Popular in Political Science

American Politics

Keeping the Republic

Boston College Marc Landy

British Politics

Entrepreneurial thinking: the politics and practice of policy impact

University of Sheffield Matthew Flinders

Canadian Politics

Parties and Elections: An End to Canadian Exceptionalism?

St. Francis Xavier University James Bickerton

Asian Politics

The Politics of Knowledge in Development

University of Delhi Madhulika Banerjee

American Politics

Fifty years of declining confidence and increasing polarization in trust

University of California Berkeley Henry Brady

American Politics

The Opening Dilemma

Cornell University Richard Bensel

Political Economy

Wait and See?

University of Liverpool Mariaelisa Epifanio

A century of coalitions in battle

View more insights in Social Sciences - Political Science - American Politics

View more figures from Boston University

View the page of Rosella Cappella Zielinski

View the page of Ryan Grauer

Read the Study

Rosella Cappella Zielinski and Ryan Grauer examine the 492 battles during interstate wars (1900-2003), revealing how battlefield coalitions fare compared to solo belligerents.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 11, 2024

Generating Workspace

Export as PDF

This video video discusses a research initiative focusing on battlefield coalitions, particularly those formed during conflicts where distinct political entities collaborate in combat. The authors, drawing from their experiences with the Korean War, explore how troops from different backgrounds manage to fight together despite challenges. They differentiate battlefield coalitions from broader wartime alliances, emphasizing the logistical and coordination difficulties involved.

The research highlights the prevalence of battlefield coalitions, discovered through a dataset of battles from 1900 to 2003, revealing that about 25% of all belligerent sides formed such coalitions. These coalitions tend to perform better than solo belligerents, winning more frequently and suffering lower casualty rates.

Surprisingly, the study indicates that U.S. involvement in battlefield coalitions is less dominant than expected, being present in only a third of the coalitions. The understanding of these coalitions is essential, especially as global conflict evolves, with increasing diversity among combatants, including non-state actors.

The authors advocate for further investigation into battlefield coalitions to better inform military strategies and responses in future conflicts, reflecting on the historical significance of such groups and their impact on operational effectiveness.

Language:

Export as PDF

Export as PDF
Here are five key points from the video about battlefield coalitions:

1. **Definition and Historical Convideo**: The video presents battlefield coalitions as unique groups formed by different political entities (states and non-state actors) who come together to fight side by side in combat situations. It emphasizes that these coalitions have existed throughout history, dating back to figures like Alexander the Great and various tribal coalitions.

2. **Significance of Battlefield Coalitions**: The discussion highlights that battlefield coalitions have been overlooked in political science compared to wartime coalitions or alliances. The authors argue that understanding these coalitions is crucial for grasping the dynamics of military effectiveness and the outcomes of conflicts, as they often lead to better performance on the battlefield.

3. **Research Findings and Data Collection**: The authors created a dataset analyzing 62 wars and 492 battles from 1900 to 2003. Their findings reveal that battlefield coalitions constitute nearly a quarter of all belligerent sides during this period. They found that such coalitions tend to succeed more often and suffer lower casualty rates than solo belligerents.

4. **Changing Nature of Coalitions**: The frequency of battlefield coalitions has markedly increased, especially after the Cold War, where they accounted for over half of belligerent sides involved in conflicts. Additionally, the diversity of actors participating in these coalitions has grown, indicating that both state and non-state entities increasingly collaborate in military operations.

5. **Implications for Future Conflicts**: The video suggests that as warfare evolves, understanding the dynamics of battlefield coalitions will be crucial for preparing for future conflicts. It points out that while the current focus may be on traditional alliances, the role of non-state actors and the nature of modern coalitions will become increasingly important in the convideo of global conflicts, including current situations in Ukraine and Gaza.

Export as PDF
Here are some key quotes from the video regarding battlefield coalitions:

1. **Definition of Battlefield Coalitions**:
- "So for us, it's amalgamations of officers, troops and materials brought together by multiple distinct political communities for the purpose of jointly waging combat in the same operational battle space."

2. **Importance of Study**:
- "These groups are old and a widespread phenomena...we're happy to shed some light on it."

3. **Overlooked Nature**:
- "Why have they been overlooked? It's hard to say."

4. **Frequency and Performance**:
- "Battlefield coalitions are pretty common. Almost one quarter of all belligerent sides from 1900 to 2003 were battlefield coalitions."

5. **Surprising Findings**:
- "They win about 53% of the time compared to about 48% of the time for solo belligerence."
- "Solo belligerents tend to suffer casualty rates around 25%, whereas for battlefield coalitions it's closer to 21%."

6. **Historical Convideo**:
- "Alexander the Great...defeats many different battlefield coalitions on its march of the Balkans Asia Minor Persia and India."

7. **Focus of the Study**:
- "We were really interested in trying to understand who forms these coalitions, what do they look like, how do they perform on the battlefield?"

8. **Diversity of Coalitions**:
- "Only 37% of battlefield coalitions have in our data set are comprised of members that had in peace time signed an agreement to come to the defense of one another."

9. **Future Implications**:
- "These are pretty common phenomena that we just haven't really paid a lot of attention to...it's something worth investing in."

10. **Significant Increase in Coalition Formation**:
- "From the end of the Cold War to 2003, 52% of all belligerent sides were battlefield coalitions."

These quotes effectively capture the essence of the discussion regarding the nature, frequency, and implications of battlefield coalitions in military history.

Export as PDF
The video discusses the concept of battlefield coalitions in military history, highlighting their significance, historical convideo, and implications for modern warfare. Here are some articles that share similar themes and topics:

1. **"Coalition Warfare in World History: A Comparative Analysis"** - This article examines the evolution of coalition warfare through various historical convideos, analyzing how diverse political entities have combined their military resources to achieve common objectives on the battlefield.

2. **"The Dynamics of Multinational Military Coalitions: Lessons from the Iraq War"** - This piece investigates the mechanics and effectiveness of multinational coalitions formed during the Iraq War, focusing on the complexities of coordinating operations amongst diverse military forces.

3. **"From Allies to Partners: The Changing Nature of Battlefield Coalitions"** - This article discusses how modern battlefield coalitions differ from traditional alliances, emphasizing the involvement of non-state actors and the implications of these dynamics for contemporary military strategies.

4. **"Understanding Interoperability in Coalition Operations: Challenges and Solutions"** - This article explores the challenges faced by coalition forces regarding interoperability, communication, and strategy alignment in joint military operations.

5. **"Historical Patterns of Military Alliances: A Study of Coalition Effectiveness"** - Focusing on historical military alliances, this study assesses patterns of coalitions, their effectiveness in combat, and the socio-political factors that influence their performance.

6. **"The Role of Non-State Actors in Modern Warfare: Coalitions and Conflicts"** - This article analyzes the participation of non-state actors in contemporary conflicts, exploring how their involvement alters the traditional concepts of coalition warfare.

7. **"The Evolving Nature of Warfare: Battlefield Coalitions in the 21st Century"** - Discussing current military trends, this article analyzes the rise of battlefield coalitions in recent conflicts and the strategic challenges they present to military planners.

8. **"The Importance of Historical Convideo in Understanding Modern Coalitions: A Case Study of the Korean War"** - This piece investigates the Korean War through the lens of coalition dynamics and examines how historical alliances inform current military partnerships.

These articles delve into various aspects of coalition warfare, encompassing historical analysis, case studies, and reflections on contemporary military practices that resonate with the themes presented in the video.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.065 --> 00:00.925
We were motivated.

00:00.985 --> 00:02.485
Um, it started a long time ago.

00:02.785 --> 00:04.765
Uh, Ryan and know have known each other a long time

00:05.345 --> 00:07.205
and we were doing different stuff on the Korean

00:07.345 --> 00:08.485
War and it came together.

00:08.505 --> 00:10.525
We were like, wow, this is really complicated.

00:11.145 --> 00:14.125
The United States and the South Koreans not having a

00:14.125 --> 00:15.525
shared language, what's going on?

00:16.025 --> 00:17.645
And so that got us here.

00:17.645 --> 00:18.885
We're like, how did they manage

00:18.885 --> 00:20.525
to fight successfully together?

00:20.945 --> 00:24.205
And years later we started a big project on Battlefield

00:24.215 --> 00:25.605
coalitions for us.

00:25.605 --> 00:27.925
Lemme give you the academic long version

00:27.985 --> 00:29.405
and then I'll give you a simpler version.

00:29.905 --> 00:33.045
Uh, so for us, it's amalgamations of officers, troops

00:33.065 --> 00:35.445
and materials brought together by multiple

00:36.085 --> 00:38.085
distinct political communities for the purpose

00:38.245 --> 00:40.165
of jointly waging combat in the same

00:40.165 --> 00:41.485
operational battle space.

00:41.825 --> 00:43.205
So there's your long-winded version.

00:43.625 --> 00:46.565
The Fluter version is two groups fighting side

00:46.565 --> 00:48.125
by side on the battlefield,

00:48.425 --> 00:50.645
and really, again, sharing that battle space.

00:51.065 --> 00:53.365
And I wanna make this a little distinct from wartime

00:53.365 --> 00:55.845
coalitions, which most of us are probably familiar with.

00:56.665 --> 01:01.045
We think of the Iraq War, you know, lots of members,

01:01.715 --> 01:02.885
NATO members coming in.

01:02.885 --> 01:05.125
So we think these big coalitions,

01:05.125 --> 01:07.085
but we're not interested in those big coalitions.

01:07.085 --> 01:09.285
We're interested in those groups that take

01:09.285 --> 01:11.045
that next step to fight together.

01:11.505 --> 01:14.125
Um, tip of spear seems pretty important.

01:14.295 --> 01:15.965
We're preparing, and when I say we,

01:15.965 --> 01:17.645
we are thinking in the west to the Indo-Pacific.

01:17.645 --> 01:19.605
And we're all we're focused on is how, what we're gonna do

01:19.605 --> 01:21.725
with our partners and how that might look

01:21.825 --> 01:23.445
and maybe fighting side by side.

01:24.065 --> 01:26.765
And so not sure why it's overlooked.

01:26.835 --> 01:29.205
It's definitely been studied by historians,

01:29.205 --> 01:30.485
and military folks.

01:30.905 --> 01:32.565
But as political scientists,

01:32.985 --> 01:35.365
things have been really focused on the wartime

01:35.365 --> 01:36.845
coalition or the alliance level.

01:37.225 --> 01:40.525
But these groups are old and a widespread phenomena.

01:40.785 --> 01:43.125
So lemme just take it back real far back.

01:43.195 --> 01:45.925
Alexander the Great right confronts

01:46.225 --> 01:48.685
and defeats many different battlefield coalitions on its

01:48.685 --> 01:51.205
march of the Balkans Asia Minor Persia and India.

01:51.785 --> 01:53.965
Um, in around three 30 BCE,

01:54.225 --> 01:56.845
we can see the very IC tribes fighting together

01:56.905 --> 01:59.525
to stem Julius Caesar's drive into their territory.

01:59.985 --> 02:02.365
Um, so these go back and back and back.

02:02.865 --> 02:05.365
Um, so they're a really present phenomenon

02:05.975 --> 02:07.875
and so we're happy to shed some light on it. I

02:07.875 --> 02:10.395
Would just reiterate what Rosea has said so far.

02:11.025 --> 02:13.075
When we're thinking about battlefield coalitions,

02:13.215 --> 02:16.875
we are thinking about troops that are raised, trained,

02:16.875 --> 02:18.915
and equipped by different political communities,

02:19.375 --> 02:22.315
put shoulder to shoulder on the battlefield,

02:22.455 --> 02:25.395
in circumstances where there's a non-zero probability

02:25.505 --> 02:27.355
that there might be a friendly fire incident.

02:27.935 --> 02:31.195
So these are really tough coordination situations

02:31.815 --> 02:33.715
in really difficult circumstances.

02:34.375 --> 02:37.035
Uh, and as Rella mentioned, these are really old.

02:37.535 --> 02:41.115
Um, we see them throughout history on every continent on the

02:41.115 --> 02:43.075
face of the earth, with the exception of Antarctica.

02:43.455 --> 02:46.915
Um, you see them carried out by state-based militaries

02:47.095 --> 02:48.275
by non-state actors.

02:48.895 --> 02:52.315
Um, native American tribes formed many coalitions

02:52.315 --> 02:55.995
with one another and with white settlers, as they worked

02:56.055 --> 02:57.795
to, both fight each other

02:57.975 --> 03:01.285
and try to stem white, advances in,

03:01.315 --> 03:02.965
into the western part of the United States.

03:03.785 --> 03:06.485
So why have they been overlooked? It's hard to say.

03:07.025 --> 03:10.045
Um, a lot of academics tend to think at higher levels,

03:10.495 --> 03:14.285
think about those big alliances and wartime coalitions.

03:14.865 --> 03:18.525
But for us, what really is interesting here is

03:18.525 --> 03:20.165
that if we think about the causal chain

03:20.355 --> 03:22.525
between the actual implementation of force

03:22.985 --> 03:24.725
and those big political outcomes

03:24.835 --> 03:26.605
that shape the international system,

03:26.955 --> 03:28.405
this is a crucial missing link.

03:28.505 --> 03:30.965
Uh, and we're just trying to better understand it. It'll

03:30.965 --> 03:34.045
Be a little repetition in that just emphasizing alliances,

03:34.305 --> 03:36.765
and that's really what political sciences has focused on.

03:36.765 --> 03:38.485
But those are really peacetime agreements

03:39.105 --> 03:41.845
and most alliances don't translate into

03:42.235 --> 03:43.725
battlefield coalitions.

03:44.185 --> 03:46.005
And so that is a big disconnect

03:46.005 --> 03:47.445
that we're interested in understanding.

03:47.865 --> 03:50.085
And the other thing that has been really focused on

03:50.105 --> 03:51.125
is US and nato.

03:51.905 --> 03:54.725
And while wonderful that we look at us

03:54.725 --> 03:56.965
and nato, these are really distinct relationships.

03:56.995 --> 03:59.005
This transatlantic partnership, right?

03:59.035 --> 04:02.325
It's a longstanding alliance with deep ties

04:02.325 --> 04:03.725
amongst military members.

04:03.865 --> 04:06.965
And those are gonna look really different than let's say,

04:06.965 --> 04:08.565
those golic tribes that I mentioned,

04:08.705 --> 04:11.125
or various other types of battlefield coalitions.

04:11.385 --> 04:16.005
And so in focusing, in the western, you know,

04:16.005 --> 04:19.445
political science sense very narrowly on alliances

04:19.745 --> 04:22.125
or NATO members, we're really missing a bigger picture.

04:22.545 --> 04:24.125
And this will be especially problematic

04:24.185 --> 04:25.685
as we think about the future

04:25.705 --> 04:28.685
of war in which we will be fighting with non NATO allies.

04:28.865 --> 04:32.685
As Illa said, they, this data set effort really grew out

04:32.685 --> 04:34.165
of conversations that we had about

04:34.435 --> 04:37.005
what we were observing in our separate research projects

04:37.005 --> 04:39.045
about dynamics during the Korean War.

04:39.425 --> 04:41.885
Uh, and we were really interested in trying to understand

04:42.425 --> 04:45.285
who forms these coalitions, what do they look like,

04:45.285 --> 04:46.685
how do they perform on the battlefield?

04:47.105 --> 04:49.925
And looking around in the existing political science

04:50.405 --> 04:52.125
literature, the military history literature,

04:52.125 --> 04:55.005
there was no unified place where we could go just

04:55.005 --> 04:57.845
to even find out how common these these groups are.

04:58.545 --> 05:02.365
And so we set out to build a data set, even though both

05:02.365 --> 05:05.765
of us, are much happier sitting in archives

05:05.765 --> 05:06.925
looking through dusty papers.

05:07.545 --> 05:10.365
Um, we were, were building a, a quantitative data set.

05:10.905 --> 05:15.365
Um, so what we did is we, we looked from the time from 1900

05:15.505 --> 05:20.325
to 2003 and relying on military historians to tell us

05:20.555 --> 05:23.845
what counts as a major battle in big interstate wars.

05:24.345 --> 05:26.605
Um, we looked at 62 wars

05:27.025 --> 05:29.845
and we found 492 battles.

05:30.545 --> 05:33.805
And on each side, you've got two sides for each battle.

05:34.025 --> 05:36.005
So we constructed a data set

05:36.005 --> 05:39.165
of 984 belligerent sides.

05:39.785 --> 05:41.685
Uh, and so for each of these entries,

05:41.825 --> 05:44.845
we include information about who actually bought,

05:44.845 --> 05:46.165
as part of that side.

05:46.785 --> 05:50.125
Um, we look at when the battle started, when it ended.

05:50.865 --> 05:55.085
Um, if the belligerents were democracies, non democracies,

05:55.085 --> 05:57.540
if they were state actors, if they were non-state actors,

05:57.945 --> 05:59.205
how many troops did they field?

05:59.295 --> 06:02.045
Which was surprisingly hard to find in many cases,

06:02.155 --> 06:03.965
even some big battles,

06:03.965 --> 06:05.845
including ones out of the world wars.

06:06.225 --> 06:08.365
Um, how many casualties did they suffer

06:08.945 --> 06:10.645
if there was a battlefield coalition?

06:10.825 --> 06:12.685
On one side, we also looked

06:12.685 --> 06:15.685
to see whether there were preexisting treaty agreements,

06:16.705 --> 06:20.365
if the groups had fought together previously, in battle,

06:21.145 --> 06:25.485
or if one actor a part of the Battlefield Coalition,

06:25.515 --> 06:27.565
kind of held back and only contributed

06:27.775 --> 06:29.125
airstrikes, for example.

06:29.945 --> 06:33.965
So collecting all of this information on both,

06:34.005 --> 06:35.245
battlefield coalitions

06:35.425 --> 06:38.485
and solo belligerence allows us for the first time

06:38.505 --> 06:40.965
to really get at our hands around,

06:41.025 --> 06:42.525
how common are these groups?

06:42.595 --> 06:44.285
What do they look like, how do they perform?

06:44.705 --> 06:48.005
And it allows us to compare them to belligerents

06:48.005 --> 06:50.085
that fight on their own rather than with partners.

06:50.635 --> 06:53.525
Most surprising things that came out for us is

06:53.525 --> 06:55.325
that battlefield coalitions are pretty common.

06:55.865 --> 06:57.725
Um, almost one quarter of all

06:57.725 --> 06:59.805
of those belligerent sides from 1900

06:59.905 --> 07:02.605
to 2003 were battlefield coalitions.

07:03.345 --> 07:06.725
So we're talking about a pretty common collective action

07:07.245 --> 07:10.005
phenomenon that, as we were talking about a few minutes ago,

07:10.665 --> 07:13.445
hasn't really received much attention from scholars.

07:14.065 --> 07:16.965
Um, we found that they tend

07:16.965 --> 07:19.605
to fight better than solo belligerent.

07:20.035 --> 07:24.565
They win about 53% of the time compared to about 48%

07:24.565 --> 07:26.125
of the time for solo belligerence.

07:26.715 --> 07:28.165
They also fight more efficiently.

07:28.705 --> 07:31.805
So solo belligerents tend to suffer casualty rates

07:31.805 --> 07:34.125
around 25%, whereas

07:34.785 --> 07:37.525
for battlefield coalitions it's closer to 21%.

07:38.205 --> 07:40.845
I, and they, that might sound like a a small difference,

07:40.945 --> 07:43.165
but, but if you just take some average numbers from our

07:43.165 --> 07:46.805
dataset, the average belligerent side in our dataset

07:46.805 --> 07:48.725
numbered about 40,000 troops.

07:49.465 --> 07:53.445
And so if you think what a 25% casualty rate killed wounded

07:53.445 --> 07:55.365
missing looks like that's 10,000 people,

07:56.685 --> 08:01.445
a 21% casualty rate, that's about 808,300 people.

08:01.785 --> 08:03.725
So we're, we're talking about more than 1500

08:04.345 --> 08:06.565
person difference in casualty rate,

08:06.825 --> 08:10.405
moving from solo belligerent to Battlefield Coalition.

08:11.265 --> 08:13.165
Um, also to our surprise,

08:13.165 --> 08:15.565
we found this really isn't a US story.

08:16.145 --> 08:18.405
The US was only involved in about a third

08:18.585 --> 08:22.005
of the battlefield coalitions that formed between 1900

08:22.025 --> 08:25.325
and 2003, which given American dominance in the

08:25.325 --> 08:27.125
international system over the 20th century,

08:27.145 --> 08:28.445
you can kind of expect more of.

08:29.185 --> 08:31.485
Um, it's also not a a, a NATO story.

08:31.875 --> 08:34.805
NATO only participated in four of the battles,

08:34.805 --> 08:35.805
in our dataset.

08:36.185 --> 08:38.365
And it's not even really an alliance story as,

08:38.665 --> 08:43.245
as Rosea was alluding to earlier, only 37% of the,

08:43.585 --> 08:46.045
battlefield coalitions that we have,

08:46.045 --> 08:48.445
have in our data set are comprised of members

08:48.445 --> 08:51.205
that had in peace time signed an agreement to come

08:51.205 --> 08:52.285
to the defense of one another.

08:52.865 --> 08:56.365
So we've got a really diverse set of actors coming together

08:57.025 --> 08:59.125
and for whatever reason, they tend

08:59.125 --> 09:01.565
to fight better together than they do alone.

09:02.125 --> 09:03.685
I was kind of pleased in the sense

09:03.685 --> 09:05.845
that it's really a non-native story as a scholar

09:05.845 --> 09:08.085
because so much of what we focus on is nato,

09:08.085 --> 09:10.525
which is wonderful, but this isn't that story.

09:10.785 --> 09:12.485
So that was really interesting to me.

09:12.985 --> 09:17.435
And I think really just the takeaway that they are bigger,

09:17.785 --> 09:18.915
they fight together

09:18.915 --> 09:21.715
and win more often than we anticipate,

09:21.775 --> 09:23.155
is just something to really think about.

09:23.455 --> 09:24.835
And from a policy perspective,

09:25.305 --> 09:26.475
it's something worth investing in.

09:26.475 --> 09:29.395
If we're thinking, wow, these groups win, we wanna be part

09:29.395 --> 09:32.275
of these groups and we also wanna think about

09:32.615 --> 09:34.595
and be aware of these goose wins,

09:34.625 --> 09:36.355
what if the other side are forming such groups?

09:37.215 --> 09:39.795
So it's really interesting for me to think about, wow, they,

09:39.795 --> 09:41.475
they're really coming together and,

09:41.495 --> 09:42.635
and being quite successful.

09:42.935 --> 09:45.915
The core takeaway for us from this portion of our,

09:45.915 --> 09:48.155
our larger research agenda, which wait,

09:48.155 --> 09:51.795
we're gonna spend many years, of our, our careers sort

09:51.795 --> 09:53.995
of unpacking things that we're finding is

09:53.995 --> 09:55.475
that battlefield coalitions matter.

09:56.095 --> 09:58.715
Um, these are pretty common phenomena

09:58.945 --> 10:01.715
that we just haven't really paid a lot of attention to.

10:02.455 --> 10:05.115
Um, one other finding that, that emerges from the data.

10:05.345 --> 10:06.955
Looking at the formation

10:06.955 --> 10:10.915
of these battlefield coalitions over time, between 1900

10:11.135 --> 10:12.515
and roughly 1990,

10:13.705 --> 10:16.955
battlefield coalitions showed up about 25% of the time,

10:17.855 --> 10:22.675
but from the end of the Cold War to 2003, 52%

10:23.015 --> 10:25.715
of all belligerent sides were battlefield coalitions.

10:26.135 --> 10:28.795
So what we're seeing is a really remarkable

10:29.315 --> 10:32.275
increase in the frequency with which, states

10:32.455 --> 10:35.075
and non-state actors bring their forces together

10:35.135 --> 10:36.275
to fight on the battlefield.

10:36.815 --> 10:39.915
And, and sort of mirroring that jump in the frequency

10:39.915 --> 10:42.595
of battlefield coalitions is an increase in the frequency

10:42.595 --> 10:44.955
of non-state actors participating in that.

10:45.335 --> 10:47.715
So we can think about Afghanistan, right?

10:47.895 --> 10:50.075
The, the us partners

10:50.075 --> 10:52.075
with the Northern Alliance at the outset

10:52.075 --> 10:53.715
of the war forms a battlefield coalition.

10:53.715 --> 10:54.875
You have American Special forces

10:54.975 --> 10:58.035
and Northern Alliance fighters working together, shoulder

10:58.095 --> 11:01.115
to shoulder fighting against the Taliban,

11:01.115 --> 11:04.915
the Taliban when it's still in power Partners with Al-Qaeda

11:04.975 --> 11:06.395
and the Pakistani Taliban.

11:06.895 --> 11:07.915
Uh, and then once the,

11:07.975 --> 11:10.355
the Afghan Taliban is ejected from power,

11:10.615 --> 11:13.315
you've got those three groups, all as non-state actors,

11:13.725 --> 11:17.315
still forming battlefield coalitions at places like Torah

11:17.385 --> 11:19.475
Bora during Operation Anaconda.

11:19.735 --> 11:22.875
Uh, and so what we're seeing is just this increased

11:23.115 --> 11:25.355
frequency in battlefield coalitions,

11:25.355 --> 11:27.355
but also an increased diversity in the kinds

11:27.355 --> 11:28.955
of actors that make them up.

11:29.415 --> 11:32.195
Uh, and as we look forward, yes,

11:32.195 --> 11:34.875
there are big questions about the Indo-Pacific, right?

11:34.875 --> 11:36.155
There probably aren't gonna be a whole lot

11:36.155 --> 11:38.475
of non-state actors participating in any battlefield

11:38.475 --> 11:41.235
coalitions waged, in the Western Pacific.

11:41.695 --> 11:43.275
But that's not the only place

11:43.275 --> 11:44.715
that conflict is going to emerge.

11:44.815 --> 11:47.835
We see that right now with respect to Ukraine,

11:47.835 --> 11:51.155
with respect to the fighting, in and around Gaza, right?

11:51.375 --> 11:53.645
States and non-state actors are going to partner.

11:53.865 --> 11:56.005
And so understanding more about what they look like,

11:56.455 --> 11:59.965
which provides us a, a baseline from which we can sort

11:59.965 --> 12:03.685
of dig in deeper and figure out how they do so effectively

12:03.685 --> 12:06.525
and less effectively, will give us better leverage on

12:06.525 --> 12:08.245
what conflict might look like moving forward.

00:00 - We were motivated. it started a long time ago. Ryan and know have known each other a long time and we were doing different stuff on the Korean War and it came together. We were like, wow, this is really complicated.

00:11 - The United States and the South Koreans not having a shared language, what's going on? And so that got us here. We're like, how did they manage to fight successfully together? And years later we started a big project on Battlefield coalitions for us. Lemme give you the academic long version and then I'll give you a simpler version. so for us, it's amalgamations of officers, troops

00:33 - and materials brought together by multiple distinct political communities for the purpose of jointly waging combat in the same operational battle space. So there's your long-winded version. The Fluter version is two groups fighting side by side on the battlefield, and really, again, sharing that battle space. And I wanna make this a little distinct from wartime coalitions, which most of us are probably familiar with.

00:56 - We think of the Iraq War, you know, lots of members, NATO members coming in. So we think these big coalitions, but we're not interested in those big coalitions. We're interested in those groups that take that next step to fight together. tip of spear seems pretty important. We're preparing, and when I say we, we are thinking in the west to the Indo-Pacific. And we're all we're focused on is how, what we're gonna do

01:19 - with our partners and how that might look and maybe fighting side by side. And so not sure why it's overlooked. It's definitely been studied by historians, and military folks. But as political scientists, things have been really focused on the wartime coalition or the alliance level. But these groups are old and a widespread phenomena. So lemme just take it back real far back.

01:43 - Alexander the Great right confronts and defeats many different battlefield coalitions on its march of the Balkans Asia Minor Persia and India. in around three 30 BCE, we can see the very IC tribes fighting together to stem Julius Caesar's drive into their territory. so these go back and back and back. so they're a really present phenomenon and so we're happy to shed some light on it. I Would just reiterate what Rosea has said so far.

02:11 - When we're thinking about battlefield coalitions, we are thinking about troops that are raised, trained, and equipped by different political communities, put shoulder to shoulder on the battlefield, in circumstances where there's a non-zero probability that there might be a friendly fire incident. So these are really tough coordination situations in really difficult circumstances. and as Rella mentioned, these are really old. we see them throughout history on every continent on the

02:41 - face of the earth, with the exception of Antarctica. you see them carried out by state-based militaries by non-state actors. native American tribes formed many coalitions with one another and with white settlers, as they worked to, both fight each other and try to stem white, advances in, into the western part of the United States. So why have they been overlooked? It's hard to say. a lot of academics tend to think at higher levels,

03:10 - think about those big alliances and wartime coalitions. But for us, what really is interesting here is that if we think about the causal chain between the actual implementation of force and those big political outcomes that shape the international system, this is a crucial missing link. and we're just trying to better understand it. It'll Be a little repetition in that just emphasizing alliances, and that's really what political sciences has focused on.

03:36 - But those are really peacetime agreements and most alliances don't translate into battlefield coalitions. And so that is a big disconnect that we're interested in understanding. And the other thing that has been really focused on is US and nato. And while wonderful that we look at us and nato, these are really distinct relationships. This transatlantic partnership, right?

03:59 - It's a longstanding alliance with deep ties amongst military members. And those are gonna look really different than let's say, those golic tribes that I mentioned, or various other types of battlefield coalitions. And so in focusing, in the western, you know, political science sense very narrowly on alliances or NATO members, we're really missing a bigger picture. And this will be especially problematic as we think about the future

04:25 - of war in which we will be fighting with non NATO allies. As Illa said, they, this data set effort really grew out of conversations that we had about what we were observing in our separate research projects about dynamics during the Korean War. and we were really interested in trying to understand who forms these coalitions, what do they look like, how do they perform on the battlefield? And looking around in the existing political science literature, the military history literature,

04:52 - there was no unified place where we could go just to even find out how common these these groups are. And so we set out to build a data set, even though both of us, are much happier sitting in archives looking through dusty papers. we were, were building a, a quantitative data set. so what we did is we, we looked from the time from 1900 to 2003 and relying on military historians to tell us what counts as a major battle in big interstate wars. we looked at 62 wars

05:27 - and we found 492 battles. And on each side, you've got two sides for each battle. So we constructed a data set of 984 belligerent sides. and so for each of these entries, we include information about who actually bought, as part of that side. we look at when the battle started, when it ended. if the belligerents were democracies, non democracies, if they were state actors, if they were non-state actors,

05:57 - how many troops did they field? Which was surprisingly hard to find in many cases, even some big battles, including ones out of the world wars. how many casualties did they suffer if there was a battlefield coalition? On one side, we also looked to see whether there were preexisting treaty agreements, if the groups had fought together previously, in battle, or if one actor a part of the Battlefield Coalition,

06:25 - kind of held back and only contributed airstrikes, for example. So collecting all of this information on both, battlefield coalitions and solo belligerence allows us for the first time to really get at our hands around, how common are these groups? What do they look like, how do they perform? And it allows us to compare them to belligerents that fight on their own rather than with partners.

06:50 - Most surprising things that came out for us is that battlefield coalitions are pretty common. almost one quarter of all of those belligerent sides from 1900 to 2003 were battlefield coalitions. So we're talking about a pretty common collective action phenomenon that, as we were talking about a few minutes ago, hasn't really received much attention from scholars. we found that they tend to fight better than solo belligerent.

07:20 - They win about 53% of the time compared to about 48% of the time for solo belligerence. They also fight more efficiently. So solo belligerents tend to suffer casualty rates around 25%, whereas for battlefield coalitions it's closer to 21%. I, and they, that might sound like a a small difference, but, but if you just take some average numbers from our dataset, the average belligerent side in our dataset numbered about 40,000 troops.

07:49 - And so if you think what a 25% casualty rate killed wounded missing looks like that's 10,000 people, a 21% casualty rate, that's about 808,300 people. So we're, we're talking about more than 1500 person difference in casualty rate, moving from solo belligerent to Battlefield Coalition. also to our surprise, we found this really isn't a US story. The US was only involved in about a third of the battlefield coalitions that formed between 1900

08:22 - and 2003, which given American dominance in the international system over the 20th century, you can kind of expect more of. it's also not a a, a NATO story. NATO only participated in four of the battles, in our dataset. And it's not even really an alliance story as, as Rosea was alluding to earlier, only 37% of the, battlefield coalitions that we have, have in our data set are comprised of members

08:48 - that had in peace time signed an agreement to come to the defense of one another. So we've got a really diverse set of actors coming together and for whatever reason, they tend to fight better together than they do alone. I was kind of pleased in the sense that it's really a non-native story as a scholar because so much of what we focus on is nato, which is wonderful, but this isn't that story. So that was really interesting to me.

09:12 - And I think really just the takeaway that they are bigger, they fight together and win more often than we anticipate, is just something to really think about. And from a policy perspective, it's something worth investing in. If we're thinking, wow, these groups win, we wanna be part of these groups and we also wanna think about and be aware of these goose wins, what if the other side are forming such groups?

09:37 - So it's really interesting for me to think about, wow, they, they're really coming together and, and being quite successful. The core takeaway for us from this portion of our, our larger research agenda, which wait, we're gonna spend many years, of our, our careers sort of unpacking things that we're finding is that battlefield coalitions matter. these are pretty common phenomena that we just haven't really paid a lot of attention to.

10:02 - one other finding that, that emerges from the data. Looking at the formation of these battlefield coalitions over time, between 1900 and roughly 1990, battlefield coalitions showed up about 25% of the time, but from the end of the Cold War to 2003, 52% of all belligerent sides were battlefield coalitions. So what we're seeing is a really remarkable increase in the frequency with which, states and non-state actors bring their forces together

10:35 - to fight on the battlefield. And, and sort of mirroring that jump in the frequency of battlefield coalitions is an increase in the frequency of non-state actors participating in that. So we can think about Afghanistan, right? The, the us partners with the Northern Alliance at the outset of the war forms a battlefield coalition. You have American Special forces and Northern Alliance fighters working together, shoulder

10:58 - to shoulder fighting against the Taliban, the Taliban when it's still in power Partners with Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. and then once the, the Afghan Taliban is ejected from power, you've got those three groups, all as non-state actors, still forming battlefield coalitions at places like Torah Bora during Operation Anaconda. and so what we're seeing is just this increased frequency in battlefield coalitions,

11:25 - but also an increased diversity in the kinds of actors that make them up. and as we look forward, yes, there are big questions about the Indo-Pacific, right? There probably aren't gonna be a whole lot of non-state actors participating in any battlefield coalitions waged, in the Western Pacific. But that's not the only place that conflict is going to emerge. We see that right now with respect to Ukraine,

11:47 - with respect to the fighting, in and around Gaza, right? States and non-state actors are going to partner. And so understanding more about what they look like, which provides us a, a baseline from which we can sort of dig in deeper and figure out how they do so effectively and less effectively, will give us better leverage on what conflict might look like moving forward.

Faculti AI can make mistakes