The Role of External Support in Civil War Termination

• Author: Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham,William Reed,Katherine Sawyer
• Published date: 01 July 2017
• Date: 01 July 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0022002715600761
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

The Role of External

Support in Civil War

Termination

Katherine Sawyer

1

, Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham

1,2

,

and William Reed

1

Abstract

Many studies highlight the role that international intervention can play in prolonging

civil wars. Yet, direct military intervention is just one way that external actors

become involved in civil conflicts. In this article, a model is developed and analyzed

that shows that when the government is unsure about how external support to the

rebels will help rebel war-making capacity, it is the government that will continue

fighting rather than settle the dispute. Different types of external support to rebels

influence their fighting capacity differently, and some types of support create

uncertainty about how new resources will translate into war-making ability. Spe-

cifically, more fungible sources of support (such as direct financial support) generate

the most uncertainty for states as they attempt to estimate the effect of support to

rebels on the conflict. Increased uncertainty inhibits bargained settlement, and dis-

putes characterized by fungible external support are less likely to end than those

where rebels receive different kinds of support. Empirical analyses demonstrate

strong support for this argument; rebels that receive highly fungible external support

(money and guns) are less likely to see conflict termination than rebels that do not.

Keywords

civil wars, conflict, war outcomes, game theory

1

Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

2

Peace Research Institute Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Katherine Sawyer, Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.

Email: ksawyer@umd.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2017, Vol. 61(6) 1174-1202

ªThe Author(s) 2015

Reprints and permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0022002715600761

journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr

Civil wars have become the dominant form of armed conflict in the international

system in the past few decades. These internal conflicts have proven exceedingly

difficult to resolve (through either negotiated settlement or victory by one side) and

a number of factors have contributed to this, from multiple warring parties to rough

terrain, to military interventions.

1

Moreover, while these wars often occur within a

single state, the international community seldom treats civil wars as solely a domes-

tic problem for governments facing such challenges. Individual states and interna-

tional organizations get involved in these disputes in a number of ways, both

humanitarian in nature and overtly self-interested.

2

Yet, despite the concerted effort

by the international community aimed at ending civil wars, internal conflicts are fre-

quently long lasting and hard to resolve conclusively.

Existing literature demonstrates that third parties external to a civil war can play

both conflict-promoting and conflict-inhibiting roles. Guarantees by third parties

make negotiated settlements more likely (Walter 2002). Direct external support to

states and rebels, in contrast, has been identified as playing a significant role in

prolonging civil wars on average (Regan 2002). In general, this literature has

focused on the effects of direct external support, including how it can generate a con-

flict sustaining balance of power between actors, its potential for conflict manage-

ment, and how third parties can introduce additional veto players that make

settlement more difficult. These approaches are all rooted in the idea that ‘‘support’’

or a ‘‘guarantee’’ will be in the form of military might (i.e., allocation of troops or

direct military intervention).

Yet, we know empirically that there are other types of support provided to com-

batants in civil war. We argue that not all forms of support offered in civil war will

have commensurate effects, and different types of support (such as monetary sup-

port, arms, information, and the ability to base in an external territory) can have

different effects on the chance of civil wars ending. Specifically, we argue that

the most fungible resource given to rebels in civil war (particularly direct finan-

cial support) generates uncertainty about rebel capability, and this in turn

decreases the chance of resolution by increasing uncertainty about possible set-

tlement options and exacerbating rebel commitment problems that prohibit set-

tlement. In our empirical analysis, we find varying effects of different types of

external support to rebels. We find that providing more fungible types of support

(such as financial support or arms transfers) corresponds with a decreased chance of

civil war termination, but other types of support do not have this effect or have an

opposing effect.

In this article, we propose a micro-foundational story for the government’s often

observed reluctance to sign a peace agreement when the rebels are receiving external

support. Our explanation is linked explicitly to how fungible the external support for

rebels is, and the government’s uncertainty surrounding how such support translates

to fighting power for rebels. As the ongoing civil war in Syria demonstrates, the

extent and nature of support to rebels can be extremely unclear. The Syrian opposi-

tion appeared to believe support was forthcoming at the outset of the war, while the

Sawyer et al. 1175