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.

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隔离、融合与死亡：来自朝鲜战争的证据

军事机构的设计如何影响谁承担战争成本？我们通过研究朝鲜战争期间美军从隔离到一体化的转型转变来回答这个问题。将关于战斗死亡的新微观数据与军事营部署和种族构成的档案数据相结合，我们表明黑人和白人士兵在隔离下的死亡率相似。定性和定量证据为这一违反直觉的无效发现提供了一种可能的解释：严重的战场问题需要在任何需要士兵的地方部署军事单位，无论他们的种族如何。我们接下来认为，战争中期的部队种族融合将士兵的命运更紧密地联系在一起，不应该改变相对死亡率。证据与这一预期一致。最后，虽然不同种族的总死亡率相同，但种族隔离导致短期伤亡差异。在种族隔离下，白人单位的伤亡率很高，其次是黑人单位的伤亡率很高。集成消除了这种可变性。这份研究报告强调了军队内部奉行种族隔离政策如何为指挥官的选择或冲突的指令和可变性创造宽松的条件，从而决定谁承担战争成本。