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Taking Guns to a Knife Fight: An Empirical Study of Effective Counterinsurgency
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Taking Guns to a Knife Fight
Effective Military Support to Counterinsurgency
DRAFT August 24, 2006
Abstract:The qualities and structures of a state’s internal security forces have a significant impact on reducing the risks and overall casualties from insurgent violence. To test this argument, I introduce a new micro-conflict dataset on counterinsurgency operations in the Philippines between 2001 and 2004 and measure the relationship between conflict deaths and the capacities of small military units tasked with suppressing rebel threats at local levels. My empirical tests isolate qualities of security forces not directly tied to aggregate state resources. I find that small units possessing superior leadership, training, and access to local information are more likely to conduct effective and discriminate counterinsurgency. Deploying locally recruited soldiers with specially trained elite forces as cadres is particularly effective at achieving this potent combination of capabilities. I also find empirical evidence that government forces that initiate operations at a higher rate relative to their opponents suffer fewer of their own soldiers killed in action, inflict more rebel casualties, and reduce the number of civilian fatalities as a result of conflict. These findings demonstrate that variation in the qualities of the military forces tasked with combating insurgent threats affect important conflict outcomes. Significantly, they indicate this variation is not fully determined by factors such as state wealth and level of development and that there is thus a major role for professional training of militaries in reducing the damage from, and possible prospects for, protracted insurgencies and civil wars.
Joseph H. Felter
U.S. Military Academy
Joseph.## email not listed ##
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Taking Guns to a Knife Fight
Effective Military Support to Counterinsurgency
DRAFT August 24, 2006
Abstract:The qualities and structures of a state’s internal security forces have a
significant impact on reducing the risks and overall casualties from insurgent violence.
To test this argument, I introduce a new micro-conflict dataset on counterinsurgency
operations in the Philippines between 2001 and 2004 and measure the relationship
between conflict deaths and the capacities of small military units tasked with suppressing
rebel threats at local levels. My empirical tests isolate qualities of security forces not
directly tied to aggregate state resources. I find that small units possessing superior
leadership, training, and access to local information are more likely to conduct effective
and discriminate counterinsurgency. Deploying locally recruited soldiers with specially
trained elite forces as cadres is particularly effective at achieving this potent
combination of capabilities. I also find empirical evidence that government forces that
initiate operations at a higher rate relative to their opponents suffer fewer of their own
soldiers killed in action, inflict more rebel casualties, and reduce the number of civilian
fatalities as a result of conflict. These findings demonstrate that variation in the qualities
of the military forces tasked with combating insurgent threats affect important conflict
outcomes. Significantly, they indicate this variation is not fully determined by factors
such as state wealth and level of development and that there is thus a major role for
professional training of militaries in reducing the damage from, and possible prospects
for, protracted insurgencies and civil wars.
Joseph H. Felter
U.S. Military Academy
Joseph.## email not listed ##
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