Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:44:53.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Segregation, Integration, and Death: Evidence from the Korean War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2021

Connor Huff  and
Robert Schub
Get access

Abstract

How does the design of military institutions affect who bears the costs of war? We answer this question by studying the transformative shift from segregated to integrated US military units during the Korean War. Combining new micro-level data on combat fatalities with archival data on the deployment and racial composition of military battalions, we show that Black and white soldiers died at similar rates under segregation. Qualitative and quantitative evidence provides one potential explanation for this counterintuitive null finding: acute battlefield concerns necessitated deploying military units wherever soldiers were needed, regardless of their race. We next argue that the mid-war racial integration of units, which tied the fates of soldiers more closely together, should not alter the relative fatality rates. The evidence is consistent with this expectation. Finally, while aggregate fatality rates were equal across races, segregation enabled short-term casualty discrepancies. Under segregation there were high casualty periods for white units followed by high casualty periods for Black units. Integration eliminated this variability. This research note highlights how enshrining segregationist policies within militaries creates permissive conditions for either commanders' choices, or the dictates and variability of conflict, to shape who bears war's costs.

Keywords

International conflictinternational securityrace and ethnic politicscosts of war
Type
Research Note
Information
International Organization , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , Summer 2021 , pp. 858 - 879
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Balcells, Laia, and Sullivan, Christopher. 2018. New Findings From Conflict Archives: An Introduction and Methodological Framework. Journal of Peace Research 55 (2):137–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barkawi, Tarak. 2017. Soldiers of Empire. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlin, Ira, Reidy, Joseph Patrick, and Rowland, Leslie. 1998. Freedom's Soldiers: The Black Military Experience in the Civil War. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bogart, Leo. 1992. Project Clear: Social Research and the Desegregation of the United States Army. Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Boose, Donald. 2005. US Army Forces in the Korean War 1950–1953. Osprey Publishing.Google Scholar
Bove, Vincenzo, and Ruggeri, Andrea. 2016. Kinds of Blue: Diversity in UN Peacekeeping Missions and Civilian Protection. British Journal of Political Science 46 (3):681–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowers, William, Hammond, William, and MacGarrigle, George. 1997. Black Soldier, White Army: The Twenty-fourth Infantry Regiment in Korea. Diane Publishing.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Smith, Alastair, Siverson, Randolph, and Morrow, James. 2005. The Logic of Political Survival. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Caverley, Jonathan. 2014. Democratic Militarism: Voting, Wealth, and War. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cil, Deniz, Fjelde, Hanne, Hultman, Lisa, and Nilsson, Desirée. 2020. Mapping Blue Helmets: Introducing the Geocoded Peacekeeping Operations (Geo-PKO) Dataset. Journal of Peace Research 57 (2):360–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Dara Kay, Huff, Connor, and Schub, Robert. 2021. At War and at Home: The Consequences of US Women Combat Casualties. Journal of Conflict Resolution 65 (4):647–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fazal, Tanisha. 2014. Dead Wrong? Battle Deaths, Military Medicine, and Exaggerated Reports of War's Demise. International Security 39 (1):95–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Ronald. 1935. The Design of Experiments. Oliver and Boyd.Google Scholar
Glick, Peter, and Fiske, Susan. 1996. The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating Hostile and Benevolent Sexism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70 (3):491–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gourevitch, Peter. 1978. The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Politics. International Organization 32 (4):881–912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halberstam, David. 2009. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. Pan Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hannings, Bud. 2007. The Korean War: An Exhaustive Chronology, vol. 1. McFarland.Google Scholar
Knauer, Christine. 2014. Let Us Fight As Free Men: Black Soldiers and Civil Rights. University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krebs, Ronald. 2006. Fighting for Rights: Military Service and the Politics of Citizenship. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kriner, Douglas, and Shen, Francis. 2010. The Casualty Gap: The Causes and Consequences of American Wartime Inequalities. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, Mitchell. 2018. “Is It For This We Fought And Bled?” The Korean War and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Journal of Military History 82 (2):515–45.Google Scholar
Levy, Yagil. 2012. Israel's Death Hierarchy: Casualty Aversion in a Militarized Democracy. New York University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyall, Jason. 2010. Are Coethnics More Effective Counterinsurgents? Evidence from the Second Chechen War. American Political Science Review 104 (1):1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyall, Jason. 2020. Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
MacGregor, Morris. 1981. Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965. Center of Military History, United States Army.Google Scholar
Maxwell, Jeremy. 2018. Brotherhood in Combat: How African Americans Found Equality in Korea and Vietnam. University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Moskos, Charles, and Butler, John Sibley. 1996. All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Phillips, Kimberley. 2012. War! What Is It Good For? Black Freedom Struggles and the US Military from World War II to Iraq. University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, Stephen. 1996. Societies and Military Power: India and Its Armies. Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenbaum, Paul. 2002. Observational Studies. Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheve, Kenneth, and Stasavage, David. 2012. Democracy, War, and Wealth: Lessons from Two Centuries of Inheritance Taxation. American Political Science Review 106 (1):81–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharp, Jeremy. 2006. Iraq's New Security Forces: The Challenge of Sectarian and Ethnic Influences. Congress Research Service.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1992. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992. Blackwell Oxford.Google Scholar
Weeks, Jessica. 2014. Dictators at War and Peace. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Huff and Schub supplementary material

Huff and Schub supplementary material

Download Huff and Schub supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 220.5 KB
Supplementary material: Link

Huff and Schub Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SVMFIQ
Link