Things fall apart: the endgame dynamics of internal wars

Abstract

Most internal wars end on the battlefield. Only a small percentage end at the negotiating table. While significant attention has been paid to how internal wars begin and how they evolve, relatively little attention has been paid to how they are concluded. What research has been done on this subject, furthermore, has focused almost exclusively on the problems that stand in the way of achieving a negotiated outcome, not on how these conflicts are so frequently resolved by force. This article examines the dynamics of the endgame struggle and the quite different ways in which states and insurgencies ‘win’ and ‘lose’ internal wars. We explore this topic theoretically and empirically in the first part of the article and examine the formal logic of the endgame in the second part, explaining how and why these endings follow a predictable pattern.

Notes

1 Internal War Database, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, 2006.

2 M Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, New York: Free Press, 1991.

3 See, for example, BF Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002; R Licklider (ed), Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End, New York: New York University Press, 1993; IW Zartman, Elusive Peace: Negotiating an End to Civil Wars, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1995; BF Walter & J Snyder (eds), Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999; P Collier, VL Elliott, H Hegre, A Hoeffler, M Reyanl-Querol & N Sambanis, Breaking the Conflict Trap, Washington, DC: World Bank/Oxford University Press, 2003; MW Doyle & N Sambanis, ‘International peace building: a theoretical and quantitative analysis’, American Political Science Review, 94 (4), pp 779 – 801; and R Licklider, ‘The consequences of negotiated settlements in civil wars, 1945 – 1993’, American Political Science Review, 89 (3), 1995.

4 Internal War Database.

5 Zartman, Elusive Peace, p 3.

6 GH McCormick, ‘A systems model of insurgency’, paper presented to the Insurgency Board of Experts, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, 22 June 2005.

7 Mao Tse-Tung, ‘Guerrilla warfare’, in SB Griffith II (trans), Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, Baltimore, MD: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1961, p 117.

8 Mao Tse-Tung, ‘Problems of strategy in guerrilla war against Japan’, Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-Tung, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1967.

9 JG Taylor, Lanchester Models of Warfare, Volume I, Arlington, VA: Operations Research Society of America, 1983, p 254.

10 McCormick, ‘A systems model of insurgency’.

11 GH McCormick & F Giordano, ‘The dynamics of insurgency’, paper presented to the Insurgency Board of Experts, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, June 2002; and McCormick, ‘A systems model of insurgency’.

12 N Leites & C Wolf, Jr, Rebellion and Authority: An Analytic Essay on Insurgent Conflicts, rand Report R-462-ARPA, Chicago, IL: Markham Publishing, 1970, p 68.

13 McCormick & Giordano, ‘The dynamics of insurgency’.

14 For an enduring discussion of why this is so often true, see AJR Mack, ‘Why big nations lose small wars: the politics of asymmetric conflict’, World Politics, 27 (2), 1975, pp 175 – 200.

15 AL Barabási & R Albert, ‘Emergence of scaling in random networks’, Science, 286, 1999, pp 509 – 512.

16 See, for example, D della Porta, ‘Introduction: on individual motivations in underground political organizations’, International Social Movement Research, Vol 4, Social Movements and Violence: Participation in Underground Organizations, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1992, pp 3 – 28.

17 See, for example, the discussion by Samuel Huntington in SP Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968.

18 M Buchanan, Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks, New York: WW Norton, 2002.

19 GH McCormick & G Owen, ‘Security and coordination in a clandestine organization’, Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 31, 2000, pp 175 – 192.

20 R Albert, H Jeong & A Barabási, ‘Error and attack tolerance of complex networks’, Nature, 406, 2000, pp 378 – 381; and P Ball, Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, p 385.

21 M Van Creveld, Command in War, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985, p 274.

22 BJ Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977, p 82.

23 Ibid, p 82; LE Cable, Conflict of Myths, New York: New York University Press, 1988, p 45; and C Bohannon, ‘The communist insurgency in the Philippines: the Hukbalahap, 1942 – 1955’, in TN Dupuy, Isolating the Guerrilla, Washington, DC: Historical Evaluation and Research Organization, 1966, p 120.

24 Bohannon, ‘The communist insurgency in the Philippines’, p 130; and Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, p 106.

25 Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, pp 128 – 135; RR Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency: Economic, Political, and Military Factors, Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept of the Army, 1963, p 64; RB Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, Volume II, New York: Doubleday, 1975, p 747; and Bohannon, ‘The communist insurgency in the Philippines’, p 122.

26 Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, p 169; Cable, Conflict of Myths, p 150; and Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, pp 67, 71.

27 Asprey, War in the Shadows, p 749; Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, p 63; and Cable, Conflict of Myths, p 49.

28 Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, p 189.

29 Ibid, p 189; and Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, pp 70 – 73.

30 Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, pp 73 – 76; and Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, pp 195 – 196, 200 – 203.

31 Bohannon, ‘The communist insurgency in the Philippines’, p 126; Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, p 203; and Cable, Conflict of Myths, p 50.

32 Asprey, War in the Shadows, p 755.

33 Bohannon, ‘The communist insurgency in the Philippines’, p 126; Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, pp 187 – 218; and Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, p 79.

34 Bohannon, ‘The communist insurgency in the Philippines’, pp 123 – 127.

35 Ibid, pp 123 – 127; and Cable, Conflict of Myths, p 52.

36 Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, p 242; Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, p 100; and Cable, Conflict of Myths, pp 52 – 54.

37 Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare, Washington, DC: Special Operations Research Office, American University, 1963, p 326; and Cable, Conflict of Myths, p 55.

38 Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, p 121.

39 Cable, Conflict of Myths, pp 58 – 59.

40 Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, pp 105 – 107; and Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare, p 327.

41 Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare, p 325.

42 Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, p 238.

43 Bohannon, ‘The communist insurgency in the Philippines’, pp 129 – 143.

44 Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, pp 246 – 247; and Cable, Conflict of Myths, pp 57 – 60.

45 Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare, p 329.

46 Cable, Conflict of Myths, p 60; and Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, pp 236 – 237.

47 Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, p 124; and Cable, Conflict of Myths, p 61.

48 Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, pp 208 – 209, 238 – 239.

49 Ibid, pp 168, 235 – 247; and Cable, Conflict of Myths, p 62.

50 Smith, The Hukbalahap Insurgency, pp 115 – 125; and Bohannon, ‘The communist insurgency in the Philippines’, p 129.

51 Bohannon, ‘The communist insurgency in the Philippines’, p 129.

52 Harvey Averch & John Koehler, ‘The Huk rebellion in the Philippines: quantitative approaches’, rand Report RM-6254-ARPA, 1970, p 2; and Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion, p 247.

53 P Jureidini, NA La Charite, BH Cooper & WA Lybrand, ‘The Cuban revolution: 1953 – 1959’, in Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare: Twenty-Three Summary Accounts, Washington, DC: Special Operations Research Office, American University, 1962, pp 167, 179.

54 T Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolutionaries in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Insurgents and Regimes since 1965, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992, p 16; and Jureidini et al, ‘The Cuban revolution’, p 167.

55 Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolutionaries in Latin America, p 16.

56 GA Geyer, Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro, Kansas City, MO: Andrews and McMeel, 1991, p 141; and JL Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, New York: Grove Press, 1997, p 184.

57 Jureidini et al, ‘The Cuban revolution’, pp 168 – 179; and L Huberman & PM Sweezy, Cuba: Anatomy of a Revolution, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1961, p 53. It is interesting to note that, even at this late date, there is considerable disagreement concerning just how large the Granma actually was. Size estimates range from 38 feet to over 60 feet. Perhaps someone should ask the ‘Captain’ while we still have time to do so.

58 RL Bonachea & M San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection: 1952 – 1959, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1974, p 85; and Jureidini et al, ‘The Cuban revolution’, p 179.

59 Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolutionaries in Latin America, p 141.

60 Jureidini et al, ‘The Cuban revolution’, p 174; and Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, p 39.

61 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, pp 39 – 40.

62 Jureidini et al, ‘The Cuban revolution’, p 181.

63 Ibid, pp 181 – 184.

64 Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolutionaries in Latin America, p 25; and Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, pp 93 – 95.

65 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, pp 97 – 98; and DEH Russell, Rebellion, Revolution, and Armed Force: A Comparative Study of Fifteen Countries with Special Emphasis on Cuba and South Africa, New York: Academic Press, 1974, pp 22 – 23.

66 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, pp 187 – 191, 223.

67 T Hughes, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, New York: Harper and Row, 1971, p 996.

68 Jureidini et al, ‘The Cuban revolution’, p 184.

69 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, p 229.

70 Ibid, pp 223 – 229; and Hughes, Cuba, pp 996 – 997.

71 Hughes, Cuba, pp 997 – 998, 1016.

72 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, p 263.

73 Ibid, pp 238 – 240, 266 – 271.

74 Hughes, Cuba, p 1005.

75 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, p 275.

76 Hughes, Cuba, pp 1013 – 1017.

77 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, pp 263 – 265; and Wickham-Crowley, Guerrillas and Revolutionaries in South America, p 191.

78 N Macaulay, ‘The Cuban rebel army: a numerical survey’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 58 (2), 1978; and M Perez-Stable, The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, p 62.

79 Macaulay, ‘The Cuban rebel army’, p 291; and Russell, Rebellion, Revolution and Armed Force, p 24.

80 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, p 288; and Hughes, Cuba, p 1014.

81 Hughes, Cuba, pp 1014 – 1019.

82 Ibid, pp 1018 – 1019.

83 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, pp 294 – 300.

84 Hughes, Cuba, p 1024.

85 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, pp 311 – 313; Hughes, Cuba, pp 1028 – 1029; and F Batista, Cuba Betrayed, New York: Vantage Press, 1962, p 137.

86 Bonachea & San Martín, The Cuban Insurrection, pp 315 – 325.

87 Jureidini et al, ‘The Cuban revolution’, p 187.

88 Based on McCormick & Giordano, ‘The dynamics of insurgency’.

89 See, for example, F Buckley & M Lewinter, A Friendly Introduction to Graph Theory, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003; and R Diestel, Graph Theory, New York: Springer Verlag, 1992.

90 R Albert, H Jeong & A Barabási, ‘Error and attack tolerance of complex networks', pp 378 – 381, and D Callaway, M Newman, S Strogatz & D Watts,‘Network robustness and fragility: percolation on random graphs’, Physical Review Letters, 85, 2000, pp 5468 – 5471; and M Girvan & M Newman, ‘Community structure in social and biological networks’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science Online, 99, 2002, pp 8271 – 8276; and M Newman & J Park, ‘Why social networks are different from other types of networks’, Physical Review E, 68, 2003.

91 Albert et al, ‘Network robustness and fragility’, pp 378 – 381.

92 Ibid.

93 McCormick & Owen, ‘Security and coordination in a clandestine organization’, pp 175 – 192.