Why Do Soldiers Give Up on the Battlefield? A Self-Preservation Theory of Surrender.

Wars end not when one belligerent eradicates the other but when the soldiers on the losing side decide that surrender is a more attractive choice than continued resistance. This dynamic plays out many times at lower levels during every war. Why do soldiers make this decision? This paper advances a new theory of surrender that, drawing on existing first-image and unit-level explanations, argues human cognitive processes and tendencies toward self-preservation are key to understanding why soldiers capitulate more readily at certain junctures than others. Specifically, it is argued that soldiers are most likely to surrender when they expect to be treated humanely and held captive for a relatively short period of time and least likely to give up when they expect high levels of abuse and lengthy imprisonment. The model is tested through and examination of surrender rates in World War I and findings indicate that it explains more of the observed variation in the historical record than existing theories. Simple statistical analysis employing what little systematic data exist on numbers of prisoners captured during twentieth century interstate wars further corroborates these findings. Implications for scholars and policymakers are briefly considered [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]