Military spending, war duration, and regime type

Abstract

One of the more puzzling international relations questions is regarding why wars last as long as they do. This question is one that is widely studied but does not take into consideration the regime type of those involved in interstate conflicts. Therefore, this study answers the question of what factors impact war duration in wars between democracies and non democracies since 1950? Originally, it was believed that military expenditure would by far be the most important factor for determining war length in these relatively recent conflicts. However, the data shows that other variables such as terrain or casualties are much better at indicating how long one of these wars will last. While the original hypothesis was incorrect, this study still contributes to the literature by closely examining a specific time period of wars, while taking regime type into consideration unlike most previous works.