Paying the Human Costs of War

1
Paying the HumanCosts of War

• Christopher Gelpi
• Peter D. Feaver
• Jason Reifler
• Duke University
• Triangle Institute for Security Studies

2
Casualty Aversion as aConstraint on American
Power

• Mueller (1973, 1994) support for war drops with
  log of casualties
• Developed into conventional wisdom that public
  will not tolerate casualties
• Beirut 1983, Gulf War 1991, Somalia 1993
• Widespread assumption of casualty phobia
• Kosovo 1999
• Caused Saddam to doubt US resolve in March 2003

3
Casualty AversionA Contingent Constraint?

• Casualty phobia myth persisted despite evidence
  to the contrary
• Academic consensus on public cost/benefit
  approach to support for war
• Key Question What causes variation in
  sensitivity to casualties?
• Jentleson Policy Objective (PPO)
• Larson Domestic Elite Consensus
• Kull International Consensus
• Feaver Gelpi Likelihood of Success

4
Approval of Korean War and Battle Deaths

• Key appears to be perceived success
• Big drop in support is Aug-Dec 1950 losing to
  PRC
• Slope is positive from Feb-Aug 1951 - US recovers
• Slope is negative in 1952 - stalemate sets in

5
Approval of Vietnam Warand Battle Deaths

• Impact of casualties seems to depend on success
• Pre-Tet slope only significant because of drop
  Mar-May 1966
• Matches increase in those saying war is a
  mistake
• Post-Tet slope triples
• majority of population now says war is a mistake

6
Presidential Approval andCasualties in Iraq
7
Measures for Analysis of Weekly Approval and
Deaths in Iraq

• Presidential Approval - Weekly data
• Data from The Polling Report
• Casualties Log of deaths in Iraq
• Data from the US Military
• Minutes of Media coverage of Iraq
• Data from The Tyndall Report
• Growth in Dow Jones Industrial Index
• Dummy variables
• Onset of Insurgency
• Capture of Hussein
• Release of Kay Report
• Renewed Iraqi Sovereignty

8
Predicting Presidential Approval With Casualties
In Iraq
9
Summary Impact of Iraq War on Presidential
Approval

• Impact of US Casualties
• During battlefield combat, approval went up with
  casualties
• During insurgency, approval went down with
  casualties
• After sovereignty casualties have no effect on
  approval
• Turning points
• End of May 2003 when insurgency became dominant
  media frame
• Transfer of sovereignty to new government an
  indicator of success?
• Impact of Media Coverage
• Rally effect before war during major combat
• Coverage of democratic presidential candidates
• Media frame battlefield, insurgency, and
  sovereignty

10
Comparing Sources of Casualty Tolerance in the
Real World

• Aggregate Data show casualty tolerance varies
• What drives this variation?
• Experimental research shows support for all four
  mechanisms
• Success seems an anecdotal fit, but
• Now we need to
• Compare the relative importance of these
  mechanisms
• Show they influence attitudes in a real conflict

11
A Model of Public Attitudes Toward Casualties In
Iraq
Demographics (Age, Race, Gender)
Party Identification
Education
Tolerance For Casualties
US Right to Attack
US Will Succeed
12
Four Clusters of AttitudesToward the War in Iraq

• Vietnam Syndrome Iraq war wrong, we are likely
  to lose
• Bush Base Iraq war right, we are likely to win
• Noble Failure Iraq war right, we are likely to
  lose
• Pottery Barn Iraq war wrong, we are likely to win

13
Logit Analysis ofTolerable Casualties In Iraq
14
The Sources of Tolerance for Casualties in Iraq
Interactive Effects
15
The Demographic Sources of Casualty Tolerance in
Iraq
16
Reality CheckOur Survey Election Outcome 2004
17
Logit Analysis of Presidential Vote Choice
November 2004
18
Iraq and Presidential Vote Choice 2004
19
The Demographic Sources of Presidential Vote
Choice in 2004
20
What Does It Mean to beSuccessful in Iraq?
21
How Will We KnowWe Are Succeeding In Iraq?
22
Likelihood of Success and Whether the War in
Iraq was the Right Thing
Right US Will Succeed
Thing 1 2 3
4 Total ----------------------------------
------------------------------- 1
84 155 49 8
296 80.77 51.16 11.89
2.72 26.59 -------------------------
----------------------------------------
2 12 68 91 15
186 11.54 22.44
22.09 5.10 16.71 -------------------
----------------------------------------------
3 3 63 167
60 293 2.88
20.79 40.53 20.41 26.33
------------------------------------------------
----------------- 4 5
17 105 211 338
4.81 5.61 25.49 71.77
30.37 -----------------------------------------
------------------------ Total 104
303 412 294 1,113
100.00 100.00 100.00
100.00 100.00 Pearson chi2(9)
631.8776 Pr 0.000
23
A Model of Public Attitudes Toward Success and
The Right Thing
Party ID, Demographics Education,
US Right to Attack
US Will Succeed
Support Preemptive force
US has plan to succeed
Confident in US Iraqi Leaders
Believe Saddam links to WMD, terrorism
Care about Intl Consensus on force
Domestic elite consensus to stay in Iraq
24
Two-Stage Least Squares Analysis Whether US Was
Right to Attack Iraq
25
Two-Stage Least Squares Analysis Whether US Will
Succeed Iraq
26
Conclusions

• Aggregate data show public willingness to bear
  costs of war has varied significantly over time
• Experimental evidence supports all hypothesized
  influences on costs and benefits
• Jentleson, Larson, Kull, Feaver Gelpi
• Data on attitudes toward Iraq war suggest that
  weighting of factors depends on the decision
  being made

27
Do the right thing? orJust Win Baby?

• Expectations of success is trumps for casualty
  tolerance and support for ongoing mission
• Prospective judgment about future outcome
• Pottery Barn twice as likely as Noble Failure to
  support casualties
• Rightness/wrongness is trumps for determining
  vote choice
• Retrospective judgment about wisdom of a leaders
  decision
• Majority of Noble Failure support Bush but
  overwhelming majority of Pottery Barn support
  Kerry

28
The Structure of Public Attitudes Toward Iraq

• Attitudes toward Success and Right Thing
  structured along reasonable dimensions
• Consistent with hypotheses in literature
• Attitudes are well organized, but are they immune
  to new information?
• Attitudes cause one another, but stronger flow is
  success as a cause of right thing

29
Supplemental Slides
30
Sources of Data

• Historical aggregate data on support for Korea,
  Vietnam, Somalia
• Recent aggregate Presidential Approval data
  during current in Iraq
• Individual level data on attitudes toward current
  war in Iraq
• Series of surveys from October 2004 through
  October 2004
• Flaw in literature mostly aggregate data

31
Experimental Support for the Impact of Primary
Policy Objective

• Do you support the United States taking military
  action to replace the government of Yemen
• If it were threatening the shipping of oil
  through the Persian Gulf?
• 47 approve (FPR Mission)
• If it were engaging in ethnic cleansing and
  forced slavery?
• 61 approve (HI mission)
• If it were providing terrorist bases to Al-Qaeda?
• 71 approve (WT Mission)

32
Framing Effects and Support for a Hypothetical
Invasion of Yemen
33
Experimental Support for theImpact of Domestic
and Intl Consensus

• Do you support military action to defend the
  democratic government of East Timor against an
  insurrection ?
• If Congress, UN, and NATO endorse?
• 74 approve
• If Congress opposes?
• 48 approve
• If UN and NATO oppose?
• 41 approve
• If Congress, UN, and NATO all oppose?
• 24 approve

34
Elite Consensus and Support for Hypothetical Use
of Force in E. Timor
35
Expected Success, Casualties, and Support for
Hypothetical Use of Force
36
Casualty Tolerance andConfidence in Success
37
Approval of Vietnam Warand Battle Deaths

• Impact of casualties seems to depend on success
• Pre-Tet slope only significant because of drop
  Mar-May 1966
• Matches increase in those saying war is a
  mistake
• Post-Tet slope triples
• majority of population now says war is a mistake

38
Prais-Winsten Analysis of Battle Deaths and
Support for the Vietnam War
39
Approval of Korean War and Battle Deaths

• Key appears to be perceived success
• Big drop in support is Aug-Dec 1950 losing to
  PRC
• Slope is positive from Feb-Aug 1951 - US recovers
• Slope is negative in 1952 - stalemate sets in

40
Capturing Saddamand Perceptions of Success in
Iraq

• MSNBC/WSJ Poll fielded our success question
• Got a natural experiment with the capture of
  Saddam
• Bush received 8 boost in very likely to
  succeed
• Casualty tolerance should rise if this perception
  persists