Political Rationality in Ending War

Abstract

The terminal stage of an armed conflict is reached when both sides agree to accept the military outcome (i.e., the "asymmetrical" or "symmetrical" distribution of armed strength) existing at that time as the basis for deter mining the political payoffs accruing to each. The payoff distribution corresponding to the "asymmetrical" outcome (monopoly of armed strength for one side, the other being defenseless) is the political "stake." The more "symmetrical" the outcome, the greater the difference between the actual payoffs and the "stake." Both "asymmetrical" and "sym metrical" outcomes, however, may be reversible as long as the adversaries still have mobilizable potentials at their disposal. Whether a given outcome will be accepted by both sides as the "terminal" one depends on their judgments concerning two questions: (1) whether the outcome can be reversed by renewed efforts, and (2) whether the "stake" is high enough to justify an attempt in this direction. This suggests two kinds of "rational" criteria for terminating armed conflicts: the "irreversibility" principle, and the principal of "corre spondence between effort and stake." Now "reversibility" depends, in part, on the effort that the belligerent in question is willing to make, and hence on the "correspondence" prin ciple; it is argued, however, that objective, "rational" decision criteria for "correspondence" cannot be defined, because there is no common measure between "costs" and political "payoffs." It is argued that one can speak of a "rational" conclusion of conflicts only to the extent that a "convergent reorientation" of the basic political outlook of the adversaries takes place, as a result of which the controversial issues underlying the conflicts are liquidated.