EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

On the production of victory: Empirical determinants of battlefield success in modern war

Ralph Rotte and Christoph Schmidt

Defence and Peace Economics, 2003, vol. 14, issue 3, 175-192

Abstract: Using a data set of historical battles from 1600 to 1973, this paper analyzes the empirical determinants of tactical success in modern war. Based on a reduced form approach we consider key elements of military theory as production factors for combat success as an output of a military production function. The paper focuses on the relationship of material and non-material factors to battlefield success, and especially on the role of superior force strengths. Contrary to the emphasis on technology which can be found in the recent literature, our estimation results indicate that numerical superiority has retained its crucial role for battlefield performance throughout history. In general, human elements of warfare, like leadership, morale and surprise, have continued to be important determinants of battle outcome despite technological progress in weapons.

Keywords: Battlefield Success; Numerical Superiority; Leadership; Technical Progress; Military Technology; Military Production Function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1024269022000000868 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: On the Production of Victory: Empirical Determinants of Battlefield Success in Modern War (2002) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:defpea:v:14:y:2003:i:3:p:175-192

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/GDPE20

DOI: 10.1080/1024269022000000868

Access Statistics for this article

Defence and Peace Economics is currently edited by Professor Keith Hartley

More articles in Defence and Peace Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-22
Handle: RePEc:taf:defpea:v:14:y:2003:i:3:p:175-192