For example, Lehmann and Zhukov (2019)’s study examining the diffusion of surrender across battles offers a new data set of disaggregated data that can be used to evaluate battle-level events more explicitly. While their study suggests that some militaries may be more susceptible to organizational collapse than others, it does not directly evaluate whether intervening factors can change the level of an organization’s resilience to unexpected losses—e.g., whether political intervention can affect military adaptation to the conflict environment.

To evaluate this issue, I first analyze the reasons for military leader replacement during wartime, considering the extent to which battle-level outcomes and performance during various campaigns influences the decision to change commanders. I also evaluate how political leaders’ actions to hold military leaders accountable for battlefield outcomes influence subsequent battlefield effectiveness. Such actions are designed to induce improvements in battlefield effectiveness where it would not occur otherwise, but their success is not a foregone conclusion. For example, replacing a leader could create a successful change in strategy, or the threat of replacement could incentivize other military leaders to find ways to improve performance to avoid a similar fate. Conversely, replacing a leader could also backfire by signaling to troops that they are losing the war, impacting soldiers’ resolve to fight cohesively in battle and further degrading battlefield performance. I test competing hypotheses about the circumstances under which each of these outcomes is more likely in order to better explain individual battle and overall war outcomes.

To empirically analyze these issues, I conduct a large-n quantitative analysis of conventional battlefield events by expanding upon Lehmann and Zhukov (2019)’s IO data set. The existing data set consists of battle-level data composed of every major battle in conventional interstate conflicts from 1939 to 2011, which includes location data—e.g., deployment distances and geographic size—along with participant data—e.g., country identifiers, troop numbers and casualty statistics. In order to evaluate the effect of political leaders’ interventions into military operations, I expand upon the data set by analyzing scholarly wartime accounts and official documents to identify incidents of high-ranking military leader removal and replacement during war, and compare the levels of battlefield effectiveness before and after the intervention.

I evaluate the substantive circumstances under which positive or negative outcomes are more likely following a political intervention into military operations. The findings from this project contribute to a better understanding of individual battle and overall war outcomes, and whether militaries can adapt better when political leaders intervene in military operations, or whether political intervention is more likely to produce unintended consequences in a war.

Author

• Todd Lehmann, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor