| The topic of war has been among the central questions in the study of international relations. Most of the studies on war do not venture beyond the primary stage of war initiation. Yet, the study of war or conflict cannot be properly understood without delving into the management and ending stages of war.;This dissertation is an original effort attempting to answer several important questions including: How and why do wars end? What factors influence leaders to decide to either continue fighting or negotiate a settlement? This study also, for the first time, devises a systematic approach to define the military and diplomatic winner/loser of war.;The propositions herein are formulated from various inductive and deductive studies and from the literature in the field in general. Most of the formulated hypotheses revolve around the connection between the military and diplomatic dimensions of war. The following links are explored: costs (measured by casualties and equipment losses) and diplomatic concession rates, costs and military performance of states, military performance and capabilities; military performance/capability and concession rates, military performance/capability and costs, and concession rates of actors.;The various propositions are operationalized and empirically tested using an original dataset the author compiled and coded. The data contain information about the military and diplomatic history of each war as well as the participants, costs and power of states. The population of cases consists of 20 interstate wars spanning the period 1948-1949.;The findings support some old theories and raise questions about others. A partial list of the findings include the following: the initiator of war tends to perform better than the target; the U.N. has played an important role in the ending process of wars; military wins are associated with low casualties; military performance is connected to concessions; military capability is important to the outcome of war; a conversion exists between military gains and diplomatic gains for the majority of wars; and high casualties and losses of equipment have little influence on the concession rates of states. |
