Foreign Intervention and Warfare in Civil Wars: The effect of exogenous resources on the course and nature of the Angolan and Afghan conflicts

Abstract

This dissertation asks how foreign assistance to one or both sides in a civil war affects the dynamics of the conflict. This overarching question is subsequently divided into two further questions: 1) how does foreign intervention affect the capabilities of the recipient, and 2) how does this affect the nature of the warfare. The puzzle for the first is that the impact of foreign intervention on combat effectiveness frequently varies significantly between recipients. This variation is explained by recipients’ different abilities to convert the inputs of foreign intervention into the outputs of fighting capability. The nature of the warfare in civil war will change in line with the balance of military capabilities between the belligerents. The balance of capabilities will be responsible for the form of warfare at a particular place and time whether it be conventional, irregular or guerrilla/counter-guerrilla. The argument is then illustrated with two extensive case studies, of civil wars in Angola and Afghanistan, where temporal and spatial variation in the type of warfare is shown to correlate with the type, degree, and direction of foreign intervention.