My experience with trying to investigate various questions is that it’s pretty hard to ex ante predict which things already have substantial attention from the “experts”, and many questions that seem important fall through the cracks (for some EA-relevant examples that comes to mind, optimal charity, AI risk, pandemic preparedness, the impact of incarceration on crime).[1]
In this case, I don’t think the specific question I’m interested in has attracted a lot of academic attention/I don’t believe any single field has a good unifying theory. Just war theory is overwhelmingly normative with limited descriptivist content. IHL scholarship is interpretive and doctrinal. IR/game theory scholarship has partial answers, but afaik no one has synthesized them into a structural theory of war crime, etc, etc[2].
Second, I’m definitely reading a bunch of sources here! I’m sure I’ll miss a bunch but I’m certainly reading through a bunch of sources, including historical ones.
Third, if you believe the most useful thing to do here is a literature review, be the change you want to see in the world! Like if you think what’s missing in the world is a pure literature review summarizing various theories, go for it! I’d be happy to read your review.
Watts (2013) talking about perfidy specifically is the closest. But tbc there have been many shadows of this theory/hypothesis over the centuries, since at least 2400 years ago and probably long before.
Your experience reminded me of how Holden Karnofsky described his career so far:
The general theme of my career is just taking questions, especially questions about how to give effectively, where it’s just like no one’s really gotten started on this question. Even doing a pretty crappy analysis can be better than what already exists. So often what I have done in my career, what I consider myself to have kind of specialized in, in a sense, is I do the first cut crappy analysis of some question that has not been analyzed much and is very important. Then I build a team to do better analysis of that question. That’s been my general pattern. I think that’s the most generalizable skill I’ve had
I guess a “but can’t we, like, just outlaw all war?” approach is not the standard one so I’m at least interested in what answers you may find. Especially with me coming from a very, umm, war-prone country...
You might like this post I wrote earlier about the bargaining theory puzzle of war. I engaged with the academic literature on the subject pretty significantly, particularly James Fearon, so you might like it. On the other hand Fearon himself mostly reasoned from first-principles rather than conduct a careful historical assessment, so in that regard it might fit your interests less.
The post never got very popular but a few people who read it carefully really enjoyed it. One of the better compliments I’ve gotten on my writing is when somebody said they were surprised to learn after reading my post and several books on the subject that the post gave them >50% of the value of an academic book on the subject.
No offense taken!
My experience with trying to investigate various questions is that it’s pretty hard to ex ante predict which things already have substantial attention from the “experts”, and many questions that seem important fall through the cracks (for some EA-relevant examples that comes to mind, optimal charity, AI risk, pandemic preparedness, the impact of incarceration on crime).[1]
In this case, I don’t think the specific question I’m interested in has attracted a lot of academic attention/I don’t believe any single field has a good unifying theory. Just war theory is overwhelmingly normative with limited descriptivist content. IHL scholarship is interpretive and doctrinal. IR/game theory scholarship has partial answers, but afaik no one has synthesized them into a structural theory of war crime, etc, etc[2].
Second, I’m definitely reading a bunch of sources here! I’m sure I’ll miss a bunch but I’m certainly reading through a bunch of sources, including historical ones.
Third, if you believe the most useful thing to do here is a literature review, be the change you want to see in the world! Like if you think what’s missing in the world is a pure literature review summarizing various theories, go for it! I’d be happy to read your review.
As an example in the other direction, many US gov’t agencies are just kinda reasonable and make pretty reasonable tradeoffs given their constraints.
Watts (2013) talking about perfidy specifically is the closest. But tbc there have been many shadows of this theory/hypothesis over the centuries, since at least 2400 years ago and probably long before.
Your experience reminded me of how Holden Karnofsky described his career so far:
Thanks, though tbc Holden’s way better at it than I am!
Thanks for the serious reply!
I guess a “but can’t we, like, just outlaw all war?” approach is not the standard one so I’m at least interested in what answers you may find. Especially with me coming from a very, umm, war-prone country...
You might like this post I wrote earlier about the bargaining theory puzzle of war. I engaged with the academic literature on the subject pretty significantly, particularly James Fearon, so you might like it. On the other hand Fearon himself mostly reasoned from first-principles rather than conduct a careful historical assessment, so in that regard it might fit your interests less.
The post never got very popular but a few people who read it carefully really enjoyed it. One of the better compliments I’ve gotten on my writing is when somebody said they were surprised to learn after reading my post and several books on the subject that the post gave them >50% of the value of an academic book on the subject.