The impact of foreign fighters on civil conflict outcomes

Abstract

There has been a great deal of discussion about the large volumes of foreign fighters involved in civil conflicts in Syria and Iraq over recent years. Yet, there remains little systematic evidence about the effect, if any, that foreign fighters have upon the conflicts they join. Existing literature distinguishes between the resources fighters bring to rebel groups and the liability they represent in regards to campaign cohesion. We seek to establish preliminary evidence as to whether or not foreign fighters contribute to the success of the campaigns they join. Our multinomial logistic and competing risks regression analyses of civil conflicts between 1946 and 2013 suggest that foreign fighters are associated with a decreased likelihood of government victory. Furthermore, we offer partial evidence to suggest that foreign fighters from noncontiguous countries are more likely to help rebels achieve a negotiated settlement or to continue their struggle against the government, but not to directly help them achieve victory.

Female combatants, forced recruitment, and civil conflict outcomes

“…Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that methods of forced recruitment are associated with sharp reductions (58%) in rebels' likelihood of victory. Elsewhere, our models appear to return results largely consistent with other studies exploring conflict outcomes (Cunningham et al, 2009;Chu and Braithwaite, 2017). Government victory is shown to be less likely as the conflict endures and when they face rebel groups that enjoy a fighting advantage.…”

“…Our model specification includes four conflict-level characteristics: the number of years of conflict ('Conflict Duration'), the number of rebel groups concurrently fighting against the government ('Number Rebel Dyads'), and binary indicators of whether the rebel group is at parity with or stronger than the government in terms of military strength ('Rebel Fighting Advantage') or capacity to mobilize participants ('Rebel Mobilization Advantage'). Each of these variables have been commonly employed elsewhere in models of conflict outcomes (Cunningham et al, 2009;Chu and Braithwaite, 2017). We also include three countrylevel control variables: the regime's Polity score (Vreeland, 2008), logged GDP per capita, and logged population from the final full year of the conflict.…”

Civil Conflicts Abroad, Foreign Fighters, and Terrorism at Home

“…In critically assessing our results, it is also important to ask whether they simply reflect that terror campaigns are inspired by rebel fighting and victories elsewhere? FFs do help rebel groups resist an outright government victory, meaning they are a valuable resource to the campaign (Chu and Braithwaite 2017). Is there really a physical connection (in the form of flows of FFs) between the civil conflict and subsequent campaigns of terror?…”

When do ties bind? Foreign fighters, social embeddedness, and violence against civilians

“…Following recent studies on the effect of foreign fighters on conflict outcomes (Chu & Braithwaite, 2017), my main independent variables come from existing data on foreign fighters in civil conflicts collected by Malet (2016). 4 My primary independent variable accounts for foreign fighters joining a non-state group during civil war.…”

“…How do foreign fighters affect the trajectories of the conflicts they join? Despite increasing concern in the academic and policy arenas regarding the threat posed by foreigners joining civil wars around the globe (Bakke, 2014;Braithwaite & Chu, 2018;Chu & Braithwaite, 2017), we still know relatively little about how these actors shape local conflict dynamics. In 2002, the United Nations highlighted the threat, declaring, 'Whatever the nature of the conflict, mercenaries [ .…”