(Page 2 of 54) - Taking Guns to a Knife Fight: An Empirical Study of Effective Counterinsurgency authored by Felter, Joe.

The influence states’ internal security forces have on the risk and overall course of
rebellion is under theorized and receives comparatively little systematic analysis in the
growing academic literature on insurgency and civil wars. A major reason for this dearth
of analysis stems from the lack of available data on the nature of individual operations
initiated during these conflicts and the characteristics of the small units that conduct
them. This is unfortunate given the real “action” on the variable of interest for many
studies of intra-state violence- conflict deaths- is generated by the armed participants of
the conflict themselves.

Many scholarly efforts to explain why we see the costly violence from internal
conflicts take a “rebel centric” approach focusing on popular demand for rebellion rooted
in economic disparities and identity based cleavages among marginalized groups within a
state (Gurr 70, Horowitz 85). Persuasive maxims such as “winning the hearts and minds”
or mantras extolling the need to address the “root causes not the symptoms” of
insurgency resonate strongly with those inclined to believe rebels will lay down their
arms if and when they have a better option. More recent scholarship looks beyond
grievance based demands and identifies profit opportunities as the catalyst for violence
associated with rebellion and civil war. These conditions include the presence of natural
resources that lend themselves to being looted by rebels and other criminal opportunities
that increase the appeal of illegal appropriation over production (Collier Hoeffler 2001,
Sambanis 2002, Mueller 2003, Ross 2004).

I suspect that “hearts and minds” explanations and prescriptions may be overstated
and the role of the state under appreciated. Fearon Laitin (2003) provides compelling
evidence that refutes the causality of grievance and identity based theories, as well as
resource driven arguments, explaining the risk of civil war. Importantly, they
acknowledge grievances and profit opportunities may be present in many cases of civil
war but such factors are ubiquitous and can be found in many more cases where civil war
does not break out. In a comprehensive study of all civil wars occurring since 1945,
Fearon Laitin (2003) finds strong empirical support for the conclusion that a state’s risk
of experiencing a civil war is elevated by the same conditions that favor insurgency and
rural guerrilla warfare.

Important determinants of the prospects of an insurgency,

according to this empirical study, include the police and military capabilities and
competences of the government and the reach of government institutions into rural areas.
These capacities, they believe, are proxied by states’ GDP per capita.

If a state’s risk of civil war is closely associated with the conditions and factors
favorable to insurgency, an implicit corollary to this argument is the risk and scope of
civil war and rebellion are reduced by activities and conditions favoring effective
counterinsurgency. I will argue an important component of effective counterinsurgency is
the state’s internal security forces and their capacity to interdict and deter insurgent
threats at local levels. Development level may broadly predict state capacity and the
competence of its security forces, however, it is an imperfect proxy. We see considerable
variation in these capabilities across states at similar levels of development and within
states over time.

Ultimately, the onset, scope and duration of civil wars and the casualties they inflict
are determined at the ends of bayonets and point of impact of assault rifles’ bullets. At