A critique of Paul Collier's ‘greed and grievance’ thesis of civil war

Paul Collier has produced a well-written and apparently plausible thesis on ‘greed and grievance’, evidenced in several published texts, which concludes unambiguously that greed, not grievance, is overwhelmingly the cause of conflict. However, Collier has based these findings upon narrowly defined quantitative measures–three defined indices of greed and four indices of grievance. Collier consciously omitted indices which he found difficult to measure, such as suppliers of armaments and opportunities for bureaucratic corruption. However, he appears to have unwittingly omitted some further factors, including governance, management mechanisms for natural resources and the influence that charismatic leadership can have on rebel groups. These omissions can be viewed as a major flaw in Collier's work. They also explain why Collier has diagnosed that civil wars are more likely to occur in some countries in the developing world without offering adequate explanation of why this may be so.     

Introduction: Exploring the jungle of terminology

When twentieth-century authors wrote about ‘partisan warfare’, they usually meant an insurgency or asymmetric military operations conducted against a superior force by small bands of ideologically driven irregular fighters. By contrast, originally (i.e. before the French Revolution) ‘partisan’ in French, English, and German referred only to the leader of a detachment of special forces (party, partie, Parthey, détachement) which the major European powers used to conduct special operations alongside their regular forces. Such special operations were the classic definition of ‘small war’ (petite guerre) in the late seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries. The Spanish word ‘la guerrilla’, meaning nothing other than ‘small war’, only acquired an association with rebellion with the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon. Even after this, however, armies throughout the world have continued to employ special forces. In the late nineteenth century, their operations have still been referred to as prosecuting ‘la guerrilla’ or ‘small war’, which existed side by side with, and was often mixed with, ‘people's war’ or popular uprisings against hated regimes.     

Kinetics in counterinsurgency: some influences on soldier combat performance in the 1st Australian Task Force in the Vietnam War

Counterinsurgency is often characterized by large numbers of small fire-fights interspersed with a few larger battles. Heavy firepower contributes to the outcome of the larger battles but the smaller contacts are often fought by infantry without heavy weapons support. Infantry combat performance in these fire-fights is therefore a key concern. It has been fashionable to discuss soldier combat performance in terms of ‘firers’, ‘non-firers’, and ‘posturers’, but we argue that other factors have a greater impact. We provide a detailed statistical analysis of a selection of combat factors, using combat data collected by the 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) during the Vietnam War. An accepted measure of soldier lethality is the ‘shots per casualty’ ratio. Using this measure we are now able to describe the combat performance of the Australian infantry section in Vietnam in much greater detail than has hitherto been possible.     

Organizing for the ‘gray zone’ fight: early Cold War realities and the CIA’s Directorate of Operations

ABSTRACT

Despite its portrayal as something new, the concept of the ‘gray zone’ is not novel. It was the Cold War battleground in which the USA and the Soviet Union waged rival unconventional campaigns, and it was there that the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was given responsibility for operating. This was not the organization’s original purpose, but Cold War exigencies forced Washington to improvise and build an organization with unique capabilities. These early years shaped the CIA’s operations directorate, creating two distinct cultures within the larger agency, one focused on intelligence collection and the other focused on covert action.     

Lost through non-translation: bringing Clausewitz's writings on ‘new wars’ back in

While Carl von Clausewitz has generally been respected as one of the most profound philosophers of war, his expertise has been regarded as somewhat limited if not even irrelevant to the so-called ‘new wars’ of the post-Cold War world. Many scholars in international relations have claimed that ‘new wars’ are essentially ‘post-Clausewitzian’ and ‘post-trinitarian’ in nature, meaning that they are no longer fathomable through a Clausewitzian framework. However Clausewitz's earlier writings were nearly exclusively dedicated to guerrilla warfare, or what he called ‘small wars’. These writings have been largely overlooked by many analysts of contemporary conflicts. By drawing on his rare and untranslated writings, the article uncovers a critical part of Clausewitz's expertise in asymmetric warfare and shows that, far from being irrelevant in an age where interstate warfare is increasingly being replaced by conflicts between states and semi-/non-state actors, Clausewitz's philosophical writings actually shed new light into the particular interactive dynamics generated during wars waged under conditions of asymmetry.     

Diversionary Tactics and the Ethiopia–Eritrea War (1998–2000)

Diversionary theories of war suggest that leaders may engage in bellicose foreign policies to divert the public’s attention from domestic problems and capitalize on a ‘rally around the flag’ type of effect. The evidence regarding diversionary theory is quite mixed. More recently, scholars have focused on situations that create opportunities for diversionary behavior, such as international rivalry and territorial disputes. This paper adds to the growing literature on diversionary conflict by considering the Ethiopia–Eritrea case and applying an opportunity-based approach. We assess whether the Ethiopia–Eritrea War (1998–2000) is consistent with diversionary explanations for the war, as many have previously claimed.     

The effect of foreign state support to UNITA during the Angolan War (1975–1991)

ABSTRACT

State support for foreign rebel groups has become more salient, yet it remains unclear how this affects armed conflict. This paper therefore analyses the effect of foreign government assistance and does so in the typical case of the Angolan War (1975–1991). It argues that South African and United States support greatly helped the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) wage a large and sustained insurgency campaign but was ultimately insufficient to overthrow the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government because it enabled the incumbent government to obtain similar foreign assistance and because the level of aid awarded to UNITA fluctuated strongly, preventing it from engaging in meaningful long-term planning.     

Modelling international conflict under conditions of state level economic and political uncertainty

Formal models of international conflict have tended to concentrate on change across the security dimension, assuming that the state level economic and political dimensions are constant. However, the conclusion of the Cold War suggests that over the long run these dimensions are not constant; indeed, the development of economic power, state level limits on defence expenditures, structural impediments to economic change, and several other ‘constants’ clearly do have an endogenous role in international conflict. This paper suggests one strategy for their inclusion as a causal factor in conflict modelling.     

The American way of war in Africa: the case of Niger

ABSTRACT

Increasing attention paid to US casualties in far-flung places such as Tongo Tongo, Niger, and headlines claiming ‘secret wars’ have fueled discussion about American military’s involvement in Africa. Though the continent has been a part of the American way of war since the beginnings of the US – consider the early combat actions of US Marines in Tripoli –, current African conflicts are challenging our understanding of war and approaches to winning it. This article examines the ways America seeks to achieve its ends in Africa with a particular focus upon the last 10 years of US counter-terrorism and stability operations in Niger and the Sahel Region. The author proposes unifying American, Allied, and partner efforts through a strategy of Active Containment.     

Determinants of southeast asian military spending in the post-cold war era: a dynamic panel analysis

This study examines the demand of military expenditure among Southeast Asian countries since the end of the Cold War. By using a dynamic panel approach, I find that military spending in the region has been jointly determined by economic, strategic and socio-political factors. In particular, surging foreign debt burdens and the rise of China – two regional issues that gained prominence in the post-Cold War period – show their significance as determinants along with other generalist variables. The results therefore ask for the development of even-handed and region-sensitive approaches to studying military build-up in the region of Southeast Asia.     

基于网络的指挥控制协同性能评估模型

网络中心作战是通过部队网络化而实现的军事行动,网络化作战行动的评估需要新的模型和测量方法,以便获取基于信息优势对改进后的指挥和控制的效果.在借鉴美军经验的基础上,从信息的角度区分了网络中心作战信息栅格运作的方式,运用图论、复杂性理论和性能评估理论等方法,建立了作为信息处理系统的指挥控制网络的结构、预期延迟时间、协同影响、复杂性和有效期望等待时间模型,以及作为指挥控制系统的指挥控制网络的节点决策和网络决策效能模型,是对网络中心作战方法的探索.     

Nobody wins the victory taboo in just war theory

ABSTRACT

This article examines how scholars of the just war tradition think about the ethical dilemmas that arise in the endgame phase of modern warfare. In particular, it focuses upon their reticence to engage the idiom of ‘victory’. Why, it asks, have scholars been so reluctant to talk about what it means to ‘win’ a just war? It contends that, while just war scholars may have good reason to be sceptical about ‘victory’, engaging it would grant them a more direct view of the critical potentialities, but also the limitations, of just war reasoning.     

Explaining US and British performance in complex expeditionary operations: The civil-military dimension

A nation's structure and culture of civil-military relations are important and largely overlooked factors in explaining the performance of armed forces involved in complex expeditionary operations. The US model of ‘Huntingtonian’, divided civil-military structures and poor interagency cooperation, makes the US military less suited for complex expeditionary operations. British civil-military relations involve a Defence Ministry that conscientiously integrates military and civilian personnel, as well as extensive interagency cooperation and coordination. This ‘Janowitzean’, integrated form of civil-military relations makes the British military more likely to provide for the planning and implementation of comprehensive campaigns that employ and coordinate all instruments of power available to the state, as well as troops in the field displaying the flexibility and cultural and political understanding that are necessary in complex expeditionary operations.     

Waging the inchoate war: Defining,fighting, and second-guessing the ‘Long War’

Abstract

This article answers three questions: What is the nature of the Long War? How is progress (or lack thereof) to be assessed? Where is it likely to go next? An appreciation of Clausewitz shows that practical centers of gravity exist for the Long War, and that the conflict pivots upon the ability to persuasively link ideology to events via a strategic narrative. A close examination of an illustrative case study, the interaction between the US and the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq 2004 – 2006, shows that Al Qaeda has suffered a severe setback, but also that the nature of the war is set to shift yet again. Further tangible progress for the US requires waging the Long War as a global counterinsurgency based on a strategy of ‘selective identification’ (versus pure ‘disaggregation’) as well as an understanding of how to more effectively craft a strategic narrative.     

Colonial violence and its ‘Small Wars’: fighting the Kuki ‘guerillas’ during the Great War in Northeast India, 1917–1919

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns the lesser known British counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Northeast frontier of India during the First World War. Officially known as the ‘Kuki Operations’, it was considered as part of the Great War. Carried out in isolation from press and public, and shelved in colonial archives, the event remained invisible until today. Yet, it registers a critical case of colonial COIN doctrine where the ‘moral effect’ doctrine was employed without being questioned. It unleashed enormous amount of organized violence, ranging from shoot at sight to indiscriminate burning of villages, wholesale destruction of property and livestock, prevention of cultivation and rebuilding of villages, forced mass displacement in jungles or in ‘concentration camps’, and collective punishment (communal penal labour and payment of compensation) after the war. This paper argues that the theory of ‘minimum force’ and the practicability of the ‘moral effect’ doctrine as applied by the Empire, sit oddly with each other at the frontier, where violence was seen both as a natural and moral orders. Violence as an ‘imperatively necessary’ method to bring order in a disorderly frontier, in the opinion of colonial state, informs and registers Northeast India as geography of violence.     

Does military spending stimulate growth? An empirical investigation in Italy

This paper investigates the effect of military burden on economic growth and extends previous works on the optimal size of government expenditure by exploring how external threat affects the preferences of the households and, in turn, economic growth. Post World War II Italian data are used to estimate nonlinear growth models using time-series semi-parametric methods. The estimates show that total government and civilian burdens are productive, whereas, military burden has significant effects on economic growth through the expenditure for peacekeeping missions, which reduces the insecurity in the home country. This may justify economically the current not negligible budget devoted to peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.     

The Reluctant Atlanticist: France’s Security and Defence Policy in a Transatlantic Context

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the key tenets of French foreign and security policy during the Cold War, and illustrates the deep challenges to the French consensus raised by the emergence of a unipolar system. There is a growing gap between the rhetoric of French security policy, emphasizing ‘autonomy’ and ‘sovereignty’ out of habit from the Cold War, and the actual security practices showing a gradual embedding within the transatlantic security structures. In the absence of a new transpartisan grand narrative relevant for the contemporary international system, such embedding is easily portrayed in France as a ‘treason’ from a romanticized Gaullist foreign policy.     

Witchcraft and African development

Impressive investment and growth figures and commercial write-ups enthusing about ‘Africa rising up’, ‘the continent of the future’, and so on, obscure the poverty, illiteracy, poor health and other hardships afflicting the vast majority of African people. Why has massive so-called development and technical ‘aid’ not created the expected dynamic, autonomous economic progress? A blind eye is delicately being turned to the decisive role of people – more specifically, the cultural element. Notwithstanding good intentions, outsiders seeking to promote development assume that black Africans think and act like they only need more education, training and finance in order to ‘catch up’. Outsiders easily forget that since time immemorial, Africans have developed and cherished worldviews and cultures of their own. While these are by no means immutable and do adapt to changing needs and outside influences, Africans refuse to cast off overnight the heritage that makes them the people they are. This paper examines the impact of witchcraft as an integral feature of traditional culture on African existence, notably community life, religion, politics, the law, and economic practice. It stresses the significance of traditional society's powerful egalitarian impulses as well as its profound conviction that all things – goods, wealth, well-being and life force – are in a strictly limited supply that cannot be increased, but can only be redistributed by force or through magical manipulation. While modern life gradually weakens the influence of witchcraft beliefs – in Europe these flourished well into the 18th century – the exasperation associated with Africa's headlong urbanisation actually bolsters these beliefs.