Militarized decision-making for war in Pakistan: 1947-1971

In a balanced, constitutionally governed state, military decision-makers ar e no more likely to recommend war in a dispute than are civilian leaders. H owever, in military regimes, there is a tendency to import biases that syst ematically distort the contribution of a state's foreign and interior minis tries. Consequently, military governments become overly pessimistic about t he scarcity of security and overconfident about the utility of force. Using the case of war decisions in Pakistan from 1947-1971, this article suggest s that the process of militarized decision-making increases the tendency of a military regime to advocate war when isolated from civilian counterbalan ces.