Divide and Conquer: Military Differentiation and Counterinsurgency Effectiveness

Jumping on the Bandwagon: Differentiation and Security Defection during Conflict

“…Instead of coup-proofing, a common reason for establishing multiple parallel militaries is specialized task sharing: while one army may be trained and equipped for interstate warfare, the other is employed for internal pacification. Although this difference in intentions for fractionalizing the security apparatus may seem subtle, it has profound implications for military effectiveness (Dworschak 2019) and, as I argue in this article, the likelihood of defection.…”

“…7 In this context, high fragmentation does not take place in order to forestall a coup but to have multiple security forces trained and equipped in different tasks: for one, India has a need to maintain conventional military capacity (large, mechanized forces) in light of the contestation with Pakistan and to deter other potential interstate challengers (Ladwig 2015; Kapur 2008). Additionally, however, the Indian government faces several insurgencies, which generally require nonconventional mobile units that are specially trained and equipped for asymmetric warfare (Pilster, Böhmelt, and Tago 2016; Lyall and Wilson 2009; Dworschak 2019). Therefore, the fact that India maintains multiple parallel security forces is not a result of coup-proofing but of task specialization.…”

“…Böhmelt and Clayton 2017, 1). In line with my conceptualization, and based on the distinction between counterbalancing and differentiation explained earlier, I adopt the adjusted differentiation index proposed by Dworschak (2019): 2 j + Σ j s j i t 2 . Here, j refers to the number of parallel military units per country-year observation ( i and t ), and s constitutes each unit’s share of overall military personnel per country-year.…”

“…Therefore, second, I interact the differentiation index with a measure of structural coup risk (Dworschak 2019; Powell 2019). The coup risk index by Belkin and Schofer (2003) captures the underlying propensity of a coup d’état happening (see also Belkin and Schofer 2005; Pilster and Böhmelt 2011; Carey, Colaresi, and Mitchell 2016).…”

“…There are many countries maintaining a highly fragmented security apparatus without any coup-proofing intentions. Such fragmentation instead aims at a specialization of individual force segments in different security tasks (e.g., counterinsurgency vs. conventional warfare) and is herein called “differentiation.” In contrast to counterbalancing, differentiation bears positive implications for effectiveness and capacity (Dworschak 2019). Consequently, while previous studies shed light on the link between coup-proofing measures and defection, I inquire “how does military differentiation influence the likelihood of defections during (non)violent uprisings?”…”