Studies of the effect of past actions have focused on yielding without a fight. What happens, however, when states fight and lose? This article assesses the effect of defeat on a state’s behavior and finds that recently defeated states are more likely to initiate disputes than are undefeated or victorious states or states that fight to a draw. This aggression comes at the expense of states responsible for defeat and third-party states uninvolved in the original defeat. The analysis below examines the validity of five potential explanations for postdefeat aggression, including models rooted in failed political objectives, an emotional desire for revenge and reputation-building and finds evidence in support for the latter two. These existing mechanisms fail, however, to explain a key finding—the systematic targeting of weaker, third-party states—which, I argue, is best explained by a desire to bolster the state’s status and confidence in the aftermath of defeat.

中文翻译：

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失败的后果：战争后对地位和士气的追求

对过去行动的影响的研究集中在不打架的屈服上。但是，当国家战败时会发生什么？本文评估了失败对一个国家行为的影响，并发现与不败或胜利的国家或争取平局的国家相比，最近被击败的国家更有可能引发争议。这种侵略是以牺牲对失败负责的国家和不参与原始失败的第三方国家为代价的。以下分析检查了对失败后侵略的五种可能解释的有效性，包括基于失败的政治目标，对复仇的情感渴望和建立声誉的模型，并找到了支持后两者的证据。但是，这些现有的机制无法解释一项关键发现-系统地针对较弱，