8 - Biting the Bullet

Summary

According to bargaining models of war, war reveals private information about resolve and power, to which decision-makers respond rationally by increasing or lowering their reservation price for settling. Germany during World War I presents a puzzle for this baseline rationalist expectation, and theoretical accounts offer three reasons by which leaders in a losing situation might nevertheless rationally continue to fight. If others cannot be expected to abide by any peace settlement, a commitment problem arises that makes fighting on rational. Even exploring diplomatic settlement could reveal private information about a lack of resolve. Self-interested leaders fearing that defeat will result in domestic turmoil, revolution, and the loss of their elite prerogatives might have incentives to “gamble for resurrection.” I argue instead that are all more parsimoniously accounted for through a focus on morality, the expression of the ethics of German nationalists. The nationalist understanding of adversaries as lacking ethical restraint generates the perception of a commitment problem that makes anything else than victory unacceptable. Even peace overtures are dangerous. The German right scorned demands for further democratization during the war as selfish class politics, a betrayal indicating that the country was not unified enough for this existential struggle.