Effectiveness of intervention

The effectiveness of intervention is widely debated, in part because the data suffers from selection bias; as Fortna has argued, peacekeepers select themselves into difficult cases.^[46] When controlling for this effect, Forta holds that peacekeeping is resoundingly successful in shortening wars. However, other scholars disagree. Knaus and Stewart are extremely skeptical as to the effectiveness of interventions, holding that they can only work when they are performed with extreme caution and sensitivity to context, a strategy they label 'principled incrementalism'. Few interventions, for them, have demonstrated such an approach.^[47] Other scholars offer more specific criticisms; Dube and Naidu, for instance, show that US military aid, a less conventional form of intervention, seems to be siphoned off to paramilitaries thus exacerbating violence.^[48] Weinstein holds more generally that interventions might disrupt processes of 'autonomous recovery' whereby civil war contributes to state-building.^[49]

On average, a civil war with interstate intervention was

The effectiveness of intervention is widely debated, in part because the data suffers from selection bias; as Fortna has argued, peacekeepers select themselves into difficult cases.^[46] When controlling for this effect, Forta holds that peacekeeping is resoundingly successful in shortening wars. However, other scholars disagree. Knaus and Stewart are extremely skeptical as to the effectiveness of interventions, holding that they can only work when they are performed with extreme caution and sensitivity to context, a strategy they label 'principled incrementalism'. Few interventions, for them, have demonstrated such an approach.^[47] Other scholars offer more specific criticisms; Dube and Naidu, for instance, show that US military aid, a less conventional form of intervention, seems to be siphoned off to paramilitaries thus exacerbating violence.^[48] Weinstein holds more generally that interventions might disrupt processes of 'autonomous recovery' whereby civil war contributes to state-building.^[49]

On average, a civil war with interstate intervention was 300% longer than those without. When disaggregat

On average, a civil war with interstate intervention was 300% longer than those without. When disaggregated, a civil war with intervention on only one side is 156% longer, while when intervention occurs on both sides the average civil war is longer by an additional 92%. If one of the intervening states was a superpower, a civil war is a further 72% longer; a conflict such as the Angolan Civil War, in which there is two-sided foreign intervention, including by a superpower (actually, two superpowers in the case of Angola), would be 538% longer on average than a civil war without any international intervention.^[50]

The Cold War (1947–1991) provided a global network of material and ideological support that often helped perpetuate civil wars, which were mainly fought in weak ex-colonial states rather than the relatively strong states that were aligned with the Warsaw Pact and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In some cases, superpowers would superimpose Cold War ideology onto local conflicts, while in others local actors using Cold War ideology would attract the attention of a superpower to obtain support. Using a separate statistical evaluation than used above for interventions, civil wars that included pro- or anti-communist forces lasted 141% longer than the average non-Cold War conflict, while a Cold War civil war that attracted superpower intervention resulted in wars typically lasting over three times as long as other civil wars. Conversely, the end of the Cold War marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 resulted in a reduction in the duration of Cold War civil wars of 92% or, phrased another way, a roughly ten-fold increase in the rate of resolution of Cold War civil wars. Lengthy Cold War-associated civil conflicts that ground to a halt include the wars of Guatemala (1960–1996), El Salvador (1979–1991) and Nicaragua (1970–1990).^[51]

Post-2003

According to Barbara F. Walter, "post-2003 civil wars are different from previous civil wars in three striking ways. First, most of them are situated in Muslim-majority countries. Second, most of the rebel groups fighting these wars espouse radical Islamist ideas and goals. Third, most of these radical groups are pursuing transnational rather than national aims."^[52] She argues "that the transformation of information technology, especially the advent of the Web 2.0 in the early 2000s, is the big new innovation that is likely driving many of these changes."^[52]

Effects

Civil wars often have severe economic consequences: two studies estimate that each year of civil war reduces a country's [52] She argues "that the transformation of information technology, especially the advent of the Web 2.0 in the early 2000s, is the big new innovation that is likely driving many of these changes."^[52]

Effects

C

Civil wars often have severe economic consequences: two studies estimate that each year of civil war reduces a country's GDP growth by about 2%. It also has a regional effect, reducing the GDP growth of neighboring countries. Civil wars also have the potential to lock the country in a conflict trap, where each conflict increases the likelihood of future conflict.^[53]

See also