Does a state's use of indiscriminate violence incite insurgent attacks? To date, most existing theories and empirical studies have concluded that such violence is highly counterproductive because it creates new grievances while forcing victims to seek security, if not safety, in rebel arms. This proposition is tested using Russian artillery fire in Chechnya (2000 to 2005) to estimate indiscriminate violence's effect on subsequent patterns of insurgent attacks across matched pairs of similar shelled and nonshelled villages. The findings are counterintuitive. Shelled villages experience a 24 percent reduction in posttreatment mean insurgent attacks relative to control villages. In addition, commonly cited “triggers” for insurgent retaliation, including the lethality and destructiveness of indiscriminate violence, are either negatively correlated with insurgent attacks or statistically insignificant.

During the nineteenth century, states routinely defeated insurgent foes+ Over the twentieth century, however, this pattern reversed itself, with states increasingly less likely to defeat insurgents or avoid meeting at least some of their demands+ What accounts for this pattern of outcomes in counterinsurgency~COIN! wars? We argue that increasing mechanization within state militaries after World War I is primarily responsible for this shift+ Unlike their nineteenth-century predecessors, modern militaries possess force structures that inhibit information collection among local populations+ This not only complicates the process of sifting insurgents from noncombatants but increases the difficulty of selectively applying rewards and punishment among the fence-sitting population+ Modern militaries may therefore inadvertently fuel, rather than deter, insurgencies+ We test this argument with a new data set of 286 insurgencies~1800-2005! and a paired comparison of two U+S+ Army divisions in Iraq~2003-2004!+ We find that higher levels of mechanization, along with external support for insurgents and the counterinsurgent's status as an occupier, are associated with an increased probability of state defeat+ By contrast, we find only partial support for conventional power-and regime-based explanations, and no support for the view that rough terrain favors insurgent success+ With more than 300 insurgencies fought since 1800, the current "face" of battle in Iraq and Afghanistan is a familiar one+ Despite the recent burst of research investigating civil war onset and dynamics, however, less attention has been devoted to Author names are alphabetical+ We thank -Toft, along with three anonymous reviewers and the editors of IO, for helpful comments and conversations+ We also thank the soldiers and marines who agreed to be interviewed+ Sara Evans, Raymond Hicks, and Samantha Lomeli provided excellent research assistance+ We are also grateful for critical feedback on earlier versions from seminar participants at Columbia

How are civilian attitudes toward combatants affected by wartime victimization? Are these effects conditional on which combatant inflicted the harm? We investigate the determinants of wartime civilian attitudes towards combatants using a survey experiment across 204 villages in five Pashtun-dominated provinces of Afghanistan -the heart of the Taliban insurgency. We use endorsement experiments to indirectly elicit truthful answers to sensitive questions about support for different combatants. We demonstrate that civilian attitudes are asymmetric in nature. Harm inflicted by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is met with reduced support for ISAF and increased support for the Taliban, but Taliban-inflicted harm does not translate into greater ISAF support. We combine a multistage sampling design with hierarchical modeling to estimate ISAF and Taliban support at the individual, village, and district levels, permitting a more fine-grained analysis of wartime attitudes than previously possible.

D oes ethnicity matter for explaining violence during civil wars? I exploit variation in the identity of soldiers who conducted so-called "sweep" operations (zachistki) in Chechnya as an empirical strategy for testing the link between ethnicity and violence. Evidence suggests that the intensity and timing of insurgent attacks are conditional on who "swept" a particular village. For example, attacks decreased by about 40% after pro-Russian Chechen sweeps relative to similar Russianonly operations. These changes are difficult to reconcile with notions of Chechen solidarity or different tactical choices. Instead, evidence, albeit tentative, points toward the existence of a wartime "coethnicity advantage." Chechen soldiers, enmeshed in dense intraethnic networks, are better positioned to identify insurgents within the population and to issue credible threats against civilians for noncooperation. A second mechanism--prior experience as an insurgent--may also be at work. These findings suggest new avenues of research investigating the conditional effects of violence in civil wars.To find a bandit, I would quietly gather information and appear at his door at two or three at night, shake his hand, and say hello. After such a visit, this bandit would disappear. With three or four more operations, everyone would be clear on everything.