Beyond the Battlefield: Wars without Soldiers

Abstract

The likelihood of dying from preventable non-military causes (PNMD) is far greater than the likelihood of death from armed conflict of all types (labelled political mass killing and comparable to Rummel's democide). However, the allocation of resources by governments for the military overwhelms the allocation for PNMD. In the USA, the ratio of expenditures per death for the military are greater than 1,000 times that allocated for each death from currently preventable non-military causes.

The research program precipitated by these facts consists of several components. The first is the compilation of objective data on PNMD both in the USA and worldwide. The second is the development of an analytic framework in which military conflict and PNMD are compared. The framework provides substantial similarities in both motivation and organization between the direct attack represented in military conflict and the indirect attack that characterizes PNMD. The third major component is the examination of the differences between perceived and actuarial risk and the study of the psychological factors that may account for such differences.

Data are presented that illustrate the levels of death from military and non-military causes. Then the motivational and organizational characteristics of both military and non-military sources are examined. Finally, the design of research to investigate the psychological factors that may relate to differences in perceived compared to actuarial risk is presented.

Citation

Levy, S.G. (2011), "Beyond the Battlefield: Wars without Soldiers", Chatterji, M., Bo, C. and Misra, R. (Ed.) Frontiers of Peace Economics and Peace Science (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Vol. 16), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 99-113. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1572-8323(2011)0000016011