The thesis (A)symmteric dynamics of the conflict in Sri Lanka is an attempt to apply the theoretical concept of asymmetric conflicts and asymmetric warfare to the empirical case of the conflict in Sri Lanka and to figure out whether or not the asymmetric nature of the relationship between the sides of the conflict was the cause of the conflict's long term persistence and incapability of finding a durable solution to the conflict . In order to do so, the author first introduced the theoretical framework itself and highlighted the most significant features which were furthermore employed as the tool for the following analysis. On this basis the conflict in Sri Lanka was set into the theoretical framework and relevant asymmetries between the two counterparts - the Sri Lankan government/army and the organization of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - were identified. As the next step, the author tried to embrace the variable dynamics of the conflict in terms of relevant asymmetries and also symmetries which came to being within the course of the conflict. Since the symmetric situation is deemed to be more advantageous for finding the solution to a conflict, the author focused on the impact of the "symmetrization" on the prospects for the solution to the Sri Lankan conflict. However, the final findings...

Les conflits armés ont toujours été émaillés de nombreuses exactions commises contre les populations civiles, notamment lorsque la guerre présentait une dimension identitaire ou politique relativement affirmée. C'est encore le cas dans de nombreux conflits contemporains. Le droit international n'a pourtant cessé de se renforcer pour garantir à ces populations une meilleure protection contre les effets des hostilités, notamment par la signature de plusieurs conventions internationales à La Haye ou Genève qui constituent aujourd'hui le socle du droit international humanitaire. Il existe donc un contraste flagrant entre l'état du droit et la protection effective des populations sur le terrain. Pourquoi ? Recentré sur l'analyse de la conflictualité contemporaine, ce travail s'efforce d'en rechercher la cause dans l'évolution des cadres de référence des combattants et dans la manière dont ils influent sur leur définition de l'ennemi et sur leur conception de la place des civils dans la guerre. Il démontre comment l'évolution des causes de conflit comme de la pratique des combattants dans les guerres asymétriques ou déstructurées tend à replacer toujours plus les civils au coeur de la guerre. Cela ne signifie pas pour autant que le droit international humanitaire, adopté pour l'essentiel à l'issue des deux Guerres mondiales et au cours des années 1970, soit obsolète. De fait, au contraire, ses principales règles relatives à la protection des populations civiles sont assez souples pour s'adapter aux défis que posent les conflits contemporains, pour peu que les combattants veuillent les appliquer et en faire une interprétation raisonnable et de bonne foi / Armed conflicts have always been interspersed with numerous abuses committed against the civilian populations, notably when the war was of identity or political nature. This is also the case in number of modern conflicts. International law has however continued to strengthen in order to guarantee better protection to civilians against the effect of hostilities, notably by the signing of several conventions at the Hague and Geneva, which today constitute the basis of international humanitarian law. There is, therefore, a sharp contrast between the state of the law and the effective protection of civilians on the field. Why ? Refocusing on the analysis of modern conflicts, this work attempts to look for the cause in the development of soldier's references and in the way they influence their definition of the enemy and their conception of the role of civilians in war. It demonstrates how the evolution of the causes of conflict and the practices of soldiers in asymmetric and deconstructed conflicts tend to place more and more civilians at the heart of the war. This does not mean that international humanitarian law, adopted for the main part after the two World wars and during the seventies, is obsolete. On the contrary, its principal rules relative to the protection of the civilians are flexible enough to adapt to the challenges of modern conflicts, as long as the soldiers are willing to apply them and interpret them reasonably and honestly

práce je analyzovat dodržování základních pravidel mezinárodního Hlavní výzkumná otázka zní: "Inklinuje slabší či silnější těchto konfliktů k porušování povinností MHP více než ta druhá?" Hypotéza stanoví, že se slabší strany uchylují k porušování pravidel MHP více než jejich silnější protivníci. zpracována metodou komparativní případové studie ilně vyložena a operacionalizována na zkoumané případy aplikovatelná pravidla MHP. Těmi jsou společný článek 3 Ženevských úmluv, zásada vojenské nutnosti, zásada rozlišování, zásada proporcionality a zásada zakazující zbytečné útrapy. Následně je na základě údajů uvedených mezinárodních databázích ozbrojených konfliktů a rovněž informací získaných z odborných publikací proveden rozbor dodržování aplikovatelných norem MHP. Tento odhalil, že se porušování základních pravidel dopouštěly všechny strany zvolených konfliktů. Nebylo tak prokázáno, že by se slabší či silnější strany dopouštěly porušování více než jejich protivníci, čímž byla původní hypotéza vyvrácena. Bylo také zjištěno, že ačkoli byla v konfliktu stranami do jisté míry porušována stejná pravidla MHP, dělo se tak odlišným západosaharském konfliktu byla oběma stranami porušována stejná pravidla, a to jednáním totožným.

<p>Contest outcomes often involve some mix of skill and chance.  In three essays, I vary the sources of noise and show how player actions either influence, or are influenced by, noise.  I begin with a classic multi-battle contest, the Colonel Blotto game.  Due to his disadvantage in resources, the weak player in this contest stochastically distributes resources to a subset of battlefields while neglecting all others in an attempt to achieve a positive payoff.  In contrast, the strong player evenly distributes his resources in order to defend all battlefields, while randomly assigning extra resources to some.  Because the weak player benefits from randomizing over larger numbers of battlefields, a strong player has incentive to decrease the range over which the weak player can randomize.  When battlefields are exogenously partitioned into subsets, or \textit{fronts}, he is able to do this by decentralizing his forces to each front in a stage prior to the distribution of forces to battlefields and actual conflict.  These allocations are permanent, and each subset of battlefields effectively becomes its own, independent Blotto subgame.  I show that there exist parameter regions in which the strong player's unique equilibrium payoffs with decentralization are strictly higher than the unique equilibrium payoffs without decentralization.</p> <p><br></p> <p>In my second paper, I show how sources of exogenous noise, what Clausewitz referred to as the ``fog of war," obscure developments on the battlefield from the view of a military leader, while individual inexperience and lack of expertise in a particular situation influence his decisionmaking.  I model both forms of uncertainty using the decentralized Colonel Blotto game from the first chapter.  To do so, I first test the robustness of allocation-stage subgame perfect equilibria by changing the contest success function to a lottery, then I find the players' quantal response equilibria (QRE) to show how individual decision-making is impacted by bounded rationality and noisy best responses, represented by a range of psi values in the logit QRE.  I find that player actions rely significantly less on decentralization strategies under the lottery CSF compared to the case of the all-pay auction, owing mainly to the increased exogenous noise.  Moreover, agent QRE and heterogeneous QRE approximate subgame perfect equilibria for high values of psi in the case of an all-pay auction, but under the lottery CSF, QRE is largely unresponsive to changes in psi due to the increase in exogenous noise.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Finally, I examine a potential method for introducing noise into the all-pay auction (APA) contest success function (CSF) utilized in the Colonel Blotto games of the first two chapters.  Many contests are fundamentally structured as APA, yet there is a tendency in the empirical literature to utilize a lottery CSF when stochastic outcomes are possible or the tractability of pure strategy equilibria is desired.  However, previous literature has shown that using a lottery CSF sacrifices multiple distinguishing characteristics of the APA, such as the mixed strategy equilibria described by Baye, Kovenock, and de Vries (1996), the exclusion principle of Baye, Kovenock, and de Vries (1993), and the caps on lobbying principle of Che and Gale (1998).  I overcome this by formulating an APA that incorporates noise and retains the defining characteristics of an auction by forming a convex combination of the APA and fair lottery with the risk parameter lambda.  I prove that equilibria hold by following the proofs of Baye et al. (1996, 1993) and Che and Gale (1998), and I show the new CSF satisfies the axioms of Skaperdas (1996).  While player and auctioneer actions, payments, and revenues in the noisy APA adhere closely to the those of the APA for low levels of noise, the effect of discounted expected payoffs results in lower aggregate payments and payoffs when noise is high.  Finally, I show the noisy APA is only noise equivalent to the lottery CSF when lambda = 0, i.e., the fair lottery.</p>

Why do strong states, despite their far superior military capabilities, experience increasing difficulties in defeating small states in asymmetric conflicts? In this thesis I develop a conceptual framework based on Keohane &amp; Nye's theory of complex interdependence, in which I argue that the increased degree of mutual interdependence among strong states leads to decreased cost-tolerance when exercising military power. This, in turn, leads to power being exercised in other forms such as different types of sanctions, influence on political agendas or through political pressure made possible by asymmetric vulnerabilities. The conceptual framework is tested with descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression on all 118 cases of asymmetric conflicts fought between 1945 and 2003. The results challenge existing knowledge about factors such as the importance of military power, troop commitment, external support, the nature of government and freedom of the press. At the same time, risks are identified in small states’ strategies that are based on external support. The result of the study indicates that such strategies lead to increased cost-tolerance among strong intervening states.