Pentagon shares factors it considers when determining 'will to fight'

One of the fundamental questions the Pentagon continuously grapples with is the determination of allies’ and adversaries’ willingness to fight in a conflict — an intangible, unquantifiable assessment that could prove fatal if incorrect.

There are a plethora of factors that can impact the analysis: the stakes of the conflict, what triggered it, how it is perceived by enemies, morale, and the objective, just to name a few. Each of them could hold different weights to various entities, and there is a “will to fight” assessment for both military leaders as well as the forces under them who could be on the front lines.