How Foreign State Support for Rebel Groups Affects Conflict Outcome: a Mixed Method Approach

How Foreign State Support for Rebel Groups Affects Conflict Outcome: A Mixed Method Approach

A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities

2019

Quint Hoekstra

School of Social Sciences Department of Politics Contents

List of Tables ...... 5 List of Figures ...... 6 Abstract ...... 7 Declaration ...... 8 Copyright ...... 8 Publications ...... 9 Data availability ...... 10 Acknowledgements ...... 11 List of Acronyms ...... 12 Introduction ...... 15

Definitions ...... 16 The literature ...... 19 Purpose and scope ...... 20 Assumptions and method ...... 21 Findings ...... 22 Thesis Outline ...... 24

Chapter 1: Conceptualising State Support ...... 26

Defining state support ...... 26 History of state support ...... 29 Motives for state support ...... 30 Types of support ...... 38 Conclusion ...... 51

Chapter 2: Three Rival Views on the Effect of Foreign State Support ...... 52

Positive view ...... 52 Neutral view ...... 55 Negative view ...... 62 Existing quantitative evidence ...... 65 Conclusion ...... 70

Chapter 3: The Mixed Method Research design ...... 72

Mixed method ...... 72 Quantitative analysis ...... 77

Qualitative analysis ...... 81 Conclusion ...... 91

Chapter 4: Quantitative Analysis ...... 92

The data set ...... 93 Overall effect ...... 99 Types of support ...... 110 Discussion ...... 116 Conclusion ...... 118

Chapter 5: The Angolan War ...... 120

Phase 1: Conflict onset ...... 122 Phase 2: Support increases ...... 125 Phase 3: Support decreases ...... 134 Phase 4: Support increases again ...... 138 Phase 5: Support decreases again ...... 145 Discussion ...... 148 Conclusion ...... 153

Chapter 6: The Nicaraguan Contra War ...... 155

Phase 1: Conflict onset ...... 157 Phase 2: Support increases ...... 162 Phase 3: Support decreases ...... 170 Phase 4: Support increases again ...... 176 Phase 5: Support decreases again ...... 181 Discussion ...... 186 Conclusion ...... 191

Chapter 7: Discussion ...... 193

The main finding ...... 194 Causes of support reduction impact ...... 202 Types of support ...... 205 Conclusion ...... 209

Conclusion...... 211

Contribution to theory ...... 212

Empirical contribution ...... 214 Future work ...... 215 Implications for policymakers...... 216

Appendix: List of Interviews ...... 219 Bibliography ...... 221

Word Count: 79,980

List of Tables Table 1. Overview existing quantitative studies results...... 66 Table 2. Overview of existing quantitative results on types of support...... 69 Table 3. Univariate descriptive statistics...... 99 Table 4. Cross tabulation of state support awarded to each side...... 100 Table 5. Cross tabulation of state support with conflict outcome...... 100 Table 6. Multinomial logit model on the effect of state support (Model 1A)...... 103 Table 7. Multinomial logit model on the effect of state support, with control variables (Model 1B)...... 104 Table 8. Multicollinearity test on Model 1B...... 106 Table 9. Wald test on Model 1B...... 106 Table 10. Pseudo-R2 of Model 1A, 1B, and 1C...... 107 Table 11. Cross tabulation of types of state support with conflict outcome...... 110 Table 12. Multinomial logit model of types of state support (Model 2A)...... 112 Table 13. Multinomial logit model of types of state support, with control variables (Model 2B)...... 113 Table 14. Multicollinearity test on types of support...... 114 Table 15. Wald test on types of support...... 115 Table 16. Pseudo-R2 on types of state support...... 115 Table 17. Overview of Angolan War phases...... 121 Table 18. Overview of types of state support received by UNITA by war phase...... 122 Table 19. Overview of Angolan War phase including interim outcome...... 148 Table 20. Overview of level of support to the Contras by war phase...... 157 Table 21. Overview of types of state support received by the Contras by war phase. 157 Table 22. Overview of Nicaraguan Contra War phases including interim outcome. .. 187 Table 23. Comparison of operational effects of different types of state support...... 209

List of Figures

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the positive view (H1, main form)...... 55

Figure 2. Schematic diagram of the neutral view (H2, main form)...... 61

Figure 3. Schematic diagram of the negative view (H3, main form)...... 65 Figure 4. Outcomes of conflict dyads with and without state-supported rebel groups...... 101 Figure 5. Predicted probabilities of state support on conflict outcome...... 109 Figure 6. Predicted probabilities of sanctuary on conflict outcome...... 116 Figure 7. Schematic diagram of the main finding...... 195

List of Maps Map 1. Map of Angola...... 120 Map 2. Map of Nicaragua...... 155

Abstract

This thesis examines whether foreign government assistance makes rebel groups more likely to win intrastate armed conflicts. It investigates this topic using a mixed method research design consisting of a quantitative analysis of state support awarded to rebel groups in terminated armed conflicts between 1946 and 2010 and a qualitative analysis of two case studies: the Angolan War (1975 – 1991) and the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979 – 1990). The statistical results reveal that foreign government assistance to the rebel side is associated with conflict outcomes that are less favourable to the recipient party. The case studies, which draw on interview data obtained during fieldwork in South Africa and Nicaragua, explain why this is the case: state support does increase rebel activity, but because it also generates substantial opposition to the sponsoring government, states frequently reduce or terminate their support. This suddenly leaves the insurgents without the means to fight and generally results in a conflict outcome that falls well short of a rebel victory. This thesis’ findings increase our understanding of foreign influence on civil wars, helps us better understand the trajectories and outcomes of intrastate armed conflict, and may inform policymakers dealing with state-supported rebel groups.

Declaration

No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.

The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=24420), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses.

Publications

All material contained in this thesis has been written for this purpose, but parts of it have already been published in the form of three journal articles.

Part of Chapter 5 has been published as: Quint Hoekstra. 2018. “The Effect of Foreign State Support to UNITA during the Angolan War (1975–1991)”, Small Wars & Insurgencies no. 29 (5-6): 981-1005. Quint Hoekstra. 2019. “Conflict Diamonds and the Angolan Civil War (1992 – 2002)”, Third World Quarterly no. 40 (7): 1322-1339.

Part of Chapter 6 has been published as: Quint Hoekstra. Forthcoming. “Helping the Contras: The Effectiveness of US Support for Foreign Rebels during the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979 – 1990)”, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.

These publications also contain small sections (such as definitions and theories) from other chapters (most notably Chapter 1 and 2).

Data availability

This thesis makes use of a large-n data set, which is available (in .dta format) together with a syntax file (.do) and codebook (.docx) upon request at [email protected].

Acknowledgements

While writing this thesis I have been fortunate to be surrounded by amazing people who, knowingly or unknowingly, have greatly contributed to the final product. I first wish to thank my supervisors, James Pattison (2016 – 2019), Roger Mac Ginty (2016 – 2018), and Martin Coward (2018 – 2019) for always making time for me and for their excellent advice. I also thank the (former) staff at the University of Manchester who have kindly read draft chapters: Allard Duursma, Elena Barabantseva, Nick Turnbull, Marta Cantijoch, Chris Prosser, and Maja Zehfuss. The feedback on my presentations at conferences in Manchester, Nottingham, Paris, and Prague has also been highly useful, for which I thank the participants. Funding for this thesis was provided by the University of Manchester President’s Doctoral Scholarship, the University of Manchester School of Social Sciences Fieldwork Bursary, the University of Manchester Department of Politics, and the Norman Chester Fund, for which I am highly grateful. This thesis makes use of interview data obtained in the United Kingdom as well as during fieldwork trips to South Africa and Nicaragua, which would not have been possible without the generous help of many interviewees. I sincerely thank them for their cooperation. Lastly, I thank all the people with whom I have been fortunate enough to share my PhD experience with. This includes my former flatmates Tony Chambers and Michanne Steenbergen, office colleagues Giacomo Floris and Vittorio Gerosa, and the participants at the PDS in the Pub events I co-convened. Most importantly, I thank my wife Marileen Portegies for her patience after I decided to pursue my PhD abroad. This thesis is dedicated to my parents, who taught me so many of the unobserved skills needed to write this thesis.

List of Acronyms

Note: non-English language acronyms are used according to their original language but for the purpose of recognisability and readability their full names are displayed here in English.

ACWC Anti-Contra War Campaign ANC African National Congress ARDE Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (Southern Front) BLI Irregular Warfare Battalion CIA U.S. Central Intelligence Agency CIAV The International Commission for Support and Verification DoD U.S. Department of Defense EPS Sandinista Popular Army FAA Angolan Armed Forces (1992 – current) FAPLA People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (1976 – 1992) FAR Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces FDN Nicaraguan Democratic Force (1981 – 1987, Northern Front) FLSN Sandinista National Liberation Front FNLA National Liberation Front of Angola MILPAS Popular Militia Against Somoza / Sandino MPLA People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola MPS Popular Sandinista Militias NHAO U.S. Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office NSC U.S. National Security Council PS Sandinista Police RN Nicaraguan Resistance (1987 – 1990) SAAF South African Air Force SADF South African Defence Force SALW Small Arms and Light Weapons SAN South African Navy SWA South West Africa SWAPO South West Africa People’s Organisation UNGA United Nations General Assembly

UNITA National Union for the Total Independence of Angola UNO United National Opposition (1990) UNO United Nicaraguan Opposition (1985 – 1987) UNSC United Nations Security Council US United States USGAO United States Government Accounting Office

Voor Ben en Anna

Introduction

I am against sending troops to Central America. They are simply not needed. Given a chance and the resources, the people of the area can fight their own fight. They have the men and women, they are capable of doing it, [and] they have the people of their country behind them. All they need is our support. - US President Ronald Reagan (quoted in The New York Times 1985g), speaking in reference to his administrations’ efforts to assist various rebel groups fighting in Central America.

When you have a professional army that is well armed and sponsored by two large states, who have huge stakes in this [war], and they are fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, [and] an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict…the notion that we could have—in a clean way that didn’t commit US military forces—changed the equation on the ground there was never true. - US President Barack Obama (quoted in Goldberg 2016), speaking in reference to his administrations’ reluctance to provide extensive assistance to rebel groups fighting in Syria.

Policymakers at the highest level disagree whether assisting a foreign rebel group affects the likely method of war termination. Although speaking about two very different conflicts, Reagan thinks it can help rebels win, while Obama thinks it cannot. These two presidents are not alone in speculating on the effect of foreign state support for rebel groups. Newspaper articles and other popular media publications also frequently mention whether a rebel group receives foreign government assistance (e.g. The Daily Telegraph 2018), although these are typically less explicit about how this might affect the rebels’ war prospects. This thesis explores this topic by providing an answer to the question: how does foreign state support for rebel groups affect conflict outcome? This is an important question to answer for three reasons. First, improving our understanding of the effect of foreign state support for rebel groups (hereafter: state support) on conflict outcome helps us better understand past world events. The most common type of armed conflict takes place not between states but within them (Pettersson and Wallensteen 2015). Such conflicts are generally instigated and propelled

15 by rebel groups. When these organisations manage to seize power, as was the case in China in 1949, in Cuba in 1959 and in Cambodia in 1975, they often greatly transform political life in the countries they come to rule. This not only has a lasting impact on the lives of the citizens of these countries, but also frequently reverberates in the region and, in some cases, the world. Knowing more about the determinants of rebel victory therefore helps us to better account for these dramatic events. Second and relatedly, improving our understanding of this topic helps us better understand current world affairs. Around the globe, dozens of rebel groups are currently trying to fundamentally reshape political, social, and economic life in the countries in which they operate. Some of these organisations seek to establish liberal democracies while others seek to establish authoritarian political systems, such as an Islamic theocracy. Which of these groups succeeds is likely to have profound implications for world politics. As a considerable number of currently active rebel groups receive foreign government assistance (including rebel groups fighting in Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen), knowing how this affects their ability to defeat the incumbent government and implement their plans will help us better forecast the likely direction of world affairs. Third and most practically, improving our understanding of how state support affects conflict outcome helps create more effective government policies. Many governments spend vast amounts of resources supporting rebel groups abroad (see San-Akca 2016). Others spend similar amounts trying to undermine such state support (Byman 2005, Chapter 9). In both cases, governments have many important reasons for doing so, one of which is that they believe such assistance might influence how the war is likely to end. If this is true, then these efforts may very well be justified. But if state support does not affect conflict outcome, or even undermines the likelihood of a rebel victory, then these efforts may (partly) be in vain. States may then be able to redirect resources to areas where they are of greater utility.

Definitions Before continuing, it is necessary to introduce working definitions of a few key concepts. The first is state support. Since this is discussed at length in Chapter 1, it suffices here to say that this is defined here as any form of assistance intentionally provided by a government, either directly or via an intermediary, to a rebel group targeting another government.

Combining and adapting definitions by Salehyan (2009, 11), Mampilly (2011, 3 n.3) and Jo (2015, 36), rebel groups—a term that is used here interchangeably with insurgent organisations—are defined as non-state organisations that use violence to challenge the central government of a given territory.1 Two aspects of this definition are worth highlighting. First, rebel groups must use violence, which is understood here as the intentional infliction of physical harm on people or material damage to property. The necessity of violence serves to distinguish insurgents from legal (and peaceful) civil society organisations such as political parties. Importantly, violence is regarded here not as a goal but merely as a means to an end. In the words of Taber (1965, 152), ‘[t]he guerrilla is a political insurgent, the conscious agent of revolution, his military role, while vital, is only incidental to his political mission’.2 Second and relatedly, rebel groups fight for a political purpose. Their principal opponent is the incumbent government, although insurgents may occasionally get side- tracked into fights with other groups (Fjelde and Nilsson 2012). Rebel groups are therefore political organisations, which distinguishes them from criminal organisations such as warlords, who attempt to personally profit from breakdowns in law and order (Mackinlay 2000).3 It also distinguishes them from militias, which are pro-government non-state armed groups (Ahram 2011; Jentzsch, Kalyvas, and Schubiger 2015). The final concept that requires defining here is conflict outcome. Following conventional usage, the term armed conflict refers here to ‘a contested incompatibility that concerns government or territory or both where the use of armed force between two parties results in at least 25 battle-related deaths’ in a single calendar year, and where the government is one of the protagonists (Gleditsch et al. 2002, 618-619). The threshold of 25 deaths serves to exclude small skirmishes of minor political importance (Gleditsch et

1 This definition therefore excludes the analysis of all types of interstate war, such as the 2003 Iraq War, but encompasses belligerents active in all forms of intrastate armed conflict. This includes cases where a regional authority attempts to break away from the central government, such as the 1992 rebellion of the government of Abkhazia, Georgia against the capital Tbilisi. It also includes situations where current or former members of the state turn against it, a phenomenon commonly referred to as an (attempted) coup d'état. An example is the 1992 rebellion waged by the Venezuelan Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 led by Hugo Chávez. Still, by far the most common form of rebellion discussed in this thesis is the peripheral, citizen-led initiative, such as the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. The rationale for including belligerents fighting all forms of intrastate war is that each may seek and receive foreign state support. 2 This is also reflected in the words of Clausewitz (1984, 87), who says that ‘[t]he political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose’. 3 Warlords do, of course, sometimes engage in some political activity (such as negotiating territorial control with other stakeholders), but the difference with rebel groups is that, for warlords, engaging in politics is merely a means to an (economic) end rather than the goal itself. 17 al. 2002, 617). While some studies distinguish between armed conflict and war (see, for instance, Gleditsch et al. 2002), these concepts are used here interchangeably. Conflicts are considered to end in one of three ways. Seen from the perspective of the rebel group, at the low end is rebel defeat, which refers to the situation in which the rebel group is unwilling or unable to continue fighting before it has achieved its political objective. The middle category is a negotiated settlement. Here, fighting has ceased through some form of talks between the protagonists. The resulting agreement may consist of anything from a simple ceasefire to a fully-fledged peace agreement. With this typology being an ordinal scale (rather than interval or ratio), this form of conflict termination does not necessarily constitute a ‘half’ victory. In fact, many peace agreements signed with rebel groups are substantively closer to a rebel defeat than a rebel military victory. But as such accords typically contain important concessions and provisions to the rebel group in question, they are categorically different from a full rebel defeat (and therefore also a form of success). The final possible outcome is rebel victory, which is defined here as the complete fulfilment of the group’s political objective. Being a political organisation, all rebel groups have a goal; some seek a change of government policy, while others strive for secession or, perhaps most commonly, the overthrow of the incumbent government. In most cases, these goals are ‘straightforward, consistent with behaviour, and easy to identify’ (O'Neill 2005, 31). Some rebel groups have only vague objectives; in such cases the default rebel objective is assumed to be seizing territorial control and political power. Groups may, of course, have multiple and conflicting goals. Here, power trumps policy: groups are regarded as victorious when they manage to defeat the incumbent government even if they do not implement its revolutionary ideals, while groups that fail to win power but where the incumbent government adopted (some of) the rebel goals are not. Goals may, of course, change over time. In such an event, only the achievement of the highest goal counts here as a rebel victory, as groups commonly settle for a less ambitious outcome not because of a lack of desire but because of a lack of possibility. Finally, it needs to be emphasized that rebel victory is not equivalent to sponsor state success. As will be shown in Chapter 1, sponsoring states have many different reasons to aid an insurgent organisation, such as a desire to weaken a rival state or to oust foreign troops aiding the incumbent government. Many of these aims can be obtained through an outcome that falls short of a rebel victory.

The literature The topic of foreign state support for rebel groups is most commonly viewed through the lens of the Cold War, during which time the leading states of both the Eastern and Western bloc supported likeminded groups fighting in what was then known as the Third World (Westad 2007). As a consequence, scholars have examined the effect of state support mostly in its global context, emphasizing state support’s structural (i.e. system- level) causes and consequences (e.g. Hughes 2012; Mumford 2013). This is unfortunate, as this has come at the expense of investigating the practical (operational) effects of foreign government assistance on civil war characteristics. In recent years, the salience of state support has increased considerably. In Libya, anti-Gadhafi rebels have been supported by Western and various Arab states (Strazzari and Tholens 2014). In Syria, the pro-Western rebel groups have received assistance from the US and others (Hughes 2014). In Ukraine, separatist rebels in Luhansk and Donetsk have received support from Russia (Freedman 2014). And in Yemen, Houthi insurgents have been assisted by Iran (Freeman 2009). Yet despite this increased salience, only a dozen or so studies have explored its effects on civil war, and much of this addresses aspects of armed conflict other than its outcome, such as its onset (Salehyan 2009; Sozer 2016), duration (Balch-Lindsay, Enterline, and Joyce 2008; Carter 2012; Testerman 2015), recurrence (Karlén 2017), rebel organisation (Staniland 2014; Tamm 2016b), inter-rebel alliances (Popovic 2018), and violence toward non-combatants (Weinstein 2007; Wood 2014b; Salehyan, Siroky, and Wood 2014). Only a handful of studies directly address its effect on conflict outcome (e.g. Byman et al. 2001; Byman 2005; Record 2006, 2009). This thesis builds on this small body of literature by asking one main research question and two sub-questions. The main question concerns the effect of state support at the aggregate level: How does foreign state support for rebel groups affect intrastate conflict outcome? As will become clear in Chapter 1, governments provide many different forms of assistance. The nature of these types of support varies widely: helping a rebel group by defending them in the arena of international diplomacy (political support) is of an entirely different scope than aiding an insurgent organisation by deploying combat forces (troop support). This raises the question whether these forms of support have the same effect. This therefore leads to the first sub-question: Is there variation in the effect between different types of support awarded to rebel groups? Finally, if foreign government assistance affects how a conflict is likely to end, and if there is

19 indeed variation in effect between support types, this raises a question how this relationship works. This therefore leads to the second sub-question, which is: How does the causal mechanism between the presence of state support and its effect on conflict outcome operate? This thesis answers these questions by testing three rival views, derived from the existing literature on this topic, which are distilled into three hypotheses (developed at length in Chapter 2). The positive view (H1) reflects conventional wisdom on this topic and is the most explicit one here. It holds that foreign government assistance helps rebels obtain a more favourable conflict outcome (Byman et al. 2001; O'Neill 2005; Record

2006, 2009). The neutral view (H2) is based on principal-agent (P-A) theory, proponents of which argue that there are important problems in the state-rebel relationship (Salehyan 2010; Byman and Kreps 2010). This thesis extends the application of P-A theory by taking it as an indication that state support might have no effect on conflict outcome. Finally, the negative view (H3) goes one step further and extends the work of Weinstein (2005, 2007) by suggesting that foreign government assistance has an outright detrimental effect on conflict outcome because it attracts opportunistic recruits who commit extensive counterproductive violence against non-combatants.

Purpose and scope As has by now become clear, the purpose of this thesis is to examine the effect of state support on intrastate conflict outcomes. This contributes to the field of (civil) war studies in three ways. First, this is the first comprehensive, mixed method study to articulate and then empirically test three rival views on how foreign state support for rebel groups might affect conflict outcome (see also Chapter 2). Second, it is the first study not only to look at the effect of state support as a whole but to investigate as well whether there is variation in effects between all of the different types of support that states award to insurgent organisations. Third, this study does so by making use of a newly assembled data set for the quantitative analysis and, for the qualitative analysis, newly gathered interview data with, amongst others, South African veterans (see also Chapter 3). Moving to its scope, the aim of this thesis is limited to investigating and explaining empirical regularities between state support and conflict outcome. It explicitly does not seek to offer a general explanation of conflict outcomes (such as those found in Mack 1975; Merom 2003; and Arreguín-Toft 2005) as this would also need to include many aspects that fall well outside the scope of this thesis. Furthermore, although this thesis

20 does briefly touch upon support motivations in Chapter 1 and 7, it does not provide a comprehensive answer to the important but separate question why states offer support for rebel groups (for this see, amongst others, Maoz and San-Akca 2012; San-Akca 2016; Karlén 2019). Finally, being a purely empirical thesis, it also does not address the normative question whether states should support rebel groups, although policymakers may find this study’s empirical results useful to formulate their own answer to this question (for this see also Pattison 2018).

Assumptions and method A few words are also in order on the assumptions and method used in this thesis. Starting with the former, a key assumption of this study is that the prime determinant of civil war outcomes stems from the material distribution of war capabilities between the participating belligerents, which is referred to in the case studies (Chapter 5 and 6) and the Discussion (Chapter 7) as the military balance of power (adapted from Lockyer 2010, 2011). This means that it is assumed that rebel groups that are consistently militarily more powerful than their adversary have a far higher probability of winning than groups that do not have this advantage. Inversely, insurgent organisations that are consistently militarily less powerful than their adversary are assumed to have a far greater probability to be defeated. If parties are roughly equally strong it is assumed that the war is (eventually) likely to be terminated through a negotiated settlement (following Zartman 1993). This assumption will sound like common sense to many readers, but to some it may not. Neorealists, for instance, generally argue that international politics—and with that civil wars, too—is primarily driven by changes in the international system (Waltz 1979). They might therefore believe that civil war outcomes are best explained by major international events such as the end of the Cold War. Similarly, liberal institutionalists (e.g. Keohane 1984), who emphasize the role of international institutions such as the United Nations, may believe that the mode of conflict termination is most affected by whether international organisations mediated between the two sides. Finally, social constructivists (e.g. Wendt 1999) may believe that war termination is strongly influenced by shifts in global norms and ideas, such as changes in beliefs about the peaceful settlement of armed conflict (see, for instance, Howard and Stark 2018). While this thesis does not completely deny the role of these important exogenous factors, it does assume that these are all subordinate to domestic factors. In other words: international structure,

21 institutions, and norms and ideas all matter, but on the battlefield, they do not matter as much as hard military power. Moving to the research method used, this thesis employs a mixed method research design. It consists of two parts. The first is a quantitative analysis of all terminated intrastate conflict dyads between 1946 and 2010. Data for this has been obtained from the State-Nonstate Armed Group (NAGs) data set (San-Akca 2016), the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) (Kreutz 2010), as well as several other sources (for the control variables). The second part consists of the qualitative analysis, which comprises of two case studies: the Angolan War (1975 – 1991), and the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979 – 1990). In the former, the main rebel group, called the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), received support from South Africa and the US, among others. The Nicaraguan case study focuses on the effect of foreign government assistance given to the Contras, who were primarily supported by the US, Honduras, and Argentina. Data for the qualitative analysis has been obtained from a wide variety of sources, including in-depth fieldwork interviews, newspaper articles, memoirs, and histories of the two wars. The rationale behind the mixed method approach, as well as an explanation of the case study selection, is discussed in Chapter 3.

Findings Reflecting the research questions posed above, this thesis has one main finding and two sub-findings. Although they are discussed at length in Chapter 7, it is useful to summarise them here. The main finding relates to the overall effect of state support and is that, surprisingly, foreign government assistance is generally not effective in helping rebels achieve their goal. The quantitative analysis shows that state-supported rebels win less often and are defeated more often than non-state supported insurgent organisations, while their chances of obtaining a negotiated settlement are the same. Considering that the differences are both statistically significant and substantively large, this indicates that rebel groups are better off without such aid. The first sub-finding (listed above as the second sub-research question) relates to the causal mechanism. The qualitative analysis reveals that, from an operational perspective, state support does initially greatly help rebel groups intensify their war effort. The mechanism behind this is simple: foreign government assistance helps rebel groups by providing them with the means to wage larger and more frequent attacks on their

22 adversary. Over time, this increases pressure on the incumbent government and brings the group further from defeat and closer to victory. Yet the reason why state support ultimately rarely leads rebels to a military victory is because state support is a controversial foreign policy instrument, which typically generates substantial domestic and international opposition to the sponsoring government. South Africa’s policy in Angola, for instance, was internationally widely condemned, and the Reagan administration was heavily criticised by Congress over Contra aid. To mitigate such opposition, supporting states often reduce the level of support they award to insurgents, and in some cases even terminate the assistance programme altogether. In Angola, South Africa twice substantially reduced its support for UNITA (in 1984 and in 1989), as did the US for the Nicaraguan Contras (in 1984 and 1988). A reduction or termination of support suddenly leaves the insurgents without the necessary means to fight, which shifts the military balance of power back to the incumbent government and typically leads to the collapse of the rebel campaign. Both in Angola and Nicaragua, abrupt reductions of foreign government assistance led the insurgents to retreat. Absent the resumption of strong support (or a favourable exogenous factor), the rebels are then unlikely to defeat their opponent, and generally have to settle for (much) less than victory. This study’s second sub-finding is that, having considered all the available evidence, there is insufficient grounds to believe that there is variation in effect between seven different forms of support: troops, transport & logistics, weapons, training, sanctuary, basic needs, and financial assistance. The quantitative analysis does find that the presence of a foreign sanctuary is the only form of support that significantly decreases the likelihood of a negotiated settlement compared to defeat, but this difference from the other forms of support is not corroborated in the qualitative analysis. Unfortunately, due to a lack of (reliable) data, this thesis is unable to make a claim on the operational effect of intelligence assistance and political support. Reflecting on the three hypotheses stated above, this thesis challenges conventional wisdom, articulated in the positive view (H1), that rebel groups who receive foreign government assistance are more likely to defeat their opponent. While the positive view is correct that state support helps rebel groups fight, it is incorrect that this also makes them more likely to win. This thesis’ findings are also at odds with the neutral view (H2). This view is correct that states and rebels often have their disagreements, but contrary to

23 what this thesis’ application of principal-agent theory would expect, state-rebel friction does not substantively impact the operational efficacy of state support. Principal-agent theory therefore does not adequately explain how state support affects conflict outcome.

Finally, the negative view (H3) accurately indicates that state-sponsorship may increase rebel recruitment, but contrary to this view’s expectation, these new members are not necessarily opportunistic, violent, and counterproductive. In obtaining these findings, this thesis offers a valuable synthesis of many of the ideas found in the literature on the effectiveness of foreign government assistance awarded to insurgent organisations. Additionally, it shows that state support problematises the commonly sharply drawn distinction between interstate and intrastate war. Civil conflicts are rarely (perhaps never) completely domestic, which raises the question whether it is analytically most appropriate to use theories developed in the field of civil war studies or international relations theory. The answer, this thesis finds, is that it is best to employ a combination of them: insurgency theory helps us understand why and how rebel groups fight, while classical international relations theories, such as alliance theory and balance of power theory, helps us comprehend how state support might affect the conflict’s final outcome. Conflict analysts are therefore well-advised to make use of the full range of scholarly instruments available to them.

Thesis Outline Apart from this Introduction, this thesis consists of seven chapters and a short Conclusion. Chapter 1 conceptualises state support. It does so by defining this concept and explaining why governments award it and why rebel groups accept it. This chapter also shows that state support has important drawbacks for both the sponsoring and recipient party. Furthermore, it offers a categorisation of nine different types of support. This includes material assistance, such as weapons and transport vehicles, as well as services, such as training, sanctuary, and political support. Importantly, the categorisation includes the often-overlooked form of basic needs assistance. Using this conceptualisation, Chapter 2 then turns to the existing literature on this topic to articulate the aforementioned three rival views how state support may influence how a war is terminated. Additionally, this chapter theorises whether and how there may be variation in effect between different types of support. It also evaluates the findings from existing quantitative studies on state support. Finally, Chapter 2 shows that there has so far been little research on the effect of different types of support.

Having articulated the three hypotheses, Chapter 3 discusses how these can best be tested. It does so by first explaining the rationale behind this study’s mixed method research design, before showing how the quantitative and qualitative analyses are applied. Chapter 3 also explains the four criteria used to select the case studies and the method of data collection and analysis. Having set the stage, the thesis then moves to its empirical chapters. This starts, in Chapter 4, by presenting the results from the quantitative analysis. It first discusses how the data set is constructed, before analysing this using a multinomial logistical regression model and a measure of substantive effects. It then does the same for analysing whether there is variation in effects between six different support types. Having identified the general pattern, the study then moves to Chapter 5 and 6, which explore the causal mechanism that underpins the associations found. Chapter 5 does so by discussing the results from the analysis of the Angolan War (1975 – 1991), highlighting how the rebel’s fortunes fluctuated with the ebbs and flows of South African support in particular. Chapter 6 discusses the Nicaraguan Contra War, making a highly similar argument concerning the anti-Sandinista rebels, who experienced severe fluctuation in the level of aid awarded by the US government. Following the completion of the quantitative and qualitative analysis, Chapter 7 discusses these results more broadly. It does so by advancing the argument that the reason why state support ultimately does not help rebel groups win is because this such assistance is frequently reduced or even terminated altogether. States do so because sponsoring a foreign rebel group generates substantial domestic and international opposition to the executive government, which they only maintain for as long as the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. This thesis ends with a Conclusion that highlights this study’s contribution to theory, which is first of all that it challenges simplistic ideas on the efficacy of foreign state support for rebel groups. It also shows that state support problematises the study of civil war by blurring the traditionally sharply drawn line between interstate and intrastate conflict, and that this problem can be solved by using theories derived from both international relations and civil war studies. Furthermore, the conclusion emphasises the thesis’ empirical contributions on the quantitative analysis and the two case studies and shows how this study’s findings may guide future research. Finally, the Conclusion offers some ideas how this thesis can help policymakers craft more effective foreign policy.

Chapter 1: Conceptualising State Support

This chapter conceptualises state support by presenting an original definition of it, making clear what it includes and excludes, and contrasting it to other (related) concepts. It then explores the history of state support and investigates why governments award it and why rebels accept it. Following this, the chapter identifies nine different types of assistance, which are then discussed in depth. This chapter’s conceptualisation forms the basis for each of the following chapters and is particularly relevant to Chapter 2, which articulates three rival views how state support may affect how a conflict is likely to end.

Defining state support The first step in developing a comprehensive understanding of foreign state support for rebel groups is to establish a clear definition of it. Being an understudied object in international relations, this has so far received little scholarly attention. One of the few authors to offer a clear definition is Byman (2005, 10), who in his study of foreign government assistance to terrorist organisations calls it ‘a government’s intentional assistance to a terrorist group to help it use violence, bolster its political activities, or sustain the organization’. This definition is a useful start but is unnecessarily restrictive as recipients can also use their assistance for other ends than the three listed by Byman. Recognising the different forms and channels that may be used to assist rebels, state support is defined here as any form of assistance intentionally provided by a government, either directly or via an intermediary, to a rebel group targeting another government.4 A few aspects of this definition are worth highlighting. First, state support must be intentional. To classify as such, patrons must intentionally award overt or covert assistance to a rebel group with the objective of helping them. The sponsor does not need to help them achieve a full rebel victory—they may, for instance, aid them with the aim of merely keeping a conflict going—but aid must be consciously directed to the recipient in question. This condition is contested, as some argue that states can also give unintentional assistance (Byman 2005; Record 2006, 2009; San-Akca 2016). This refers to the situation in which a state lacks the ability to stop rebels operating on their territory or when it takes actions which inadvertently end up helping the rebels. As an example of the latter, Record (2009, 24) mentions World War Two, in

4 A government official sending money from a government bank account therefore counts as state support, but a donation made from a private bank account does not. 26 which US efforts to defeat Japan ended up helping nationalist groups in East Asia because the war constrained Japan’s ability to defeat these groups. For the purpose of this study, however, such cases are excluded here as these governments do not aim to help the rebels and in some cases even directly oppose them. Second, support may come in any form, which means it can consist of material assistance, such as weapons supplies, or in the shape of a service, such as political support. As will be shown below, states have many ways to assist a rebel group. There is no threshold or requirement for the level or duration of support. States do vary considerably in the quantity and quality of the assistance they provide, but due to the asymmetrical nature of intrastate armed conflict, even a relatively small level of support can have an important effect on the war. The Libyan government, for instance, provided only limited support to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), yet the three shipments of weapons which arrived, totalling an estimated 150 tonnes, is commonly perceived to have been highly important to the rebels in their fight against the well-equipped British Armed Forces (Iron 2008, 173). Third, support may be given directly to the rebel group, or it may be given via an intermediary. An example of the latter is state support for the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which was the main rebel group during the Salvadoran Civil War (1979 – 1992). The group received assistance from a host of Socialist states, which was first sent to Cuba, the rebels’ principal sponsor, and then forwarded to Nicaragua. From there, it was either carried overland (via Honduras) or shipped across the Gulf of Fonseca to the rebels in El Salvador (Oñate 2011, 143-144).

Related concepts To gain a full understanding of state support it helps to contrast it with other, closely related concepts. First, state support is a narrower concept than external support, which includes assistance by non-state actors such as international organisations, diaspora organisations, and other rebel groups (Byman et al. 2001; Högbladh, Pettersson, and Themnér 2011). State support is also not the same as an alliance, which are strictly interstate affairs (Waltz 1979; Morgenthau 1967). In Walt’s minimalist definition, they are ‘formal or informal arrangement[s] for security cooperation between two or more sovereign states’ (1987, 12). In recent years, state-centric approaches to international relations have started to give way to a more inclusive understanding of world politics, which recognises the

27 important role non-state actors play (see, for instance, Salehyan 2010). This has led some (e.g. Kirchner 2016) to broaden the definition of traditional alliances, while others (e.g. Tamm 2016a) argue that state support should be seen as transnational alliances. For conceptual clarity, however, it is best to keep these distinct phenomena separated. State support may also be contrasted with third-party intervention. This concept, predominantly used in quantitative studies on civil war, is commonly defined as a foreign state’s ‘direct military participation of such a magnitude that either 1,000 troops are committed to the combat zone or, if the force is smaller or the size unknown, 100 deaths are sustained' (Small and Singer 1982, 219). This definition clarifies well its differences with state support: third-party intervention does not generally specify who receives assistance, although some scholars (e.g. Regan 2002; Collier, Hoeffler, and Soderbom 2004) do distingsuish between government-biased, rebel-biased and neutral interventions. Third-party intervention also exclusively refers to troop assistance, while state support also can also consist of other types of aid. Furthermore, third-party intervention contains a substantial threshold whereas state support does not. Lastly, state support can be contrasted with proxy war and proxy warfare. In an early exploratory study on this topic, which strongly reflects the Cold War context in which it was written, Deutsch defines proxy war as ‘an international conflict between two foreign powers, fought out on the soil of a third country; disguised as a conflict over an internal issue of that country; and using some of that country’s manpower, resources and territory as a means for achieving preponderantly foreign goals and foreign strategies’ (Deutsch 1964, 102). Taken in this regard, state support may constitute one side of a proxy war, provided that the government receives similar external support and that the ultimate goals for which the conflict is fought are decidedly international. While this was partly the case during the Cold War, it does not particularly hold true for the post-Cold War period. Mumford (2013) offers a rival definition of proxy war. In his book on the topic, he calls it ‘the indirect engagement in a conflict by third parties wishing to influence its strategic outcome’ (2013, 11). Understood like this, proxy wars are both wider and narrower than state support: they are wider in the sense that they include support to and from states and non-state actors alike (Mumford 2013, 45), and narrower in the sense that they only include indirect support, meaning that they exclude the important category of troop support. Proxy war, a concept used more often in popular media than in the scholarly field of (civil) war studies, is therefore a contested concept. Because of its definitional ambiguity, as well as its pejorative nature, it is one that is avoided here.

Having defined state support and contrasted it with other concepts, the next section turns to its history.

History of state support State support for rebel groups has a long history. Already in 1515, over a century before the advent of the Westphalian nation-state, Machiavelli referred to the practice when he warned rulers that ‘once the people have decided to take up arms against you they will never be short of foreign support’ (2009, 115-116).5 More explicit case evidence comes from the late 18th century, when France assisted secessionist rebels during the American War of Independence (1775 – 1783) against the United Kingdom (Mead 2007, 57). In the early 19th century, the United Kingdom similarly supported Spanish guerrillas in their fight against Napoleon (see Esdaile 2004). Some argue that state support has in recent decades become more prevalent (Grauer and Tierney 2018, 268), while others argue the opposite (Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan 2016, 53; see also Jones and Johnston 2013, 9). It is difficult to assess who is right, as much depends on the specific operationalisation of state support, coding mechanisms, and the timeframe under investigation. What is clear is that the salience of state support has fluctuated. The topic became particularly visible during the Cold War (1948 – 1991). This era was marked by a deep-rooted and intense rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, who after the advent and combat use of nuclear weapons could not risk a direct confrontation with each other, and therefore used indirect methods to contain each other’s global sphere of influence (Mumford 2013, 3). This resulted in widespread assistance to likeminded rebel groups in the third world (Westad 2007; Porter 1984). Superpowers, however, were not the only sponsors of rebel groups. Throughout the Cold War, neighbouring states, revisionist governments, and regional powers also aided insurgent organisations, with Cuba, Libya, Iran, and South Africa being particularly active in this regard. Following the end of the Cold War, many war scholars (e.g. Duffield 2000, 73; Keen 1998, 34) were under the impression that the phenomenon of state support had largely subsided. They therefore turned their attention to other means with which rebel groups sustain themselves, such as natural resource extraction (Klare 2002; Ross 2004; Le Billon 2005, 2012). Empirical evidence, however, shows that state support continued to be

5 The topic is also of interest to Clausewitz (1984, 479) who writes of states arming citizens, although he appears to envision this to mean providing military assistance to domestic rebels in a nation’s collective resistance against an occupying force, rather than supporting a foreign rebel group. 29 awarded. While the termination of superpower support to rebel groups did initially cause a drop in the overall number of internationalised armed conflicts, these numbers soon picked up again, and rose to near Cold War levels by the turn of the millennium (Harbom and Wallensteen 2005, 628). In the immediate post-Cold War period, state support was particularly prominent in sub-Saharan Africa. To name a few, Sudan assisted the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Uganda assisted the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), Liberia backed the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast helped the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), and Angola, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe all assisted various rebel groups active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Tamm 2016a, 153). The topic’s saliency rose again after 9/11, when US President George W. Bush launched the ‘War on Terror’ in which he denounced governments for supporting terrorism, a combat tactic frequently used by rebel groups. The subsequent US invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 were in large part motivated by (alleged) government support for a rebel group, al-Qaeda. The US itself, however, did not disengage with the practise for long; after the 2011 Arab Spring, the US (and others) supported Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Assad (Hughes 2014, 525- 527). Soon after, Russia also (re)engaged with the practice: after taking Crimea by force in 2014, Moscow started assisting pro-Russian rebels in the Ukrainian regions of Donbass and Luhansk (Freedman 2014; Rauta 2016). Both democracies and authoritarian governments therefore sponsor rebels, although the former are known to do so less frequently (Goldman 2016). This brief history shows state support is prevalent, employed by a variety of states, and is a phenomenon of all times. It is therefore likely to continue into the future (see also Mumford 2013). The above discussion also touched upon government motives to engage in this practice. Considering that, in most instances, aiding a foreign rebel group is a violation of international public law (see Mathiak and Lumpe 2000, 70-72; International Court of Justice 1986, 116), it is worth exploring support motives in greater depth.

Motives for state support The dominant explanation in the literature why governments assist rebel groups relates to matters of international security, particularly state rivalries (Byman 2005, 36-41;

Mumford 2013, 32-24; Maoz and San-Akca 2012; Gleditsch, Salehyan, and Schultz 2008; Byman et al. 2001; Bapat 2012; Salehyan 2010; San-Akca 2016; Berkowitz 2018). An example of this is the long-standing rivalry between Sudan and Uganda, which prompted the former to back the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda and the latter to aid the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in what is now South Sudan (Mumford 2013, 57-60; Prunier 2004). Rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea have similarly supported rebel groups on each other’s territory (Abbink 2003), as have South Africa, Angola, and Mozambique (Minter 1994). A rival explanation is that the practice is carried out on ideological grounds (Byman 2005, 41-47; Westad 2007; Mumford 2013, 34-41). For instance, after overthrowing the Batista government in 1959, the new Cuban government led by Fidel Castro sponsored various Latin American groups with the apparent objective of spreading the Cuban revolution. Castro’s insistence to export the Cuban political system has been described as in no small part to be the product of ideological motivations (see, for instance, Gleijeses 2006, 45-49). Finally, scholars have argued the practice is related to domestic considerations (Byman 2005, 47-50). This can come in the shape of diaspora community pressure (Salehyan, Gleditsch, and Cunningham 2011; Saideman 2002), attempts to mitigate internal security threats, or even a domestic desire to capture resources in another country (Tamm 2016a). As an example of the latter, Tamm (2016a, 159-160) points to Liberian President Charles Taylor, who greatly benefited from the Revolutionary United Front’s (RUF) proceeds from diamond mining in neighbouring Sierra Leone. San-Akca (2016) argues that scholarly disagreement about these state motives can be traced back to the three traditional paradigms in the field of International Relations (IR): Realism (international security explanation), Liberalism (domestic politics explanation), and Constructivism (ideological explanation). In practice, however, such a clear-cut rival explanation model is difficult to sustain. Take, for instance, Russia’s support for rebel groups in Eastern Ukraine (Freedman 2014; Rauta 2016). This may simultaneously be influenced by a Russian attempt to protect its traditional sphere of influence (international security explanation), a desire to defend authoritarianism in an age of liberal democracy (ideological explanation), as well as domestic pressure to support its ethnic brethren abroad (domestic politics explanation). It is therefore more accurate to say states assist

31 rebel groups to further their interests, whichever way they may choose to define them.6 State support is a transactional phenomenon, which continues, as Hazen argues, for as long as ‘each party gets what it wants’ (2013, 58).

Benefits of providing support Understanding state support as a tool of foreign policy, or as an ‘instrument of national power’ (Byman 2005, 22), supporting rebel groups is more powerful than diplomacy or economic sanctions, but less consequential than a full-scale military intervention. Aiding a foreign rebel group has several (comparative) advantages. First, it provides states with a forceful way to project their political, economic, and military power abroad. Many national armed forces, particularly in developing countries, are limited in their ability (or even entirely unable) to project military power beyond their immediate vicinity. By supporting a rebel group, governments gain international leverage which they can then use to exert global influence. They can also do so without necessarily having to commit large numbers of ground forces, which dramatically reduces the propensity of casualties on the side of the sponsoring state (Patten 2013, 879). Second, helping a rebel group is relatively inexpensive, especially when compared to the deployment of ground forces. As Berkowitz (2018, 710) puts it, sponsoring a rebel group ‘allows states to influence the policies of others more effectively, discretely, and with lower costs than direct military action’. The entire US operation to support the Afghan Mujahedeen during the 1980s, for instance, cost the American taxpayer an estimated $3bn (Riedel 2014, xi). By contrast, the financial burden of the US-occupation of Afghanistan peaked in 2011 at an annual $107bn (Belasco 2014, 14). It is often claimed that supporting a rebel group also has the benefit of offering the sponsoring state ‘plausible deniability’, which reduces chances of a retaliatory attack from the target state (Rositzke 1977, 153; Byman and Kreps 2010, 1; Salehyan, Gleditsch, and Cunningham 2011, 713; Hughes 2014, 524; Wilner 2018, 414-416). In practice, however, this often proves difficult to maintain. Historically, when a state has conducted a major operation to support a rebel group both the incumbent government and the general public have been aware of it, especially when troops were involved. Examples of this are

6 The sponsoring state’s motivation is assumed here to be unrelated to the effect of state support: sending a container full of AK-47s should have the same effect on a rebel group when it is sent with the intention of weakening a rival state as it is when it is dispatched with the intention to help the rebels obtain a military victory. 32

US efforts to support rebel groups in Nicaragua, Angola, and Cambodia, as well as the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Libya, the last three of which included air support. Some scholars even regard state support as a substitute for interstate war. Salehyan (2010, 493) frames it as a ‘delegation of war’ to rebel organisations, while Bapat (2012, 3) talks about ‘outsourcing’ war. These are overstatements. While state support plays an important role in international security, and its importance has arguably only grown since the establishment of the global norm against territorial conquest (see Atzili 2007), it is neither suitable nor, as Mumford (2013, 30) argues, commonly intended as a direct replacement for interstate war. Rather, it is a way for governments to exercise power in situations where they are either unable or unwilling to fully commit themselves to a conflict in the full realisation that their reduced commitment is reflected in the ends the state is able to achieve (see also Pattison 2018, Chapter 8).

Drawbacks of providing support Supporting a rebel group is not without its disadvantages. The main issue is that assisting a foreign rebel group often attracts considerable opposition to the sponsoring government (Berkowitz 2018, 717-721). This occurs for two reasons. First, in most cases, supporting a foreign rebel group is a direct violation of international law, since it contravenes the United Nations principle on the non-interference in the internal affairs of another state (United Nations 1945, Section 2.4). That this principle extends to state support for rebel groups was made explicit in an influential ruling of the International Court of Justice in 1986, which ruled that ‘it is difficult to see what would remain of the principle of non-intervention’ if foreign intervention was allowed by rebel request (International Court of Justice 1986, 116). Second, state support is in many cases perceived as unethical (see, for instance, Pattison 2015; 2018, Chapter 8) by citizens, non- governmental organisations, international organisations, members of parliament, and other governments, because it makes the supporting state complicit should the rebels commit any misdoings. Western state support for the Libyan National Transitional Council in 2011 has, for instance, been criticized on the grounds that the rebels committed extensive violations of international humanitarian law (Corten and Koutroulis 2013). As a consequence of their controversial nature, rebel support operations can generate substantial political opposition, both at home or abroad. Domestically, and particularly in liberal democracies, this can manifest itself by way of critical press, low government

33 approval ratings, or even street protests. In the 1980s, for instance, the US government was domestically heavily criticised by (left-leaning) non-governmental organisations for its support for the Nicaraguan Contras (Americas Watch Report 1987; Brody 1985), although a considerable (right wing) segment of the population continued to staunchly support the Reagan administration’s policy (see North 1991). Alternatively, states may face strong international opposition. This can occur through political pressure from the international community (such as via the United Nations Security Council), international sanctions, or even military strikes. The Libyan government, for instance, was punished by the US with airstrikes in 1986 and economic sanctions in 1992 for providing assistance to various rebel groups, particularly terrorist organisations (Collins 2004). In 2001 and 2003, the respective governments of Afghanistan and Iraq were even invaded by US forces for (allegations of) their assistance to al-Qaeda. As a consequence of the drawback of state support, states may choose to reduce or even terminate their backing completely. Indeed, reflecting its ‘fluid nature’ (Mumford 2013, 19), the literature repeatedly notes that state support is notoriously fickle (Salehyan 2010, 507-508; Byman 2007, 19; Giraldo and Trinkunas 2007, 12; Jones 2017b, 157). For instance, after the imposition of multilateral sanctions against the Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi in 1992, Tripoli quickly terminated its cooperation with all the rebel groups it sponsored (Collins 2004). The precise reasons for these withdrawals have so far been poorly understood. One study using a quantitative research method finds that factors that are related to support onset, such as state rivalry and ethnic kinship, are not also inversely related to support termination (Karlén 2019). Another study, using qualitative methods, argues that states are more likely to award ‘erratic’ support when the sponsor does not necessarily require the insurgents to win for the assistance programme to be successful (Patten 2013, 894). What is known is that, following the reduction or termination of assistance, states do sometimes resume their support. In 1972, for instance, the US began to support the Kurdish insurgency in Iraq, the government of which at that time had pro-Soviet leanings. When US-ally Iran unexpectedly struck an agreement with Baghdad in March 1975 over an oil dispute, Tehran ceased its aid to the rebels. Having lost its regional partner, the US subsequently also terminated its aid programme (Gibson 2015). But, following the First Gulf War (1991) sixteen years later, US support for the Kurdish insurgency resumed. Washington did so by creating and subsequently supporting the Iraqi National Coalition

(INC), which was a catch-all group of Iraqi dissident organisations that aimed to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein (Byman 2000; Hurst 2009).

Benefits of receiving support Contrary to state motives, the reasons why rebels seek state assistance are straightforward: they do so to obtain the resources (both material goods and services) they require to defeat their opponent. Obtaining support from states has two advantages over other sources of support, such as the local population (see Tse-tung 1961). First, states are able to provide a wide range of resources (Byman 2013, 981). Having a military, a friendly government can supply arms, transport, and other military equipment, as well as provide combat training. Commonly holding the Weberian monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force, states are also the only actors to credibly offer a foreign sanctuary (Salehyan 2007, 2009). And, being the most prominent members of the international community, states are able to provide valuable political support in reputable global forums such as the United Nations (Byman 2005, 61-62). Second, states are able to provide assistance on a large scale (Byman 2013, 981). Admittedly, some rebel groups are able to gather substantial financial contributions from individual supporters. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, for example, has received extensive donations from diaspora groups in India, Canada, and elsewhere (Fair 2005; Amarasingam 2015). Yet for most rebel groups, individual donations are only small and rarely sufficient to carry out a major insurgent campaign. By contrast, governments are able to make far larger financial contributions. The monetary value of Iran’s support for Hezbollah, for instance, has been estimated to be as high as $200m a year (U.S. Department of Defense 2010, 8). This is far more than what most rebel groups would generally be able to obtain from private supporters.

Drawbacks of receiving support Still, receiving foreign government assistance has its downsides. The first has already been mentioned and concerns its volatility. Strong domestic and international opposition to rebel sponsorship means that governments may decrease the level of assistance they award a rebel group at any point in time and can even terminate this altogether. This is well-illustrated in the case of the Greek Civil War (1946 – 1949) in which the Communist Party of Greece, commonly known under its Greek acronym KKE, received extensive material and service support from Yugoslavia (Shrader 1999, Chapter 6). But in the midst

35 of the war Yugoslav leader Josip Tito famously fell out with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, which led to Belgrade’s expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau (better known as Cominform, see Woodhouse 1976, 250-252). With the Stalinist KKE choosing to remain loyal to Moscow, Yugoslavia subsequently terminated its material assistance in November 1948 and in July 1949 also closed the insurgent sanctuary (Stavrianos 1952, 201-202; Stavrakis 1989, 184). Reductions and terminations of support are problematic for insurgent organisations because, as Day (2011, 451) argues, ‘changes in the external support environment can complicate material effectiveness’. Put simply, a reduction or withdrawal of support can suddenly leave the rebels without the resources they need to continue their fight (on which more in Chapter 7). Since rebel groups are in most cases illegal organisations, they cannot protect themselves against a possible drop of support through legal contracts and official adjudication. Although extant scholarship offers few clues how much a reduction in support affects a rebel group’s ability to operate, case evidence gives some reason to believe this is likely to be severe. In the 1990s, for instance, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) received extensive support from Sudan. This was greatly reduced following the signing of the Nairobi Agreement between Sudan and Uganda in 1999, which settled a long-standing dispute between the two rivals (Neu 2002). In 2002 Sudan even went one step further and authorised Uganda to carry out a counterinsurgency operation, codenamed Iron Fist, on Southern Sudanese territory (Vinci 2005, 367). Although the LRA ultimately displayed remarkable resilience in adapting to fight without substantial assistance from Khartoum (see Day 2019), Sudan’s termination of rebel sponsorship greatly reduced the LRA’s fighting power. As a consequence, from around 2004 the rebels no longer posed a major threat to the Ugandan government (Allen and Vlassenroot 2010). Moving to other drawbacks of receiving state support, another notable issue is that, since donors are rarely completely altruistic and commonly operate on a quid pro quo basis, they rarely give an insurgent organisation a ‘free reign to do as it chooses’ (Hazen 2013, 58). States usually want something in return, whether it is attacking particular targets or capturing certain resources (e.g. diamond mines in Sierra Leone), which may not necessarily fit with the insurgents’ own goals. This is well-illustrated in the Mozambican Civil War (1977 – 1992), in which the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) was reluctant to carry out attacks on national infrastructure, but eventually did so anyway to satisfy its South African sponsor (Patten 2013, 891).

A further drawback of state support is that this may reduce rebel legitimacy. To achieve their objectives, rebel groups must obtain the support of at least part of the population (Tse-tung 1961), which some scholars ague may be undermined if the insurgents choose to sell out and accept foreign government assistance (Jones 2017b, 158; Byman et al. 2001, 100). This is particularly the case for nationalist movements. Still, it is also conceivable that, for more internationally oriented rebel groups, having the backing of a reputable and powerful foreign government can increase a rebel group’s standing in the eyes of the local population. Whether state support increases or decreases legitimacy is therefore likely to depend on the type of rebel group and the type of sponsoring state. A final issue is that obtaining state support is often hard work. As foreign governments are geographically detached from the conflict, they generally require extensive persuasion. Bob (2005) shows that insurgent leaders win foreign support by ‘marketing’ their rebellion to the global media and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). They frame who they are, why they fight, and why they deserve to be supported by sending out carefully tailored messages to their target audience. Some groups, particularly those who strive for independent statehood, even maintain entire diplomatic networks reminiscent of embassies. In the late 1970s, for instance, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) had more diplomatic relations than its adversary Israel (Hoffman 2006, 91). Bob (2005) further argues that some rebel leaders are more successful at attracting foreign attention than others. China, for instance, is home to a great number of independence movements but none is as well-known and broadly recognised by foreign governments as the now peaceful Tibetan independence movement led by the Dalai Lama.7 The determinants of particular insurgent leaders to obtain state support are complex and plentiful, but are said to include charismatic leadership, a good reputation, a powerful narrative, and useful contacts (Bob 2005, 43-46). Taken together, the drawbacks of state support mean that, like the supporting state, rebel groups may also decide to terminate their sponsorship. But as Karlén notes, this is highly unlikely since rebel groups typically ‘prefer more over fewer resources as long as these are not associated with any increased costs’ (2019, 4). Research for this thesis has not come across a single rebel group that terminated foreign government assistance on its own accord.

7 The group originally used violent tactics, but switched to peaceful resistance after suffering a military defeat against Maoist China in the 1950s (see Mcgranahan 2010). 37

Types of support To measure the effect of state support on the dynamics of intrastate armed conflict it is useful to disaggregate between the effects of different types of support. Building on previously established typologies by Byman (2005), Högbladh (2011), and San-Akca (2016), this study uses a nine-way typology of state support. In no particular order, these are (1) troops, (2) transport and logistical assistance, (3) weapons, (4) training, (5) sanctuary, (6) basic needs, (7) financial support, (8) intelligence assistance, and (9) political support. As this categorisation constitutes a major building block of this study, it is worth explaining its rationale. The typology is most closely related to the state-Nonstate Armed Groups Cooperation (NAGs) data set (v.04/2015) created by the Dangerous Companions Project (DCP) (San-Akca 2016). The NAGs data set distinguishes between ten forms of support: safe havens to rebel members, safe havens to rebel leaders, headquarters, training camp, training, weapons and logistics aid, financial aid, transport, troops, and other support. The first four are all forms of sanctuary and are therefore better grouped as one category. Attentive readers will have noticed that the NAGs typology oddly merges the category of logistics with weapons supplies, which do not necessarily go together. This study decouples these two forms of support and adds logistical aid instead to transport assistance. The final NAGs category of ‘other support’ is ambiguous and is therefore dropped. Two categories have been added to the NAGs categorisation. The first is basic needs, which is surprisingly missing from all existing typologies. It covers those items required for human survival, such as food, water, health care, and shelter. The second category that has been added is political support. As will be shown later in this chapter, this form of assistance is worthy of inclusion since this is a prevalent and salient form of assistance. Some scholars (e.g. O'Neill 2005; Galula 1964) have argued for a distinction between moral and political support. The former refers to ‘private and, more important, public statements that indicate sympathy for insurgents in very general terms’ while the latter goes further with states ‘backing the ultimate goals of insurgents in the diplomatic and public arenas’ (O'Neill 2005, 142-143). In practice, however, government statements have political effects whether they were made inside or outside institutions such as the United Nations. Furthermore, whether state support also extends to voting behaviour on United Nations Security Council resolutions depends on a great number of factors, of which

38 sympathy for the rebel group is but one. Moral and political support is therefore better captured in a single category. A key benefit of this study’s nine-point typology is that it is more refined and includes more types of support than other (existing) categorisations. Lyall and Wilson III (2009, 84), for instance, use a simple two point typology: neighbouring sanctuaries and the combined category of economic or military aid. This is unfortunate, since giving economic support is substantively different from providing military supplies, or even sending troop support. Regan (2002, 66-67) does distinguish between economic and military assistance and adds the category of military interventions, but leaves out the important category of sanctuary (see Salehyan 2009). Cunningham, Gleditsch and Salehyan (2013) offer a third categorisation. In their Non-State Actors in Armed Conflict Data set (NSA), Cunningham et al. distinguish between endorsement, non-military, military, and troop support (2013, 524). This is more useful, but this still does not include sanctuaries as a distinct form of assistance. The NSA data set does indicate whether a rebel group has a presence abroad, but presence itself is not a sufficient indicator of support as a rebel group may be present on another state’s territory without the corresponding government’s approval. The only typology that uses more categories than the one used in this thesis is the one created by Byman et al. (2001), who distinguish between ten forms of support: safe haven and transit, financial resources, political support and propaganda, direct military support, training, weapons and materiel, fighters, intelligence, organisational aid, and inspiration. The category of foreign fighters is excluded here since this commonly refers to foreign civilian recruits (see Bakke 2014), which is a form of non-state assistance. The exclusion of organisational assistance and inspiration, also used in a related study by Byman (2005, 62-64), requires more explanation. Byman argues the former category is useful because many emerging groups do not yet possess the expertise necessary to lead a group to success, while the latter form of support offers groups a valuable ‘ideological blueprint from which to operate’ (Byman 2005, 62, 63). Both of these categories are problematic, however, because in most cases they are difficult to empirically observe. Sometimes, such as in the cases of Iranian support for Hezbollah (see Norton 2007, 35- 36; DeVore and Stähli 2015) it is clear the rebels received these forms of assistance, but in most other cases the exact topics the sponsor and client have discussed during their meetings are closely guarded secrets even long after the conflict has settled. This practical problem prevents adequate measurement.

Returning to the categorisation used here, it is worth stressing that there is no distinction regarding the quantity and quality of the type of support awarded. Sponsors may differ widely in this regard; some patrons shower their clients with assistance, while others are far less forthcoming. This variation may, of course, affect the impact of sponsorship. Unfortunately, it is not feasible to develop sub-typologies based on the level and quality of support as such an effort would only raise new questions, such as how to measure quality and whether to use absolute or relative measures. Thankfully, the use of a dichotomous measurement does not pose much of a conceptual problem since states can be assumed to support a rebel group to the extent they can afford it and to the extent that they deem necessary for it to have the desired effect. Having explained the rationale behind the categorisation used, this section next conceptualises each type of assistance in greater depth by discussing them in turn.

Troops The first and arguably most forceful way governments can assist rebels is by contributing combat troops. Troop support refers here to combat troops, that is, foreign military personnel directly involved in engaging with the enemy from land, sea, or air. Civil servants with quasi-military skills, such as US Central Intelligence Agency personnel, do not fall under this category. Troops are also not to be confused with foreign fighters, also known as transnational insurgents. This phenomenon has received much attention in recent years (e.g. Hegghammer 2011; Malet 2013; Bakke 2014), and refers to ‘non-state actors voluntarily joining the rebels in an armed struggle outside their own home country’ (Bakke 2014, 150). While both troop support and foreign fighters are foreign to the country in which they fight, the key difference between them is that troop support refers to legal members of another military whereas foreign fighters are civilians. State troops also do not become regular members of the group they assist whereas foreign fighters do. Following the classification used by Högbladh (2011), non-combat troops, such as military advisers (or trainers), maintenance personnel, and logisticians, are classified according to the respective categories in which they are active. Governments sometimes officially deploy military personnel as advisors but are used in practice as combat troops. This is regarded here as the state awarding troop support. A good example is the Russo- Georgian war of August 2008, in which Russian troop deployments in aid of separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia appeared to play an important role in the rebels’ ability to resist Tbilisi’s forces (see Asmus 2010). While troop support is most commonly given in

40 the form of land-based forces (the army), it may also encompass soldiers active in other branches of the military. In 1999, for instance, (state) members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) supported the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) primarily by conducting an aerial bombardment campaign directed at the government of Serbia led by Slobodan Milošević (Perritt 2008). The inclusion of the category of troop assistance might attract criticism from readers who believe this conceptually falls outside the scope of assisting rebel groups (e.g. Mumford 2013). They might argue that troop assistance effectively amounts to a (rebel- biased) third party military intervention, which is far more consequential than any of the other forms of support. This type has nonetheless been included here precisely because it is believed to be able to directly ‘tip the military balance [of power]’ (Byman 2013, 986) between the insurgents and counterinsurgents. Including troop support also allows for a direct comparison of this purportedly potent form of support with other (potentially less potent) forms of assistance.

Transport and logistical support Another way states can help rebel groups is by providing transport and logistical support. Transport refers here to the delivery of means of transport (e.g. a truck, ship, or aircraft), while logistical support refers to assistance with the transport of people and goods across land, sea, or air. The issue of transport and logistics are an often-overlooked aspect of war. Many studies on rebel groups focus on strategy, exploring how and why rebel commanders made important decisions, and reflecting on whether these were the right ones (e.g. Weigert 2011). In doing so, as Zhukov (2012, 145) rightly notes, rebel groups are often perceived as being ‘highly flexible’ and able to procure goods and transport as they require them (see also Hazen 2013). Yet this overlooks the fact that, in practice, rebel behaviour is severely constrained by problems of transport and logistics. For instance, a commander may wish to go on the offensive but be unable to because his forces lack the means to do so, or because his troops cannot be resupplied later (see Van Creveld 1991). The availability of material goods and, in particular, the ability to move them therefore ‘determines the variety of strategic options available’ (Erbel and Kinsey 2018, 4). Rebel groups may, of course, try to avoid the problem of transport and logistics by choosing to live off the local population. Such foraging is common, particularly amongst smaller groups, but as the group grows in size, this becomes increasingly difficult to

41 sustain. Not only does foraging force growing groups to move to ever greater populated areas in search of resupplies, larger groups also require more advanced military equipment, which the general population simply does not possess. Ultimately, rebel groups therefore require a professional transport and logistics system to defeat their opponent. The First Indochina War (1946-1954) shows how external states can assist rebels with material goods and opening supply lines. In the early stages of the conflict, the Marxist-Leninist Viet Minh rebel group was struggling to obtain the resources required to keep them going against colonial power France (Shrader 2015, 157). The Communists’ fortunes changed after Mao’s victory in neighbouring China in 1949. On 18 January 1950, China recognised the independent state the Viet Minh sought to establish and signed an agreement for the delivery of supplies the very same day. Supplies steadily increased in size throughout the conflict, with estimates running as high as 4,000 tonnes of supplies per month by the end of the war. China also helped with logistics, transporting goods and people by road and rail around the Red River Delta (Shrader 2015, 168-169). The rebels subsequently made great headway, and eventually managed to defeat France on 7 May 1954 in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

Weapons States wishing to offer military assistance short of troops can aid rebel groups by supplying them with arms. Such an offer is likely to be welcomed as weapon acquisition has been described as the ‘the most important task’ for rebel groups seeking to initiate an armed conflict (Marsh 2007, 54). Not only are weapons, as the term armed conflict suggests, by definition necessary to start war, they are also the ‘fuel’ needed for war continuation (Sislin and Pearson 2001, 85). Weapons support refers here to ‘donations, transfers, supplies or loans of weapons or ammunition of any kind’ including weapons and ammunition sold on ‘conciliatory terms’ (Croicu et al. 2011, 15). Weapons refer here to both small arms and light weapons (SALWs) and heavy weaponry. The definition of SALWs is technical and contested, but may be understood here as easy to move arms, operated either individually (small arms) or in a small team (light weapons), and includes pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, grenades, shoulder-fired weapons, and mortars (Greene and Marsh 2012, 2-3). Scholars and policymakers disagree on the inclusion of landmines, but as rebel groups frequently make use of them (and other explosive devices) they are included here as well. Heavy

42 weaponry refers here to all arms exceeding the SALW definition, such as artillery, armoured vehicles, attack aircraft, and naval ships. Most rebel groups rely heavily on SALWs; Byman et al. (2001, 93) even call them insurgency’s ‘defining technology’. There is some justification for this: in a study of ethnic wars during the 1990s, Sislin and Pearson (2001, 36) find that 26 out of 37 investigated rebel groups exclusively made use of such weapons. The benefits of SALWs for rebel use are easy to see. As Boutwell and Klare (1999, 2) summarise, most SALWS are simple, available, affordable, lethal, durable, portable, and easily concealable. In many developing countries, ownership of SALWs is also poorly regulated, which aids rebel use. It needs to be stressed that while most SALWS are low technology weapons, this is not the case for all. Man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS), for instance, contain sophisticated infrared and laser-guided technology to locate the target. Some rebels also make use of heavy weaponry (Moore 2012). After taking control of Mosul in June 2014, for instance, the Islamic State seized US-manufactured M1 Abrams tanks from Iraqi troops (Byman 2016, 149). Sislin et al. (1998, 397) observe rebels are particularly likely to use heavy weapons in the event of (sudden) state breakdown, when defecting military personnel strengthen the rebel group with heavy weapons and the required knowledge to operate them. Examples of rebel use of heavy weaponry in such cases are the Bosnian War (1992 – 1995) and the First Chechen War (1994 – 1996). States may supply rebels with either type of weapons, and can do so directly or, because of its illegality and covert nature, indirectly. In the latter scenario the sponsoring state commonly makes an arms transfer to a regional state who then supplies the rebel group (Bourne 2012, 31). When rebels control the nation’s point of entry, arms deliveries may arrive in a single delivery or several large batches. When rebels do not control the point of entry, the weapons need to be smuggled into the country. One popular way of doing so is by transporting them in a high frequency, small volume transport method known as the ‘ant trade’ (Marsh 2007, 62). The case of the Afghan Mujahedeen shows the impact arms deliveries can have. After invading the country in 1979, Soviet forces used helicopter gunships to attack rebel camps in mountainous areas. As part of the wider struggle between East and West, the US supplied the Mujahedeen with various regionally sourced weapons to raise the Soviet cost of territorial expansion. At first, US support for the Mujahedeen appeared to do little to advance their cause but in 1986 Washington started supplying the Mujahedeen with highly sophisticated FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles to neutralise the airborne threat.

Although figures are contested, the Mujahedeen is reported to have used these to down over 250 Soviet aircraft (Crile 2003; see also Kuperman 1999).

Training States may also assist a rebel group through training. Training refers here to all government initiatives to teach rebels the skills they require to take on their adversary. The type of training states offer may differ widely and can consist of (basic) combat training, such as rifle use, first aid, battle planning, and navigation. It may also include non-military training, such as leadership training, organisational advice, or political education. The depth and breadth of the training offered may also differ. It can range from a series of short, informal meetings, to extensive, formal training programmes in offered in military barracks. It may also be offered only to the senior leadership or to the entire rank and file. State training is sometimes offered on the sponsoring government’s own territory, where it has the resources available to do so, but can also be given on the territory of another state to avoid public exposure. Possessing the right skills is essential for rebel groups if they are to defeat the government. Some rebels, particularly those who have defected from the military, may already possess the required military skills. But since resource constraints make rebel warfare notably different from conventional warfare, even these members can usually still benefit from rebel-specific training. Of course, rebels may choose to obtain the required skills by studying the abundance of manuals available on guerrilla warfare (e.g. Marighella 1968; Guevera 1961; Tse-tung 1961). In recent years, the internet has also proven to be a growing forum for rebels to exchange ideas and best practises, particularly for those employing terrorist tactics (Weimann 2006, 2015). While such self-study can be highly useful, state training arguably offers the rebels a more potent form of war preparation. States often offer rebels training before the onset of hostilities. In 1987, for instance, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi sponsored aspiring West African revolutionaries by training them some 4,000 miles away in the east Libyan city of Benghazi. Attending Gaddafi’s training were, amongst others, Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh (Abdullah 1998; Johnston 2008, 121, 129). Upon completion of their training, Taylor went on found the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), which led in 1989 to the start of the First Liberian Civil War (1989 – 1996). Sankoh became the leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which sparked the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991 – 2002).

Sanctuary States wishing to help rebels short of supplying personnel or material goods may choose to offer them a sanctuary or ‘safe haven’ on their territory (Salehyan 2009). Sanctuary refers here to the situation in which a government actively though not necessarily openly allows members of a rebel group on its territory. States may offer different types of sanctuaries. In the most modest form, a friendly government may allow a rebel leader to pass through or reside in the host state. In the most extensive form, a sponsor can allow a rebel group to set up a large, permanent, and highly visible headquarters on its territory. Governments commonly offer such safe havens free of charge, but in some cases sponsoring governments have asked the rebels to pay a fee. In the late 1990s, for example, al-Qaeda paid an estimated $10 million to $20 million per year to the Taliban government of Afghanistan to use that country as its permanent base (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 2004, 171). The sanctuary does not need to neighbour the country in which the rebels fight, but neighbouring sanctuaries are generally considered to be more useful to rebel groups than non-neighbouring states since insurgents ‘usually lack the ability to project force over long distances’ (Salehyan 2008, 56; see also Hazen 2013, 179). Contrary to popular belief, weak or failed states, which respectively struggle and are unable to exercise their Weberian monopoly on the legitimate use of force, are not necessarily more valuable sanctuaries. As Patrick (2011, Chapter 2) explains, such places lack the political order and infrastructure rebel groups require to operate effectively. Moreover, these states lack the capability to adequately protect the group from their opponents. Host state strength is therefore not a liability but an asset. Following the typology developed by Arsenault and Bacon (2015), sanctuaries may be thought of as being most valuable to insurgent organisations when the sponsoring government has both the motive and the capabilities to assist the rebels. Rebels may use sanctuaries both before and during conflict. Prior to the start of major hostilities, rebels use them to organise themselves, draft war plans, raise funding, train new members away from the battlefield, and prepare for combat (Salehyan 2009). They also use it to recruit members among diaspora groups and other sympathisers, for instance in refugee camps (Lischer 2005; Stedman and Tanner 2003; Zolberg, Suhrke, and Aguayo 1989). Once the conflict has started, rebels can use sanctuaries as a secure ‘rear base’ (Salehyan 2009, 45) in which they are able to hibernate during climate seasons ill-suited for fighting or when they simply need respite from sustained attacks. Turkey’s

Kurdish Workers’ Party (or PKK), for instance, has used its Iraqi sanctuary for the latter reason (Kirisci 1996). Incumbent governments are often hesitant to follow the rebels into their sanctuary since state borders function as ‘agreed upon or de facto lines of defence against foreign aggression and geographic demarcations of political authority’ (Salehyan 2007, 220). In a few cases, governments have chased rebels abroad; in 1982, for instance, Israel invaded Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley to neutralise the threat posed by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). Such cross-border raids, however, are rare and often politically costly because they violate the widely supported norm in international relations of non- intervention (Salehyan 2007, 223). Apart from the risk of a cross-border raid, sanctuaries have two more downsides: they reduce insurgent awareness of developments in their home country and they increase transport costs and time, particularly for non- neighbouring safe havens.

Basic needs Governments can also help insurgents by supplying them with basic needs. This concept emerged in the mid-1970s in the field of development studies, where it is (or was) used as an alternative for Gross National Product to measure the level of development in a given state and as an instrument to alleviate absolute poverty (see, for instance, Streeten 1981). From the onset, proponents of this concept have disagreed about its definition, with some using a narrow definition aimed at ‘removing absolute deprivation’ (Stewart 1985, 1), while others use a more expansive definition that also includes items that are needed to live a full life, such as employment and political liberty. Following Streeten and Burki (1978, 413), basic needs are defined here as those goods and services that are required for continued human survival. Users of this definition commonly distinguish between six types of basic needs: food (or nutrition), water, shelter (including clothing), health care (including medicine and emergency care), sanitation, and education (Streeten 1981, 92, Chapter 6). The inclusion of education is appropriate for the context for which the concept was developed but is not necessary for survival in the situations discussed used here. As it also overlaps with the separate category of training, education is omitted here. States are considered to award basic needs assistance if they provide at least one of these types of assistance.

Financial assistance States may also offer rebels financial assistance, which is defined here as any monetary transfer made to a rebel group. Money has been called the ‘lifeblood’ of armed groups (Giraldo and Trinkunas 2007, 1; Clarke 2015, 1) because possessing sufficient (financial) resources is crucial to any group’s success (Hazen 2013; see also Baylouny and Mullins 2018). Terrorist and insurgency campaigns are commonly portrayed as ‘relatively inexpensive’ (Crenshaw 1981, 387), but while small, incidental attacks can be affordable, large ones are not. The 9/11 attacks, for instance, are believed to have cost al-Qaeda between $400,000 and $500,000 (National Commission on Terrorist National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 2004, 169). A sustained campaign to overthrow a national government is arguably even more expensive. Conceptualising rebel finances is fraught with difficulty. Effort have been undertaken by Clarke (2015, 4) and Gurulé (2008, 21), both of whom argue rebel expenses can be separated into two types: organisational costs and operational costs. Broadly speaking, operational costs are said to concern those expenses geared toward carrying out specific attacks, such as black-market weapons purchases, training costs, and paying spies for specific information. Organisational costs refer to those expenses associated with the permanent running of the organisation, including covering expenses made by the group’s permanent leadership, recruitment costs, media campaigns, and sanctuary compensations. Clarke and Gurulé’s effort to discriminate between types of rebel finance streams is commendable but untenable. It is commendable because rebel finances are a vastly understudied aspect of armed groups and their typology is an effort to address this shortcoming. But it is ultimately untenable because the purpose of most expenses does not neatly fall in either category. Weapons, for instance, have both a specific operational purpose as well as a permanent function for rebels; for many rebels, particularly in resource-poor areas, having a weapon is often the defining feature rebel membership. The difficulty of categorising rebel finance is reflected in the lists created by Gurulé and Clarke; while Gurulé lists weapons, training, and sanctuaries under organisational costs, Clarke lists them under operational costs. A prominent example of financial support is Hezbollah, which has long fought for a variety of goals in Lebanon, including the removal of Israeli troops and the establishment of an Islamic theocracy (Norton 1987, 173). From its creation in 1985, the group has been supported by Iran, which has provided financial support as well as weapons supplies and training. Exactly how much money Iran gives Hezbollah is unclear, but is likely to be in

47 the range of $25m to $200m per year (Cordesman 2006, 3; U.S. Department of Defense 2010, 8). In the early days of the war, financial assistance enabled Hezbollah to pay salaries to its members, which is understood to have increased rebel recruitment (DeVore and Stähli 2015, 342). Interestingly, Iran is believed to tie the level of funding Hezbollah’s receives to its performance; funding rises when Hezbollah executes successful attacks and decreases when such plans are foiled or cancelled (Levitt 2007, 137). The case of Hezbollah shows financial support can be considerable and is therefore an important type of support. Of course, not all state-supported rebel groups receive this much money. In the early 1960s, for instance, the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), had to make do with donations of some $5,000 per supporting state (Mandela 1994, 277-290). Yet for small groups even a minor amount of financial assistance can have an important effect on the course of their campaign.

Intelligence assistance States may also help rebels by sharing intelligence. Intelligence is a contested concept; some see it as the process or activity of collecting and analysing information, while others see it as a finished product, or as an organisation (Lowenthal 2012, 9). The disputed nature of intelligence means scholars also disagree about its definition; one author emphasises its secret nature (Warner 2002, 20), while another highlights its function to forecast events (Breakspear 2013, 688), and a third stresses its purpose to ‘enhance relative security’ (Gill and Phythian 2006, 7). Considering that intelligence can also be based on public information, can be aimed at assessing static situations, and can also be intended for offensive purposes, intelligence is defined here simply as the collection and analysis of information concerning an adversary. Intelligence assistance refers to a government sharing such information with a rebel group. This intelligence may be obtained by intelligence organisations falling under the responsibility of the police services, homeland security, the military, or any other government department, but is most likely to emanate from those agencies oriented toward foreign and military intelligence. In addition to collecting information, some intelligence organisations, such as the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), also have a mandate to directly act on their intelligence, primarily by engaging in covert operations. Such activities are also included in this category. Possessing sound intelligence can be a major asset for rebel groups. It increases a rebel group’s knowledge of the enemy, which is key to defeating it (Tzu 1963, 84). This

48 knowledge can yield gains both on the tactical and strategic level of warfare. On the tactical level, intelligence may, for instance, provide the rebels with information on the location, size, strength, and readiness of enemy units, which helps rebels select the optimal time and point of attack. On the strategic level, intelligence can, for instance, provide the rebels with detailed information on the strategy the government pursues to defeat the insurgents, which helps them identify weak spots. But intelligence is no panacea; intelligence failures are common (Betts 1978) and the value of even the highest quality intelligence is only as great as the recipient’s ability to use it (Keegan 2003). Obtaining intelligence is a resource and knowledge-intensive activity, which many rebel groups and poverty-stricken nations can ill afford. Since developed states possess highly sophisticated methods of collecting and analysing information, they are suitable actors to supply rebels with intelligence. States have a long history of engaging in the practice; Gill and Phythian (2006, 8) rightfully observe it has been mentioned as early as Thucydides’ (2009) book on the Peloponnesian War. States are typically hesitant to share valuable, difficult-to-obtain intelligence with others. Nonetheless, there is sufficient case evidence of governments sharing intelligence with other governments (see, for instance Walsh 2009). The same cannot be said for intelligence sharing with rebel groups. This may either be explained by states keeping such activities even more closely guarded or be an indicator that this is simply not a prevalent type of support.

Political support Finally, governments can assist a group by declaring their political support. Political support refers here to any verbal or written statements made in direct support of the rebel group. Indirect statements, such as a critique of the incumbent government’s counterinsurgency policies are excluded, since from such statements it cannot be deduced that the government also supports the opposing rebel group. Rebel groups often greatly appreciate receiving political support because it brings international attention to the organisation, which can help to legitimise their role in the war (Byman 2005, 61-62). Political support can also help to undermine the incumbent government’s campaign. A common method of counterinsurgency is to portray the armed opposition as criminals, bandits, or terrorists, but such framing is less credible when the group manages to attract broad displays of political support from internationally respected governments. A third benefit is that it can act as a gateway for other forms of

49 support. When a government publicly recognises a group, they are likely to assist them in other ways as well. Governments have multiple ways of offering their political support. They can first of all acknowledge a rebel group’s existence and make favourable statements toward them (O'Neill 2005, 143). Foreign governments can also go one step further and offer their political recognition. This ‘recognises [the] state is willing to enter into political and other relations with that group’, but ‘does not create any legal obligations’, and the supporting government may withdraw their political recognition at any time (Talmon 2013, 231). The most far-reaching form of political support states can offer is to award rebels legal recognition. This creates legal obligations on behalf of the supporting party, such as recognizing the state’s embassy (Talmon 2013, 232) and is usually only given once the conflict has (long) been settled. The Communist Party of China, for instance, defeated the government of Chiang Kai-shek in 1949 but their People’s Republic of China, which replaced Kai-shek’s Republic of China, was not recognised at the United Nations until 1971. As Talmon (2013, 227) shows, governments can indicate the extent of political support they wish to offer by carefully selecting their words. A government can indicate their support by calling the rebels representatives of their people or representatives of the aspirations of their people, which indicates the government does not think the rebels represent their people directly but does support the values they espouse. Governments can further indicate their level of political support by distinguishing between calling the group a legitimate representative of the people they purport to defend (which suggests there may also be other legitimate representatives) or call them the legitimate representative or even the sole legitimate representative of a people (which indicates the sponsoring government perceives them as being the only group) (Talmon 2013, 226-230). A good example of the role of political support is the Syrian Civil War (2011 – current), in which the incumbent government led by President Bashar al-Assad consistently portrayed the rebels as illegitimate terrorists. Soon, however, the insurgents started receiving widespread foreign political support, which undermined the credibility of the Assad government’s argument. The precise level of political support varied. US President Barack Obama, for instance, called the Syrian opposition ‘a legitimate representative of the aspirations of the Syrian people (quoted in The White House 2012), while the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, called them ‘the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people’ (quoted in House of Commons 2012, 445,

50 emphasis added). That political support was gateway for other forms of assistance became clear several months later, when an ad-hoc coalition of states that had provided their political support, called the Friends of Syria Core Group, increased their assistance by providing the rebels with weapons and other war material (see Schaller 2016, 260).

Conclusion This chapter has shown that state support for rebel groups is best understood as a deliberate government policy to aid a rebel group fighting another government. It then contrasted it with other concepts, before showing its timeless and global nature. It argued that states provide state support because they perceive it to further their national interest (however they define it) and that rebel groups accept it because they wish to obtain the resources necessary to achieve their goals. It also showed that state support can generate substantial domestic and international opposition to sponsoring state, which may lead the patron to reduce or even terminate its assistance. This chapter then disaggregated support into nine different types and conceptualised each form of assistance in turn. Using this chapter’s conceptualisation of state support, the next chapter turns to the literature on its effects on civil war to develop and articulate three hypotheses that offer rival answers to the three questions posed in the Introduction.

Chapter 2: Three Rival Views on the Effect of Foreign State Support

Chapter 1 conceptualised state support and identified nine types of support. This chapter takes the next step and turns to the literature to identify and articulate three rival views how the provision of such assistance might affect intrastate armed conflict outcome. These views strongly influence the next chapter (Chapter 3), which specifies the method used to test them. They also structure the successive three chapters (Chapter 4-6), which test the hypotheses in one quantitative and two qualitative settings. This chapter proceeds as follows. It first presents the three views, showing its proponents, mechanisms, and plausibility. It then evaluates their relative merit by examining existing evidence from studies using quantitative research methods. Arguing that further testing is necessary, the chapter concludes by offering some initial thoughts on how this can best be done, which are then developed further in Chapter 3.

Positive view The positive view is the classic and most widely held understanding of the effect of state support. It maintains that such assistance is a major impetus for rebel group activity (e.g. Fall 1961; Taber 1965; Kitson 1971). A good example is Galula (1964, 28), who even goes so far as to list it as one of the four ingredients of a successful insurgency campaign. Three (contemporary) scholarly publications are particularly important in the development articulation of this view. The first is Record’s (2009) book Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win, which builds on his earlier article (Record 2006). Reviewing six conflicts ranging from the American War of Independence and the Chinese Civil War to the Soviet-Afghan War, Record argues that ‘external assistance may be the single most important determinant of insurgent war outcome’ (2009, 23). Record does not claim state support is necessarily the decisive factor in war. Indeed, he argues that it cannot compensate for inferior will or strategy and admits that it ‘may come with unwanted conditions and advice’ (Record 2009, 57). But he does believe it is an ‘enabler of insurgent success’ and a ‘precondition’ of rebel victory (Record 2009, xii, 66). Record’s argument has since been echoed by DeVore and Stähli, who in an otherwise very limited case study of Iranian sponsorship to Hezbollah say that ‘state support may be necessary for non-state actors to achieve their goals’ (2015, 332). This position is also advanced by Grauer and Tierney, who in a study on the causes of fluctuations of state

52 support prevalence claim that ‘[e]xternal support is one of the strongest predictors of rebel success’ (Grauer and Tierney 2018, 264; see also Jones and Johnston 2013, 8). The second influential study is by O’Neill (2005). In his widely respected handbook on how to analyse insurgencies, titled Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse, O’Neill includes a chapter on the role of state support. In it he advances an argument highly similar to that of Record. O’Neill says that ‘[u]nless governments are utterly incompetent, devoid of political will, and lacking in resources, insurgent organisations must normally obtain outside assistance if they are to succeed’ (O'Neill 2005, 139). Like Record, O’Neill acknowledges that government assistance can face several problems: he says it is ‘precarious’ and comes with ‘costs, risks and uncertainties’ (O'Neill 2005, 148). But all things considered, O’Neill argues the (operational) benefits of state support still (far) outweigh their costs. The third study is by Byman et al. (2001), who in their refinement of the positive view slightly depart from it (see also Byman 2013). The first part of their argument is the same as Record and O’Neill. Analysing the role of external support to insurgencies during the 1990s, Byman et al. argue that external support—and state support in particular—is ‘an important source of strength’ for rebel groups (2001, 2). Although they do not go as far as saying it helps rebels obtain a quick victory, they do argue that it increases the probability of ‘a political settlement more favourable to the insurgents’ (Byman et al. 2001, 10). Like Record and O’Neill, Byman et al. admit there are issues surrounding government assistance. They list seven: it can rob an insurgency of ‘nationalist credibility’, increase corruption, cut the rebel group off from the local population, distort military tactics, decrease the group’s ‘freedom of action’, create dependency, and ‘impose damaging and unacceptable burdens’ on the group (Byman et al. 2001, 100, 101, 102). Still, Byman et al. argue its overall contribution is highly positive. Where Byman et al. diverge from Record and O’Neil is that they argue that there is some variation in effect between support types. They say that safe havens, financial assistance, political support, and direct military support are ‘critical’ to rebel groups, while training, weapons, and other material support is merely ‘valuable’ (Byman et al. 2001, 83). Finally, foreign fighters, intelligence, organisational aid and inspiration are said to only have ‘minor effects’ (Byman et al. 2001, 84-92). Unfortunately, Byman et al. do not say what causes this purported variation.

Together, the three studies present a clear and testable claim on the purported effect of state support. The causal mechanism, however, is underspecified. Record, for instance, does not explain how state support helps rebels, he merely states that it does. O’Neill is only slightly more helpful when he states that the reason state support helps is because it ‘increases their political and military capabilities’ (2005, 139; see also Day 2011, 444). This argument is extended by Lockyer (2011). As his research is on its effect on the mode of warfare, Lockyer does not make any claims on the effect of state support on conflict outcome, but he does argue that state support has the power to transform the balance of military capabilities in favour of the sponsored side (Lockyer 2011, 2344). Furthermore, Lockyer argues that similar levels of absolute foreign government assistance has a relatively larger effect on the rebel side than on the government side because insurgents typically possess far less resources than the incumbent government (Lockyer 2018, 196). While all of this is certainly plausible, it is worth testing whether an influx of resources does indeed translate into larger and more frequent rebel attacks. Even if rebels use the resources for their intended purpose, it bears checking whether this leads to battle victory, and whether battle victory leads to more a favourable conflict outcome. The literature on strategy suggests this relationship is not as straightforward as it seems. Gray (1999, 22), for instance, argues that ‘[t]actical success does not have to yield successful strategic performance, while even tactical failure paradoxically can have positive strategic effect’. An example of the former is a pyrrhic victory, in which a battlefield success comes at such a tremendous cost to a group that it actually brings it closer to an eventual defeat. An example of the latter is the 1968 Tet Offensive (Schmitz 2005), which was a tactical defeat for the Vietcong but nonetheless contributed greatly to their eventual victory because it signalled to the Americans the insurgents’ superior resolve.

Summary The positive view is the most common opinion (both inside and outside academia) and holds that state support for rebel groups has a major positive effect on conflict outcome. Proponents of this idea acknowledge that foreign aid has drawbacks but think the benefits still far outweigh the costs. The key mechanism is that state support helps rebel groups by increasing their operational capability. These scholars disagree whether there is variation in effects between support types. The main form holds that all forms help rebel groups achieve a more favourable outcome. A slight variation of this view holds that there is considerable variation in effects: troops, sanctuary, financial assistance, and political

54 support are believed to have a strong positive effect on conflict outcome, weapons and training have a moderate positive effect, and intelligence assistance has a small positive effect. This view can be summarised in the following main hypothesis, the causal mechanism of which is illustrated in Figure 1:

H1: State support for rebel groups positively affects conflict outcome in favour of the sponsored rebel group.

Increased Positive effect on State support rebel strength conflict outcome

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the positive view (H1, main form). Arrow indicates theorised positive causal relationship.

Neutral view A second, more recent line of thinking is more sceptical about the effects of state support and holds that it has as many costs as benefits. This view is particularly noticeable in the works of Byman, who shifted from being a strong proponent of the positive effect of state support in his aforementioned co-authored 2001 study, to a much more nuanced position in his single-authored 2005 book titled Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism. In Deadly Connections, Byman (2005) analyses the effect of government assistance from four states (Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan under Taliban rule) for foreign terrorist organisations, which can be understood as a sub-group of rebel groups. He argues that such backing has both pros and cons. On the positive side, state support ‘can transform a radical group’ and makes them ‘less vulnerable to their target regime’s countermeasures’ (Byman 2005, 5). On the latter point, government backing makes it more difficult for the counterinsurgents to deliver a ‘knockout blow’, to obstruct their logistical supplies, to gather intelligence on them, put them on trial, and portray them as illegitimate actors (Byman 2005, 67-75). But on the negative side, state support may restrict a group’s freedom of action, leave them alienated from the local population, and increase between-group rivalries (Byman 2005, 75-78). The ultimate effect of foreign government assistance, Byman argues, differs

55 per group. Hezbollah, for instance, greatly benefited from Iranian support, while Syrian assistance for various Palestinian groups severely complicated their campaign against Israel. On balance, Byman does not believe there is a positive effect. In fact, he writes, ‘the end result often harms both the terrorist group and its cause’ (Byman 2005, 5). This study has a few important strengths. Byman offers valuable clues why state aid may or may not help rebels and connects this to real case evidence. His argument, however, is not entirely borne out in the cases examined; state support only had a negative effect in one of the four cases (the Palestinian groups). A further drawback is that Byman does not offer a satisfactory explanation why sponsorship appears to have positive effects for some groups but not others; he merely makes a general statement that this depends on the type and level of support without specifying how much or which types of support rebel groups need for it to have a positive effect (Byman 2005, 54). A final drawback is that this study is strictly concerned with terrorist groups, which are a specific type of rebel group which use the tactic of terror (arousing fear). This may affect their size, organisation, and goals. If these factors influence the likelihood of obtaining state support or how it is used, then it may not be possible to generalise Byman’s findings to the wider rebel group population. Another notable work is Krishnan’s (2018) book Why Paramilitary Operations Fail. Examining the effect of US support for rebel groups from the perspective of the sponsoring state, Krishnan echoes an argument advanced earlier in historical works by Prados (1996, 2009), which holds that CIA covert operations are generally not an effective foreign policy instrument. Although Krishnan acknowledges that US-supported rebels did achieve a military victory in eight of his 25 major cases of US support for rebel groups between 1949 and 2018, he quickly dismisses this as being largely due to abundant US airpower and plain luck (2018, 187-190). Moreover, like Prados, Krishnan argues that despite some immediate successes, in the long run US support for rebel groups ‘never secured democracy anywhere’ (2018, 229). Krishnan’s study is interesting for the purposes of this thesis because he provides three reasons why he believes CIA covert operations are not effective: (1) US officials frequently select a group that is unsuitable for the task at hand (more on which below), (2) US support tends to lead to conflict escalation in the form of additional support to the incumbent government side (an argument taken from Hughes 2012, 56), and (3) the US frequently ‘betrays’ its rebel partners by withdrawing its support (Krishnan 2018, 183- 186).

Unfortunately, Krishnan’s book strictly concerns cases of US support, which constitute only a fraction of the global post-World War Two cases of state support for rebel groups. Krishnan also does not seriously test his claim, opting instead to use a brief and highly selective reading of secondary literature to support his argument. Still, Krishnan’s aforementioned idea that the effectiveness of state support may be undermined by states selecting an unsuitable proxy force is interesting and is one that has also been used by principal-agent theorists, to which this section turns next.

Principal-agent theory Principal-agent (P-A) theory was introduced to the study of state support effectiveness around 2010, when analysts first started problematizing the relationship between states and rebels. They did so not by borrowing theories from (domestic) political science, but by drawing instead from the field of economics and organisation studies, which has similarly problematized the relationship between employers and employees (see, for instance, Laffont and Martimont 2002). The theory appeared to travel well to the study of rebel groups and led to a series of publications in the 2010s (Byman and Kreps 2010; Salehyan 2010; Bapat 2012; Salehyan, Siroky, and Wood 2014; Krishnan 2018). P-A theorists argue that states frequently want to achieve political-military goals abroad without committing their own troops, and therefore decide to ‘delegate’ (Salehyan 2010, 493) war to a foreign rebel group. They do so assuming that the agent (the rebel group) will use it reasonably efficiently and effectively in pursuit of the assigned ends (Bapat 2012, 10). P-A theorists do not claim states need to know the rebel group in advance, although this arguably might help. All going well, the ‘outsourcing of war’ (Bapat 2012, 3) to a foreign rebel group should save the principal precious time, energy, and costs (financial, political, and human). Yet in practice, P-A theorists argue, states waging ‘surrogate warfare’ (Krieg 2016, 98) often encounter a host of problems. Two are particularly important. First, P-A theorists argue that the lure of foreign government assistance may create adverse selection, which refers to the situation in which the state unknowingly chooses to assist a group that is unable to carry out the task at hand (Salehyan 2010, 502; Rauchhaus 2009). This can occur when state representatives, in their desire to find a suitable contractor, overestimate a rebel group’s real or potential power. It can also occur when a potential client organisation, in its effort to obtain state aid, misrepresents itself

57 by claiming to be stronger than it actually is. It is only after aid starts flowing that the difference between expected and actual capabilities becomes clear. A good example of adverse selection occurred in the early 1950s. Following the Chinese Revolution of 1949 and the onset of the Korean War (1950-1953), the US supported various groups to start a counter-revolution in China. This included the ousted Kuomintang (KMT) government that had fled to Taiwan and a separate KMT unit that had fled to Burma (now Myanmar) (Kaufman 2001b; Holober 2018). Around the same time these projects got underway, US forces that occupied the Japanese island of Okinawa were approached by a group of people claiming to be representatives of a large group of anti-communist forces based in China. The group asked US assistance to take up arms against Mao’s forces. The US, believing their story, agreed to aid the group and transferred millions of dollars’ worth of weaponry, only to find out later that it was a scam (Weiner 2007, 60). Second, P-A theorists argue that rebel groups may not efficiently and effectively use the assistance it receives (Bapat 2012, 10). Instead, rebels are subject to two forms of agency loss. The first is agency slack, which refers to the situation in which the agent becomes unwilling (rather than unable) to carry out the assignment (Salehyan 2010, 495). For instance, instead of risking their lives on the battlefield, rebel groups may simply use the presence of a foreign sanctuary to avoid war. Similarly, when out on a mission, rebels may be tempted to call off an attack so they can return to their (state-supplied) lodgings. The second agency loss is agency slippage, which is even more serious and refers to the situation ‘when an agent shifts policy away from its principal’s preferred outcome and toward its own preferences’ (Hawkins et al. 2006, 8). In this scenario, instead of using state resources to fight war, the rebels redirect it towards other ends (Sawyer, Cunningham, and Reed 2017; Krieg and Rickli 2019, 127). Financial assistance is, for instance, spent on private consumption rather than rebel operations and weapons are exchanged on the black market for luxury items. As a consequence, ‘the patron’s input in money, training, and hardware might not show on the battlefield’ (Krieg and Rickli 2019, 127). P-A theorists maintain that the reason that rebels are able to shirk—that is, to avoid their agreed responsibilities—is because states are unable to continually monitor rebel group behaviour (and therefore have information asymmetry, see Byman and Kreps 2010, 9). Furthermore, if a state would become so involved that it would know a rebel group’s every move, there would be little reason for the principal to delegate in the first place

(Hawkins et al. 2006, 25). P-A theorists also argue that the risk of agency loss is exacerbated when the rebel group knows the associated costs of non-compliance with the supporting state will be absorbed by the sponsor, a phenomenon known as ‘moral hazard’ (Salehyan 2010, 502). Rebel groups may, for instance, take great risks with state- donated war equipment, knowing that if it gets destroyed or captured in battle the sponsor will simply replace it. However, the problem of moral hazard is not prominent in influencing rebel behaviour because insurgents who take on excessive risks will pay for this with their own lives, which is a cost that rebels cannot subsequently pass on to their patron. P-A theorists argue that, in extreme circumstances, a state’s abetting of a small armed gang may lead to a ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ which the patron eventually can no longer control (Salehyan 2010, 505) (Brown 2016). A good example of this is Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which was formed in 1987 to resist Soviet support to the Communist Afghan government with support from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani government’s premier national security organisation. Pakistan officially withdrew its support in 2002, although suspicions remain that members of the ISI continue to assist the group. In 2008, LeT co-conducted the four-day long Mumbai attacks, killing 164, which went directly against the foreign policy objectives of the Pakistani government (Clarke 2010). In a worst-case scenario, a rebel group may even defect and attack its former patron. While much is still to be learned about the how, when, and why of rebel blowback, one scholar suggests group organisation may play a role, with fragmented groups posing an increased risk of biting the hand that feeds them (Popovic 2015, 2017). P-A theorists acknowledge that states are not powerless against these problems. Instead, sponsors have several instruments at their disposal to try to control their clients. To avoid adverse selection, states may first of all carefully screen potential groups to assist (Salehyan 2010, 505). Basic indicators of suitability are a shared ethnicity, religion, and convergence of political views. More sophisticated screening methods include vetting insurgent leaders or asking them to make a pledge of allegiance. Governments may also try to monitor the insurgents’ behaviour as close as possible. This can be done through regular reporting, including creating ‘fire alarms’ set to go off when the rebels deviate from what they had agreed to do (Byman and Kreps 2010, 10; see also Hawkins et al. 2006, 26-31). They can also go one step further and embed advisors to ‘to observe rogue activity’ (Patten 2013, 883).

Should the client’s behaviour spin out of control, P-A theorists argue patrons can sanction their clients by temporarily reducing or withdrawing their support, or threaten to sell them out to their opponent (Carter 2012; Salehyan 2010, 506). States may also hedge their bets by sponsoring multiple rebel groups (Byman and Kreps 2010, 11). This creates the additional benefit of providing the opportunity to allocate resources on an ongoing basis according to performance (Popovic 2018, 756; see also Staniland 2014, 50), although rebel groups may similarly seek to negate this leverage by obtaining support from multiple states (Salehyan 2010, 506). Lastly, governments may direct some of their support to a rival leader within the same group, who might be able to take over should the current leader deviate too much from the principal’s agenda (Tamm 2016b). P-A theorists argue that these control mechanisms may be able to reduce or even completely eliminate state-rebel problems but say these measures do come at the price of reduced efficiency (Kiewiet and McCubbins 1991, 27). This study takes P-A theory and extends it by taking it to suggest that, although state support increases the level of resources a rebel group has at its disposal, it also leads to extensive state-rebel friction. This greatly undermines the efficacy of state support and means that, ultimately, foreign government assistance does not significantly affect a rebel group’s probability of victory. It must be emphasised here that no P-A theorist has directly claimed that state support is not effective. Instead, this is a theoretical contribution made by this study. A slight variation of the mainstream neutral view, explicitly found in the literature on PA-theory, suggests that the extent to which state support translates into increased fighting power may depend on the ‘fungibility’ of the type of support offered. In a study concerning the determinants of the likelihood of war termination (that is, the likelihood of a war ending at any given point in time), Sawyer, Cunningham, and Reed (2017) argue that forms of aid that are fungible, meaning they are (relatively) easily exchanged for other goods, are frequently redirected for other purposes, while aid types that are non-fungible are cannot be exchanged for other items (see also Patten 2013, 883). The implication of this is that non-fungible types of support should have a positive effect on a rebel group’s ability to defeat the incumbent government (and therefore positively affect conflict outcome in favour of the sponsored party), while fungible forms of support do not. This leaves the question which forms of aid are fungible and non- fungible. Following the categorisation established in Chapter 1, weapons, sanctuary, basic needs, financial assistance can be considered fungible forms of support because rebels

60 can use this for non-warfighting ends. Inversely, troops, transport & logistics, training, intelligence, and political support can be considered non-fungible support because rebels cannot do so.

Summary The more recent neutral view holds that state support for rebel groups does not affect conflict outcome. Drawing on P-A theory, this view maintains that although foreign aid has benefits, it also has two important drawbacks. First, states frequently select a rebel group that is unsuited to the task at hand (adverse selection). Second, once support has been awarded, rebel groups may not use it as intended (agency loss). Together, these issues result in extensive state-rebel friction, which greatly undermines the efficacy of state support. As a consequence, state support does not affect a rebel group’s probability of success. The main form of this view holds that the above applies to all forms of support. A slight variation holds that this is only the case for fungible forms of support (weapons, sanctuary, basic needs, financial assistance). Non-fungible support (troops, transport & logistics, training, intelligence, political support) does have a positive effect on rebel groups. This view can be summarised in the following hypothesis, the causal mechanism of which is schematically presented in Figure 2 below:

H2: State support for rebel groups has no effect on conflict outcome.

Adverse No effect State selection State-rebel on conflict support friction outcome Agency loss

Figure 2. Schematic diagram of the neutral view (H2, main form). Arrow indicates theorised positive causal relationship.

Negative view The negative view is the most recent and least developed of the three and holds that state support has a decidedly detrimental effect on conflict outcome. This idea emerged from research on principal-agent theory, and is heavily based on the work of Weinstein (2005, 2007). In his book, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (2007), Weinstein argues that rebel groups can be split into two ideal types: those that draw on social endowments and those that primarily draw on economic endowments. He poorly defines social endowments, but likens it to the presence of what Putnam (2000) calls social capital, which can be defined as high levels of trust and reciprocity between actors. A more common and arguably more useful concept Weinstein could have used is popular support. Whichever term one prefers, the point here is that Weinstein argues this type is notably different from economic endowments, which are natural resources such as diamonds and timber, as well as taxes, and diaspora and—crucially—foreign state support (Weinstein 2007, 47-49). Weinstein argues that when a rebel group relies on social endowments it can recruit highly motivated members from the population who then form a disciplined and resilient organisation that uses little indiscriminate violence toward citizens. By contrast, ‘resource- rich groups are overwhelmed by opportunistic joiners’ (Weinstein 2007, 107), who are only in it for short-term gains. These members are undisciplined, difficult for rebel leaders to control, and frequently attack non-combatants (Weinstein 2007, 7-11). Weinstein’s idea that state support causes rebels to target civilians has since been supported by Faulkner (2016). Studying armed movements in Uganda, Faulkner observes that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which was supported by Sudan, committed extensive atrocities to citizens by engaging in violent child recruitment, while the National Resistance Army (NRA)—which did not receive foreign government assistance—did not engage in such practices. Faulkner’s argument, however, does more to challenge than support Weinstein’s theory because the children forcibly recruited by the LRA were clearly not, as Weinstein would have expected, opportunistic volunteers aiming to loot and commit atrocities. Other supporters of Weinstein’s theory are Salehyan, Siroky, and Wood (2014). The mechanism Salehyan et al. propose is highly similar: the presence of foreign government assistance reduces rebel reliance on resources provided by the general population, which causes rebels to target citizens instead. Salehyan, Siroky, and Wood make one theoretical

62 refinement: they argue that this effect only occurs if the sponsor is an autocracy. Since democracies are accountable to their citizens they do not wish to be associated with atrocities and therefore instruct their clients not to engage in such behaviour. Since authoritarian regimes are less accountable to their citizens and typically have a weaker human rights lobby, these governments do not place such limits on their clients, which leads rebels to engage in widespread citizen-directed violence (Salehyan, Siroky, and Wood 2014, 640-643). Returning to Weinstein (2005, 2007), Weinstein himself unfortunately only supports his theory with a single case study of Mozambique (his other three cases do not involve state support). He also provides some quantitative evidence but this is not convincing since this does not distinguish between deaths caused by government or rebel hands, let alone between belligerent and citizen-directed violence (Weinstein 2007, 306). Subsequent studies by Wood (2010, 2014a, 2014b) do provide further tentative quantitative evidence to suggest that there might be a positive relationship between state support for rebel groups and citizen-directed violence by rebel groups. However, a study by Fortna, Lotito, and Rubin (2018, 790) finds no statistically significant evidence that state support is linked to rebel acts of terrorism, which is a key form of rebel violence toward non-combatants. As for Salehyan, Siroky, and Wood’s theory that democratic sponsors restrain rebel violence, the evidence they provide is quite convincing. However, their quantitative analysis does only cover armed conflicts in a relatively narrow timeframe (1989 to 2009). Furthermore, Salehyan et al.’s mechanism also finds no support in Fortna, Lotito, and Rubin’s (2018, 792) study on rebel acts of terrorism. The above also leaves the question whether citizen-directed violence helps or hurts a rebel group’s ability to defeat the incumbent government. This effect is hotly debated, particularly in the field of terrorism studies (see, for instance, Dershowitz 2002; Abrahms 2006). In the field of rebel groups more broadly, Wood and Kathman (2013) argue it has a curvilinear effect: a small dose of civilian victimisation can help to extract resources from the population and raise government costs, but extensive use of this tactic undermines efforts to extract concessions from the government because it makes the group too radical (see also Hultman 2007). Since Weinstein and Salehyan, Siroky, and Wood only seek to explain variation in rebel violence toward non-combatants, they do not explicitly link their theories to variation in conflict outcome. Yet in his book, Weinstein repeatedly suggests that

63 opportunistic fighters are less valuable to rebel groups than activist fighters, which implies that he believes state support has a strong and negative effect on conflict outcome. This is most clearly expressed in his 2005 article, in which he says economic endowments such as state support can be considered a ‘curse’ to rebels because it ‘attracts recruits that are possibly ill suited to the long-term goal of capturing state power’ (Weinstein 2005, 599, 600; see also Weinstein 2007, 328 n1, 340). This thesis extends Weinstein’s theory by using it to explicitly suggest that state support might have a decidedly negative effect on conflict outcome. It needs to be emphasized here that, being strictly written to explain rebel violence toward non- combatants, Weinstein does not make this claim himself. It is merely this study’s theoretical contribution to logically extend his argument to the subject of explaining war outcomes. The idea that state support might have a negative impact on rebels because it attracts undesirable recruits is enticing but does raise a few questions. First, Weinstein’s dichotomy between economic and social endowments may be difficult to sustain since almost all rebel groups do, to varying degrees, draw on both. Moreover, the endowments a group has at its disposal can shift over time. Second, Weinstein’s idea that there are only two types of recruits (high-commitment and low-commitment) is also questionable. Recruits have many different reasons to sign up which do not necessarily fit in Weinstein’s dichotomy. Furthermore, it is debatable whether state support leads rebel groups to attract opportunists seeking financial gain. As Staniland puts it in the Asian context he studies, ‘[t]here are far easier ways of making some cash than facing down Pakistani artillery or the tender mercies of the Burmese or Indonesian militaries in a peripheral area far from human rights oversight’ (2010, 58). Third, both Weinstein and Salehyan et al.’s claim that low-level recruits determine the organisation’s structure is questionable. In most rebel groups, it is arguably not the foot soldiers but the insurgency’s leaders who are responsible for organisation and discipline. Using rewards and punishments they exert considerable influence on the behaviour of their subordinates. Fourth and finally, the idea that undisciplined subordinates will be violent to the population while disciplined ones are not is open to debate. Indiscipline may lead to excess but discipline itself is no guarantee against violence. Nazi Germany, Iran’s Savak secret police, and current-day North Korea are just three examples of disciplined yet violent (state) organisations. Each of them has targeted citizens using violence.

Summary The third and final view developed here is the most recent one and holds that state support for rebel groups has a decidedly negative effect on conflict outcome. This is because foreign assistance attracts opportunistic and non-committed recruits. Such recruits damage the group’s likelihood of success because they commit extensive counterproductive citizen-directed violence. A slight variation of this view holds that this is only the case when the sponsor is an autocratic state. Rebel groups that are sponsored by democratic states do not have this problem because their sponsor is more concerned about rebel atrocities. This view can be summarised in the following hypothesis, which the causal mechanism of which is illustrated in Figure 3:

H3: State support for rebel groups negatively affects the conflict outcome a rebel group is able to obtain.

Increased Counterproductive Negative State recruitment of rebel violence effect on support opportunistic toward non- conflict members combatants outcome

Figure 3. Schematic diagram of the negative view (H3, main form). Arrow indicates theorised positive causal relationship.

Existing quantitative evidence Before setting out to test these three rival views it is useful to examine the quantitative literature to assess what is already known about this relationship. Although few studies examine state support directly, at least nine studies have quantitatively tested the relationship between state support for rebel groups and conflict outcome by including this as a control variable (see Table 1 below). This list excludes non-rigorous studies (such as Jones and Johnston 2013), as well as studies that exclusively focus on the sub-category of terrorist organisations (e.g. Abrahms 2012).

At first glance, the evidence appears strong. Despite different operationalisations of variables, the use of different data sets, and the use of different statistical analyses, all but two find a positive relationship, meaning that the provision of state support correlates with outcomes that are more favourable to the sponsored party. There therefore appears to be substantial support for the mainstream positive view.

Timeframe N Relationship Manwaring and Fishel (1992) 1945 – 1983 43 Positive Gent (2008) 1944 – 1999 140 Positive Lyall and Wilson III (2009) 1800 – 2005 286 Positive Connable and Libicki (2010) 1945 – 2006 89 Positive Chenoweth and Stephan (2011) 1900 – 2006 178 Positive Akcinaroglu (2012) 1946 – 2008 348 Positive Balcells and Kalyvas (2014) 1944 – 2004 147 None Jones (2017a) 1944 – 2007 154 Positive Jones (2017b) 1946 – 2015 143 None Table 1. Overview existing quantitative studies results.

Scratch under the surface, however, and a different picture emerges. Two of the studies, by Manwaring and Fishel (1992) and Connable and Libicki (2010) rely on data from surveys taken from conflict specialists. This means they do not so much measure the effect of state support as they measure its perceived effect by their interviewees. Manwaring and Fishel’s data set also has a very low n, erroneously includes within-country safe havens as sanctuaries, and uses three survey questions to measure external support, two of which are identical (Manwaring and Fishel 1992, 309). Furthermore, the question whether the counterinsurgent was able to isolate the rebels from support does not specify whether this refers to domestic or foreign support (Manwaring and Fishel 1992, 303). These issues cast doubt over the study’s internal validity, that is, whether it really measures what these scholars wanted to measure. The study by Gent (2008) is more convincing, but this only includes military support. As shown in Chapter 1, states may also aid groups using non-military means, which the Gent study excludes. Furthermore, Gent’s finding that state support increases the probability of a rebel victory only tells part of the story. If military support really helps rebels win, it should also have a negative effect on the likelihood of a conflict ending in a

66 negotiated settlement or a rebel defeat. However, a close reading of Gent’s results show this is not the case: military support has an equally strong and positive effect on the conflict ending in a negotiated settlement, and has a weak and non-significant effect on a rebel defeat (Gent 2008, 725). Turning to the study by Lyall and Wilson III (2009), this result is based on data stretching back as far as the start of the 19th century. While this makes sense to answer their primary research question, which is about the effect of military mechanisation on counterinsurgency success, for testing the effect of state support it unnecessarily exposes the data set to a great risk of measurement error. Lyall and Wilson III (2009, 70-71) counter this with the argument that they only include those cases on which they were able to obtain reliable information. However, this does not solve the problem as omitting cases distorts results just as much, since Lyall and Wilson III may have inadvertently excluded important deviant cases. One indicator this is the case can be found in the fact that the result on 20th century conflicts, on which better quality data is available, show a far weaker relationship than that on 19th century wars (Lyall and Wilson III 2009, 88). The next study is Chenoweth and Stephan (2011), who compare success rates of violent and non-violent (rebel) campaigns. They do so using conventional binary logit models, one of which includes a measurement of state support. Yet this model does not include the usual controls found in many quantitative studies on civil war outcome, such as whether it was an ethnic war, or whether it was fought in a democratic state. Instead, Chenoweth and Stephan measure the level of regime repression, number of participants, number of military defections, and number of sanctions, all of which are statistically insignificant (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011, 52). This is unfortunate, because it means that this does not tell us whether this relationship holds after controlling for the usual exogenous factors. The study by Akcinaroglu (2012) primarily analyses the effect of rebel alliances on war outcome. As a control variable Akcinaroglu borrows an indicator on state support for the rebel side from the Non-State Actor (NSA) data set created by Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan (2013). As will be discussed in Chapter 3, by only coding ‘endorsement’, ‘non-military’, ‘military’, and ‘troops’ (Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan 2013, 524), this data set only partially captures the concept of state support. Most importantly, the NSA measurement does not include foreign sanctuaries. As a result, the study by Akcinaroglu does not fully capture state support as it has been developed in Chapter 1.

The result from Jones (2017b) is promising but unfortunately also includes support from non-state actors (such as diaspora) groups. Jones does run a separate model with only state support, but then restricts it to assistance provided by great power states only (the US and USSR, which he finds has a positive effect), thus ignoring the possible effectiveness of support provided by the other states that engage in this practice. The study by another Jones (2017a) published in the same year employs a Cox proportional hazard model (also known as a competing risks model, see Box-Steffensmeijer and Jones 2004), which unhelpfully collapses the distinctive dependent variables of conflict outcome and duration into a single coefficient (more on which in Chapter 3). Finally, the study by Balcells and Kalyvas (2014) does meet all the usual standards and are therefore most convincing one here, but its findings contradict all most of the others (but see also Getmansky 2013, 721). This means that either there really is no effect on conflict outcome, or this difference is explained by another—so far unidentified— factor. It needs to be stressed here that the above critique is not meant to discredit any of these studies. In almost all cases the chosen method was justified considering the questions these studies set out to answer. The critique is merely to point out that these studies do not provide us with a conclusive answer to the specific question posed here. Further testing is therefore necessary.

Types of support Turning to quantitative studies on the effect of different types of support, the evidence from this is even more limited than that on state support in general. As Table 2 shows, research for this thesis only found four studies that have examined this.8 The first serious study, by Balch-Lindsay et al., finds that troop support has a strong, significant, and positive relationship with a rebel victory and negotiated settlement and a strong but less significant, and negative relationship with government victory (2008, 357). Another study, by Sullivan and Karreth (2015) finds that troops significantly help rebels achieve a victory compared to the alternative outcome of low activity, but does not affect their probability of achieving a negotiated settlement or ending up with a military defeat. Sullivan and Karreth (2015, 383) report that this result is corroborated using another,

8 This table excludes the non-rigorous finding on the effect of several types of support from Jones (2017b) because that study only uses basic crosstabulations that do not control for external factors. 68 more limited annualised data set that stretches from 1975 to 2010 (from Högbladh, Pettersson, and Themnér 2011). A study by Sislin and Pearson (2001) on the effect of rebel ability to acquire weapons finds that this has a mixed effect. On the one hand, it appears to help rebels avoid defeat, but, surprisingly, it is also associated with a decreased probability of full rebel victory. Arms abundance is most strongly associated with ‘mutually hurting stalemates’ (Sislin and Pearson 2001, 133), which refers to the situation in which the ‘countervailing power of each side, though insufficient to make the other side lose, prevents it from winning’ (Zartman 1993, 24). Finally, one study has examined the effect of sanctuaries. Carter (2012), who examines the sub-category of terrorist groups, finds that the presence of a foreign sanctuary increases the likelihood that a terrorist group is defeated. The reason for this, Carter argues, is that sanctuaries leave rebel groups at risk of being sold out to their enemy by their patron. To summarise, the literature is divided about the effects of troops, weapons, and sanctuaries. The influence of the other six types of support (as conceptualised in Chapter 2) appear to have been entirely untested.

Type of Timeframe N Relationship support Balch-Lindsay et al. (2008) Troops 1816 – 1997 213 Positive Sullivan and Karreth (2015) Troops 1945 – 2010 363 Positive Sislin and Pearson (2001) Weapons 1990 – 2000 37 Mixed Carter (2012) Sanctuary 1968 – 2006 648 Negative Table 2. Overview of existing quantitative results on types of support.

Like the quantitative evidence on the effects of state support more generally, some of the results on the effect of particular types of support raise questions when closely scrutinised. Starting with Balch-Lindsay et al. (2008), this study only includes wars which caused at least 1,000 deaths (thus excluding many smaller conflicts) and since it uses data by Small and Singer (1982, 219) it only measures troop support when the supporting state either sent at least 1,000 troops or suffered 100 deaths. Since troop support below this threshold can still have an important impact, this under-codes this variable. Balch-Lindsay et al. also use a competing risks analysis which combines the effect on duration and outcome into

69 the same measurement. Balch-Lindsay et al. call this a major strength of their research design, but this is a weakness since these are distinct aspects of civil war which deserve to be treated separately. As for the study by Sullivan and Karreth, their finding that troop support increases the probability of rebel victory is interesting but it is odd that they explored this effect in comparison to the outcome of low activity, which refers to the situation in which the conflict has fallen below the Uppsala Conflict Data Program definition of armed conflict of 25 deaths per year (Kreutz 2016, 3). Being a highly common outcome, it is understandable that Sullivan and Karreth chose this as their baseline, but for the purpose of interpretation of effects it would have been far more useful to know how troop support affects the probability of rebel victory compared to the alternative outcomes of a negotiated settlement and rebel defeat. Turning to Sislin and Pearson, this study only analyses the effect of weapons procurement on rebels during the 1990s. This narrow timeframe greatly reduces the number of cases, which reduces the generalisability of the results. Furthermore, since Sislin and Pearson are interested in the effect of weapons availability more broadly, they include non-state sources of weapons support. Finally, the Carter study on sanctuary only explores the relationship between sanctuary and defeat. He does not test whether it also makes them less likely to win or perhaps bring them closer to a negotiated settlement. This is therefore only a partial analysis.

Conclusion This chapter has done three things. First, it has developed and articulated three rival views on the relationship between state support and conflict outcome. Second, it has shown that there is some quantitative evidence to suggest that the state support has a positive effect, but that this should not be taken as conclusive. Third, it has demonstrated that little is known about the effect of individual types of support. Further research is therefore necessary. The three rival views developed in this chapter have clear implications for what to expect in the empirical chapters (Chapters 4-6). If the mainstream positive view is correct that state support leads to a more favourable conflict outcome for the supported party

(H1), then the quantitative analysis should be able to demonstrate that groups who receive this form of aid experience on average more favourable conflict outcomes than those who do not. Similarly, the qualitative analysis should be able to demonstrate that the onset

70 or an increase of state support is followed by substantial rebel advances, such as the intensification of a rebel campaign.9 Conversely, termination or reduction of state support should lead to substantial rebel setbacks, such as a retreat of rebel forces or the loss of territorial control. If it is true that state support has no tangible effect on conflict outcome because its benefits are cancelled out by its drawbacks (H2), this should also be reflected in a statistical analysis. Rebels that receive foreign government assistance should then win or lose wars at a rate that is highly comparable to non-state supported rebels. Furthermore, case study evidence should then be able to demonstrate that the reason the rebels did not win was because of extensive state-rebel friction generated by issues of adverse selection and agency loss. Finally, if the negative view is correct that state support has a detrimental effect on conflict outcome (seen from the rebel perspective) because it attracts violent recruits (H3), the quantitative analysis should show that rebels who receive such aid are more often defeated and less often victorious than those who do not. Moreover, an up-close examination of rebel groups should show that the rebels became more violent and less successful after the onset or increase in foreign state aid. Having identified and articulated this study’s three main hypotheses, this thesis next turns to explaining the research method to test them.

9 This change must not, of course, have been caused by a third factor, such as a sudden, unexpected, and unrelated collapse of the incumbent government. 71

Chapter 3: The Mixed Method Research design

The previous chapters conceptualised state support (Chapter 1) and discussed what is currently known and unknown about how such aid affects intrastate conflict outcome (Chapter 2). This chapter takes the next step, which is to explain the method used to investigate this topic. It is structured as follows. This chapter first explains why this study adopts a mixed method research design consisting of a large-n analysis followed by two case studies. It explains that the quantitative component is carried out through the assembly of a new data set by merging data from existing sources on the independent and dependent variables. The chapter then discusses how the qualitative analysis is conducted. It does so by first elaborating on the rationale behind the use of a double case study, then showing the rationale behind selecting the Angolan War (1975 – 1991) and the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979 – 1990), before discussing the method of data collection and analysis. Throughout, this chapter addresses possible objections to the chosen research design.

Mixed method This study takes a mixed method approach. This section first explains what mixed method research is before showing why this approach is better equipped to achieve this study’s goals than either a large-n or small-n monomethod design. It then discusses its application and addresses several possible objections. Used more than discussed, mixed method research is often misunderstood. A key problem is definition; a survey by Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Turner (2007, 118) of scholars using or writing about mixed method research yields nineteen different definitions. In essence, mixed method research simply refers to the combined use of quantitative and qualitative research methods within a single study (Creswell et al. 2003, 212). To this it may be added that these multiple methods are commonly used ‘for the broad purpose of breadth and depth of understanding in corroboration’ (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Turner 2007, 123). Its name is slightly misleading; mixed method research is not so much about mixing qualitative and quantitative methods into something new as it is about the use of multiple methods to study a single topic of interest. Some scholars (e.g. Morse 2003; Tashakkori and Teddlie 1998) distinguish between mixed method and multimethod research designs (see also Goertz 2017). The difference is that in the latter, the two methods are already ‘relatively complete’ (Morse 2003, 191). This

72 difference, however, is small and ambiguous. This study therefore follows the commonly accepted uniform label of mixed method. Often (incorrectly) regarded as a new form of research (Pelto 2015; Ramlo 2016; Maxwell 2016), mixed method research—provided it has been applied well—has several benefits over monomethod research designs. Following Greene, Caracelli, and Graham (1989, 258-260), using multiple research methods can help to triangulate, or verify, earlier results; it can help to complement an earlier method by explaining, elaborating, or enriching data obtained through the first method; it can help to develop a preliminary study into a further study; it can help to initiate a discussion on how diverging results can best be interpreted (although this is rare); and it can help to expand a study by increasing its scope and breath. Some scholars (e.g. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004) portray mixed method research as being by default superior to monomethod designs. This is mistaken. All research designs have pros and cons, and the most appropriate design depends on many factors including the subject matter, resource availability, source availability, and what is already known about the topic. While valuable, mixed method research is therefore no methodological panacea. Mixed method research is also sometimes portrayed as constituting a ‘third paradigm’ that fits alongside the traditional paradigms of positivism and interpretivism (Johnson and Onwuegbuzie 2004, 14). Proponents of this view argue it is the ‘best of both worlds’ (see Giddings 2006, 195) and even suggest it can bridge the supposed gap between these rival philosophies of science. This is extremely doubtful. The profound disagreements between positivists and interpretivists about the nature of the social sciences cannot reasonably be expected to be resolved at the level of methods. If they can be resolved, it would have to be at the level of philosophy (Giddings and Grant 2007, 56-57).

Rationale This study adopts a mixed method design for three reasons, which broadly coincide with the three strengths of mixed method research as identified by Teddlie and Tashakkori (2003, 14-15). First, it provides an opportunity to answer the research question posed in the Introduction in a way in which a monomethod design simply cannot. Monomethod designs broadly come in two forms: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative studies have the benefit of allowing the researcher to detect broad patterns between variables, which

73 provide an excellent basis to generalise the results across the general population. The problem with this design is that it is unable to answer the important question whether the association under investigation is indeed caused by the theorised mechanism. One solution to this problem is to conduct a purely qualitative study. Qualitative research designs have the benefit of providing rich information on the unit of analysis, which provide the researcher greater opportunity to assess whether there is indeed a causal relationship between the variables of interest. But because of the complexity of the subject matter at hand, such a design would only be able to cover three or perhaps four cases. Considering that there have been dozens of state-supported rebel groups active in civil wars in the past thirty years alone, an examination of such a small number of cases would provide insufficient information about whether these results are generalisable to the wider conflict population. Efforts to circumvent this problem by selecting typical cases would be problematic, since there would be no way of knowing whether the selected cases are not, in fact, deviant. The mixed method approach taken here solves both these problems. The quantitative element provides the opportunity to detect whether there are any general patterns amongst a wide variety of cases, while the qualitative element provides the opportunity to explore whether this pattern does indeed constitute a causal process.10 In the words of Fearon and Laitin (2008, 758), mixed method research ‘combines the strength of large-n designs for identifying empirical regularities and patterns, and the strength of case studies for revealing the causal mechanisms that give rise to political outcomes of interest’. It also bears pointing out that the perspective offered in much of the current literature on state support is based on monomethod research designs. By using a mixed method design, this study’s added value is that it presents a fresh and innovative take on this topic and provides a valuable opportunity to test rival views found in the literature (see Chapter 2). Second, the mixed method design allows for methodological triangulation (Denzin 1978), which strengthens the inferences that can be made from the data. Whether state support ‘works’ is a large and difficult question to answer. Doing so satisfactorily arguably requires the use of multiple methods of analysis. Mixed method designs do just that. By triangulating results, that is, comparing the analysis of the findings from one data set with the results from the analysis of data from another source (see Campbell and Fiske 1959;

10 This thesis follows King, Keohane, and Verba’s (1994, 85) standard definition of causality as being ‘the difference between the systemic component of a dependent variable when the causal variable takes on two different values’. 74

Webb et al. 2000; Denzin 1978), the researcher is able to increase the validity of the overall result. When the analysis of different forms of data all point in the same direction, we can be more confident that a theory is accurate than when a single method was used. Of course, the risk of using mixed methods is a diverging of the quantitative and qualitative results. This is common (Mathison 1988). However, diverging findings are not necessarily to be bemoaned but may in fact be enlightening because they indicate to the researcher that the original analysis was unable to tell the full story.11 It creates an opportunity for the researcher to explain and reconcile these diverging results and, in doing so, advance theory. Third and finally, the mixed method design allows for a greater number of perspectives to be considered. A major criticism of purely quantitative studies on civil war is that these researchers do not engage with their objects of study (see, for instance, Nathan 2005). Instead, they rely exclusively on abstract data. This is unfortunate, since this means important aspects may be missing from the analysis. To fully understand the effect of state support it is necessary to supplement abstract quantitative data on armed conflict with practical information from case studies.

Application In mixed method research, the research method can be applied in a number of ways (see Morse 2003; Creswell et al. 2003). The methods, which are understood here as ‘procedure for collecting, analysing, and reporting research’ (Creswell et al. 2003, 211), can be used concurrently or sequentially, and in the latter case they can be ordered differently. There is also the question of emphasis: both methods can receive equal attention or one method can be given greater weight than the other (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Turner 2007, 123-124). Selecting a suitable form of mixed method design is important; successful designs are tailored to the research question and set up in such a way that they complement one another. Following the typology developed by Creswell et al. (2003), this study uses a sequential explanatory design with a qualitative emphasis. This means that it first gathers and analyses quantitative data, before examining case study evidence. The reason for this ordering is that, although there are few coherent theories on the effect of foreign state support on conflict outcome, the literature does contain several rival ideas on this topic. Had no prior research been conducted on state support, it would have been appropriate

11 Another possible explanation is measurement error. 75 to first conduct an inductive, small-n exploratory study into its possible effects on conflict outcome, and then test these ideas further in a large-n setting. But as Chapter 2 showed, it is possible to use the literature to develop and articulate three distinctive views on this relationship. This study therefore takes the opposite approach: it first uses deductive (theory-first) reasoning to explore whether state support ‘works’ in a large-n study, before scrutinising the validity of these results further using inductive (empirics-first) reasoning in a small-n study. In other words, the quantitative analysis is for preliminary testing, while the qualitative analysis serves to reach definitive conclusions. This set-up does not colour or bias the qualitative analysis since one of the main functions of the cases studies is to verify the large-n result. Finally, this study gives more weight and space to the qualitative element because the analysis that is possible on the quantitative data available is limited. The qualitative part is also where the causal process, which is crucial for any theory to be plausible, is best observable and therefore deserves greatest attention. Understanding case studies also requires information on their context, which takes space, and which is why the qualitative analysis is also longer (in word count) than the quantitative analysis.

Possible objections Proponents of the ‘incompatibility thesis’ (Teddlie and Tashakkori 2003, 5) may level a principled objection by arguing it is inappropriate to use both quantitative and qualitative methods in the same study because these are based on rival ontological and epistemological assumptions (see Smith and Heshusius 1986). This argument can be countered on two fronts. First, it is a persisting fallacy to think that the positivist and interpretivist paradigms neatly align with quantitative and qualitative research. While it is true that interpretivists typically avoid quantitative methods (although see Barkin and Sjoberg 2017), positivists often conduct both types of research, and choose their method of analysis based on the subject matter (Sanders 1995, 26). Second, proponents of scientific realism, the philosophy of science which combines an objective ontology with a subjective epistemology (Bhaskar 2008), frequently, purposefully, and successfully combine both types of research in a single study (see also Furlong and Marsh 2010, 205). Others might level a more practical objection by arguing that mixed method designs are overly ambitious, and in the end, therefore achieve little. Such critics would be right that it is better to use one method well than to use two methods poorly. However, the use of dual methods does not affect the rigour with which they are employed. They are

76 merely limited in their scope; a purely quantitative design would have allowed the effect of state support to be compared with more control variables, and a purely qualitative design would have given the opportunity to add a third and perhaps fourth case study. Considering the gains made, these are small sacrifices worth making. The combination of quantitative and qualitative data adds a particular richness to the data and the development of theory that could not be achieved using a monomethod research design. A third possible objection that might be levelled at this study’s research design is that it is fallacious to distinguish between quantitative and qualitative methods. The difference between these is commonly understood as words versus numbers, but as Symonds and Gorard (2010) rightfully point out, the data of each method can be expressed both in words and numbers. The results of a quantitative survey, for instance, can be used to draw a portrait of a typical respondent by using nothing but words (Symonds and Gorard 2010, 127), and the results of a qualitative in-depth interview can be scanned for particular words and references and subsequently expressed in numbers. The solution to this important but often overlooked problem in mixed method research is to clarify that qualitative and quantitative methods refer here exclusively to the number of units analysed: quantitative methods refer to the examination of many cases (large-n) while qualitative methods refer to the examination of a small number of cases (small-n). In each, the analysis itself comprises of both words and numbers.

Quantitative analysis The quantitative analysis has two goals: (1) to statistically test whether foreign state support for rebel groups is associated with conflict outcome, and (2) to statically test whether there is variation in the effect of different types of support. These tests are conducted by assembling a new data set which combines information taken from two existing data sets. This section first explains the data sources used for the independent and dependent variables (state support and conflict outcome, respectively) and then addresses several possible objections.

Independent variable Data on the independent variable (state support) is drawn from the state-Nonstate Armed Groups Cooperation (NAGs) data set created by the Dangerous Companions Project (DCP) (San-Akca 2016). This data set contains information on ten types of state support offered to rebel groups between 1946 and 2010. These are troops, weapons and logistical

77 support, financial aid, training, transport, safe haven for group members, safe haven for group leaders, headquarters, training camps, and other support. As discussed in Chapter 1, the four measures for sanctuary (safe haven for group members, leaders, headquarter, and training camps) are taken here combined. The category of other support is dropped because of its ambiguity and rarity. Confusingly, the NAGs category adds logistical support to weapons supplies rather than transport assistance. As this cannot be recoded for the quantitative analysis, Chapter 4 will use the NAGs operationalisation, but the qualitative analysis (Chapter 5 and 6) will continue to follow the operationalisation as it has been developed in Chapter 1. The NAGs data set has been selected in favour of six other available sources. The Correlates of War project (Small and Singer 1982), the Overt Military Intervention Data (Tillema 1989), and the International Military Intervention data set (Pearson and Baumann 1993; Pickering and Kisangani 2009) were ruled out because they strictly concern military interventions conducted by third-party states and therefore only include troop support. As Chapter 1 showed states often assist rebel groups by other means, these data sets are unsuitable to answer the research question at hand. The Third Party Intervention (TPI) data set (Regan 1996, 2002) is more useful as it considers both military and economic interventions to support rebels. Its operationalisation, however, does not extend beyond this conceptualisation, thus excluding many important forms of support, such as sanctuary and training. Another available data set is the Non-State Actor (NSA) Data (Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan 2013), which contains information on four types of support to rebel groups: troops, (other) military support, non-military assistance, and (political) endorsement (Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan 2013, 524). Unfortunately, this still excludes many of the types of support identified in Chapter 1, most notably sanctuary. Furthermore, the NSA data set treats the categories as ordinal types, of which only the ‘highest’ form of support has been recorded (Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan 2013, 524). Since many rebel groups receive multiple types of support, this data set is unsuitable to analyse the effect of particular types of support. Finally, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) External Support Data set (ESD) (Högbladh, Pettersson, and Themnér 2011) includes many of the same variables as the NAGs data set, but only covers the period 1975 to 2009. As a result, its number of observations is far lower than the NAGs data set, which greatly impairs the ability to draw

78 inferences with a relatively high degree of confidence (i.e. statistical significance). It was therefore dropped in favour of the NAGs data set. Despite its virtues, the NAGs data used here is not without its drawbacks. A key drawback is that it does not include the categories of basic needs aid, intelligence assistance, and political support. This is unfortunate because this means that the quantitative analysis does not completely capture the concept of state support. One option was to code this manually, but this was ultimately rejected for three reasons. First, much of the category of basic needs aid is likely to have been coded with the category of weapons & logistics support. This is because governments who are willing and able to provide arms and logistical assistance are arguably also highly likely to aid the rebels with food, shelter, and medicine, should the insurgents require this. Coding basic needs aid separately would therefore probably have resulted in a high degree of collinearity, which would have invalidated the statistical results. Second, as discussed in Chapter 1, the literature on intelligence assistance almost exclusively concerns US and UK intelligence, and does not seriously consider intelligence assistance awarded by other states. It also almost exclusively refers to intelligence assistance supplied to other states, rather than to rebel groups. Having a lack of reliable information to work with, coding this manually would likely have resulted in substantial under-coding of its prevalence. In turn, this would have greatly undermined the reliability of the statistical results. Third, political support was not coded manually because it was not possible to create an objective measure of this. Some states officially recognize rebel groups, but this tends to happen rather late in the war, when nearby governments seek to establish ties with a rebel group that is poised to seize power. State recognition, therefore, follows imminent insurgent victory, rather than the other way around. Other measures of political support—such as speeches made by government leaders in favour of the rebels or state voting records in the United Nations Security Council—proved to be ill-suited to use as a dichotomous quantitative measure applicable to the entire data set. It is unfortunate that these three categories could not be included in the quantitative analysis, but it is better to recognise the limits of the availability of large-n data than to include a crude or ill-fitting measurement that does not adequately capture the phenomenon under investigation. Furthermore, owing to the use of a mixed method design, the effect of these forms of assistance are still included in the two case studies.

Dependent variable As with state support, there also exist multiple data sets on conflict outcome (the dependent, or explanatory variable). Conflict outcome is more straightforward to code than state support as the way wars have ended is in most cases commonly known. A reliable and widely used data set on this is the UCDP Conflict Termination Data set (CTD) version 2, which covers all armed conflicts between 1946 and 2013 (Kreutz 2010). As the NAGs data set is already compatible with the CTD (that is, it includes its conflict identification number), this study borrows information on conflict outcome from the CTD. Operationally, the CTD distinguishes between six methods of conflict termination: actor ceases to exist, low activity, government victory, ceasefire, peace agreement, and rebel victory (Kreutz 2016, 3-4). Following the common three-way typology of conflict endings established in the Introduction (see also Mason, Weingartern Jr., and Frett 1999; Balch-Lindsay, Enterline, and Joyce 2008), the first three of these have been recoded as rebel defeat, the second two have been renamed negotiated settlement, and the label of the final outcome has been retained as rebel victory. The data set is analysed in Stata (version 14.0) running the SPost package from Long and Freese (2014) and uses multinomial logistic regression. Some readers may ask why this study does not opt to use an event history model (also known as survival analysis) using a Cox (1975) proportional hazards model with time-dependent covariates. Such a model has the benefit of treating (conflict) duration as an intrinsically important aspect of the model, rather than merely seeing it as a ‘nuisance’ that needs to be controlled for (Box-Steffensmeijer and Jones 2004, 22). Furthermore, using a Cox model would not just give an indication of whether state support increases the likelihood of a rebel group obtaining a particular outcome, but also show whether it shortens the time the rebel group needs to achieve it. The use of a Cox model has nonetheless been rejected for the purpose of this thesis because it combines the effect of duration and event probability into a single measurement (for an application of this see Gent 2008; Jones 2017a). This is appropriate in some situations, such as medical trials, where patients not only benefit from an increased survival rate but also from an increased time until death. But it is not appropriate in the current context because rebel groups (and their sponsors) do not necessarily seek to fight shorter wars. A rebel group may, for instance, be willing to fight a few years longer if this greatly increases its probability of victory. Contrary to the

80 primary reason for using a Cox model, conflict duration is therefore not an intrinsically interesting object of interest, but merely an exogenous factor that needs to be controlled for. This goal is best achieved by conducting a multinomial logit regression and including a proportional measure of conflict duration as a control variable.

Possible objections Some readers might object that the data set assembled for this study only holds aggregate conflict data (yielding one row per conflict dyad), which may seem odd given that both the NAGs and CTD data sets provide annualised information. Using annualised data on both the independent and dependent variables (which yields one row per conflict dyad year) has the benefit of providing a more refined insight into how the stimulus (state support) affects the probability of event occurrence (a particular war outcome). Such a structure would also allow more easily for longitudinal analysis. The decision to assemble a data set containing only one row per conflict dyad is based on the fact that the NAGs data set captures relatively well whether a rebel group received state support and which type, but the information is less accurate on which year the rebel group received it, particularly when it was not given from the start. For the Angolan War, for instance, the NAGs data set simply codes all forms of support as having been awarded from late 1975 onwards, even though Chapter 5 will show that during the early years of the war UNITA only received basic needs assistance (as well as political support, which is not coded in the NAGs data set). The other forms of support did not really start until much later, particularly from 1978. Similarly, for the Nicaraguan Contra War the NAGs data set codes all forms of support as having been awarded from 1982 onwards, even though Chapter 6 will show that some forms of assistance were given already from late 1979, while other forms of aid only commenced in early 1982. Using such inaccurate data would undermine the reliability of the statistical results. Because the theoretical interest here is merely in the general (rather than annual) effect of state support (and types of support) on war outcome, this study has opted to err on the side of caution by only using aggregate conflict data.

Qualitative analysis This section discusses the qualitative analysis, which serves three purposes: (1) to test the overall effect of state support, (2) to test the effect of different types of support, and (3) to test the three competing hypotheses regarding the causal mechanism of state support.

This section first explains why it makes use of two case studies to achieve these goals and then shows the selection criteria used. After introducing the cases, it discusses the method of data collection and analysis, and addresses several possible objections.

Double case study For the qualitative analysis this study makes use of the case study method, which is understood here as ‘an intensive study of a single unit for the purpose of understanding a larger class of (similar) units’ (Gerring 2004, 342). Case studies are a valuable form of qualitative inquiry because they typically have strong internal validity (that is, it measures what the researcher intends to measure), they are highly suitable to explore causal relationships, and they create an opportunity to include previously unconsidered insights (George and Bennett 2005, 19-22). Their comparative advantage over other qualitative methods (such as an experiment) is that they allow the researcher to closely scrutinise a theorised relationship while retaining ‘the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real- life events’ (Yin 2009, 4). The rationale for analysing two cases, rather than just one, is that this increases the generalisability of the results. The number of cases has not been increased further to ensure sufficient analytical depth. The two cases have been purposively sampled, meaning they have been non- randomly selected using specific criteria (see Kemper, Stringfield, and Teddlie 2003, 279). The first criterion is conflict termination. Because the effect cannot be fully known for as long as the conflict is still ongoing, the conflict must have been terminated. As a result, contemporary conflicts such as the wars in Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen, were immediately ruled out. Terminated wars may, of course, restart again at a later point in time (which redefines the conflict outcome into an interim outcome), but the cases selected here should have no present indication for doing so. The second criterion is war duration. For a comprehensive examination of the effect of state support it is necessary that the war lasted for more than a short period of time since brief conflicts are likely to yield insufficient data. This criterion therefore rules out most coup d’états (which can take as little as a few hours) as well as short conflicts like the 1961 US-supported invasion of the Cuban Bay of Pigs (Jones 2008), which lasted only four days. The third criterion is the independent variable. To assess the effect of state support, the rebel group in question must have enjoyed some form of foreign government assistance. Such aid should not be incidental, like a one-off financial donation or shipment of weapons, since the effect of such a small stimulus would likely be negligible. It should

82 also not consist of a single form of aid, since one of the aims of this study is to assess the effects of a variety of types of support. The fourth and final criterion is feasibility. To fulfil the stated goal above, it is important that the cases allow the researcher to collect sufficient high-quality data. This means the war must be reasonably well-documented and, ideally, allow the researcher to gather additional evidence through interviews. The process of selecting the case studies was started by taking the full UCDP list of armed conflict dyads since 1946 (Harbom, Melander, and Wallensteen 2008, N = 615). After removing interstate conflicts (leaving N = 568) and then omitting all ongoing conflicts using the CTD (Kreutz 2010, N = 484), information was gathered for the remaining conflict dyads on the final three criteria listed above. This led to a shortlist of 36 possible conflict countries, many of which were home to multiple state-supported rebel groups.12 From these, the Angolan War (1975 – 1991) and the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979 – 1990) were ultimately selected. This section next introduces these conflicts before explaining why they are highly suitable for the purposes here.

The cases The first case study is the Angolan War (1975 – 1991), which was fought between the government of Angola and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). At the start of the conflict UNITA received little state support, but this changed in 1978, when South Africa increased its involvement. This lasted until 1984, when Pretoria reduced its aid. In 1985, South African troops returned to Angola, and in 1986 new support from the United States arrived as well. In 1988 South Africa signed a peace agreement with Luanda, but UNITA continued the war. Three years later, the insurgents also struck an agreement with the incumbent government. In 1992 the war restarted, and lasted for another ten years, but as this did not feature substantial state support this latter period is not covered here. The second case study is the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979 – 1990), which emerged as a consequence of the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution and was fought between the newly installed government of Nicaragua and a rebel movement known as the counterrevolutionaries, or Contras for short. The Contras were sponsored by a variety of

12 These are the conflicts that took place on the territory of Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Chad, China, Colombia, Cyprus, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea Bissau, Indonesia, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Korea, Kosovo, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Malaya, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Peru, Congo-Brazzaville, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uganda, United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

83 states, most important of which were Honduras and the United States. Honduras offered the rebels sanctuary, which allowed them to set up camps along its southern border from which the insurgents conducted operations into Nicaragua. The US provided extensive support, both in quantity and type. American annual aid amounted to millions of dollars and included weapons supplies, sanctuary, political support, financial assistance, military training, material support, logistical assistance, and intelligence support. The only form of assistance not awarded was troop support (see Chapter 6). After almost a decade of war, the Nicaraguan government and the Contras signed a ceasefire agreement in early 1988. Two years later, the government organised general elections, which were surprisingly won by the non-violent opposition. Following the instalment of the new government, the Contras demobilised. The Angolan and Nicaraguan cases are highly suitable for the purposes here first of all because they have been terminated (criterion 1). Hostilities in Angola ended in 2002 and the Nicaraguan conflict ended in 1990. This has allowed sufficient time for the fog of war to clear (giving a solid account of what happened) but is still recent enough that it was possible to interview participants. Both wars were also prolonged conflicts (criterion 2), with the Angolan War lasting sixteen years and the Nicaraguan conflict eleven years. Both rebel groups also received extensive state support both in breadth and depth from multiple states (criterion 3), which makes them highly insightful. Finally, both cases pass the feasibility test (criterion 4). Bearing in mind that researching wars is by its nature fraught with difficulty, the Angolan and Nicaraguan are suitable for the purposes here because they are reasonably well-documented relative to other conflicts. In recent years, the Angolan conflict has generated a wealth of literature from the South African perspective, although much that went on in the Angolan savannah during the early days of the war remains shrouded in mystery. This case also has the benefit that it was possible to conduct interviews with South African ex- combatants. On Nicaragua, direct and extensive US involvement in the 1980s generated a wealth of information on many aspects of the war, particularly on the US decision to supply aid and the mechanics of its delivery. Interestingly, however, its effect has so far been little studied. Some might question the decision to select the Angolan War as one of the case studies because Chapter 6 will show that, although the rebels in this conflict were offered a foreign sanctuary, they did not make use of it. This is unfortunate given that sanctuary is the sole type of support that Chapter 4 identifies as having a statistically significant

84 effect. This case was nonetheless chosen because it meets all of the four criteria listed above, because it does feature all of the other eight forms of support, and because the effect of foreign sanctuary is still examined at length in the Nicaraguan case study. Furthermore, the key alternatives where the rebels did enjoy a foreign sanctuary were all less appealing.13 Finally, it must be recognised that there does not exist a perfect case to examine, and that the Angolan and the Nicaraguan conflicts are simply the ones that approximate this most closely. Having introduced the cases, this section next turns to the question of the kinds of data that is gathered and how this is analysed.

Method of data collection This study makes use of existing as well as newly gathered data. Starting with existing sources, this mostly consists of primary data including newspaper articles, government documents, United Nations reports, as well as participant memoires. The primary reason for gathering this data was to collect accurate information on basic facts relating to the two wars, such as what kind of aid was supplied and which battle was won and lost. To gather the newspaper articles, this study makes use of a ProQuest archival search of all articles published in The New York Times and the Washington Post during the relevant war periods that either featured the words ‘Nicaragua’ and ‘Contra’ or ‘Angola’ and ‘UNITA’. This yielded 7,515 articles, of which the titles were scanned, and the relevant articles read, used, and cited where necessary. These two newspapers were chosen because they are high-quality, English-language publications, and because they featured extensive coverage of the two conflicts. For the Nicaraguan case the selected newspapers had the additional benefit that together they covered both sides of the debate on the Contras; the Washington Post was generally favourable to the rebels while The New York Times was highly critical of them. This balance minimised bias. As for the participant memoires, this study makes use of autobiographies from participants from all but one of the main actors involved, which includes the US, South Africa, Nicaragua, the Soviet Union, UNITA, and the Contras. Unfortunately, no

13 To illustrate, the various Ethiopian and Ugandan conflicts would have been far more difficult to research due to the difficulty to conduct fieldwork in these countries, while the Laotian conflict (in which Pathet Lao enjoyed sanctuary in North Vietnam) saw little need for the use of the foreign safe haven due to Laos’ dense terrain. The Mozambican conflict is much shorter than the Angolan War, and the Nicaraguan Revolution has the downside of ending up choosing two cases in the same country. The wars in Sri Lanka and Sudan have the even more severe drawback that these did not feature the important category of troop support (which is absent in the Nicaraguan case). 85

English-language memoir could be found from the side of the Angolan government. There is also considerable variation in the quantity of information from the actors involved, with relatively large amounts of information available from the US and South Africa and little English-language information being available on the Nicaraguan government and the Soviet Union. Fortunately, it was still possible to develop a robust general picture of the position of the actors involved using secondary data (see below). Lastly, some of the memoires instinctively proved to be more plausible than others. Questionable participant reports were discarded unless separately verified. In addition to the primary documents, the case studies also make use of secondary data, which includes the array of books as well as magazine and journal articles that have since been published on the two wars. Unfortunately, the literature on both conflicts— and especially the Nicaraguan Contra War—is highly polarised, with the first page (and sometimes even the title) often being sufficient to indicate which side of the war the author is on (e.g. Robinson and Norsworthy 1987). Thankfully, this did not pose much of a problem here since in both wars, each side generally agreed on the facts that this study is interested in (e.g. whether an attack has occurred) and merely disagreed on their interpretation of it (e.g. whether it was justified). Some sources did appear to omit important factual counterevidence but this was easily resolved by consulting multiple sources. In addition to the existing sources this study also makes use of new primary data obtained through interviews. Interviews are useful for the purposes here because they help clarify knowledge gaps, introduce previously unconsidered insights, add richness to the already available data, and ‘add microfoundations to events or patterns observed at the macro level’ (Lynch 2013, 37). Still, interviews can have important drawbacks, such as bias and untruthful reporting (Bleich and Pekkanen 2013, 86-89; Rathbun 2008, 685; Morris 2009, 210-213; Kapiszewski, MacLean, and Read 2015, Chapter 6). To guard against bias, this study includes as many different viewpoints as possible, including academics, veterans, journalists, and citizens. Although it often proved difficult to obtain access to many of the key actors, this study did manage to uncover useful new insights, particularly from South African veterans. As for the reliability problem, the interview data used the same countermeasure used for the participant memoirs by discarding questionable information that could not be independently verified. Potential interviewees were identified through universities, veterans’ associations, journalists, as well as through tips from earlier interviewees. The interviews itself were

86 semi-structured, with some questions asked to most actors (e.g. ‘How do you think US/South African support affected UNITA/the Contras?’), but most questions were tailored to the individual interviewee. Around half of these were formulated ex-ante and the rest emerged naturally as follow-up questions from answers given to earlier questions. Most interviews were conducted in person, and a few were done via Skype, telephone, or e-mail (see the Appendix). Prior to the interview, the project was explained to the potential interviewee and it was discussed what kind of questions would be asked. After having verbally received the participant’s informed consent, the interviewee was asked the desired format of citation (including the option of anonymisation) and permission to record the interview.14 Participants were generally highly motivated to participate and appeared to speak freely about their experiences (veterans) or area of expertise (academics). As with any research involving human subjects, the interview method can raise important ethical issues. The main issues anticipated for this study were participant distress and the admission of crimes. In practice, however, neither of these scenarios occurred. All interviewees remained calm and none incriminated themselves or others. Without exception, the interviews were cordial, factual, and non-distressing. The interview data was collected by conducting fieldwork, which is understood here as ‘leaving one’s home institution in order to acquire data, information, or insights that significantly inform one’s research’ (Kapiszewski, MacLean, and Read 2015, 1). For Angola, this consisted of five interviews in the United Kingdom and one in the Netherlands, as well as a four-week trip to South Africa in February/March 2018, starting in the Western Cape (Saldanha, Cape Town, and George) before flying up to Gauteng (Johannesburg and Pretoria). This resulted in fifteen in-depth interviews, with another four interviews conducted via Skype or telephone following the completion of in-country field work. The decision to go to South Africa rather than Angola was influenced by an expected difficulty in obtaining access to relevant sources, the language barrier, and the high cost of living for foreigners in Angola. By contrast, affordable South Africa offered excellent access to English-speaking South African veterans organised in a multitude of veterans’ associations. For Nicaragua, the fieldwork consisted of a planned four-week trip to Nicaragua in April 2018. Unfortunately, within two days of arrival in Nicaragua an armed conflict broke

14 On several occasions (e.g. the four telephone interviews, see Appendix) the interview was not asked to be recorded because making such a recording was impractical. 87 out between the government and student protestors (BBC 2018). Security concerns, as well as a general atmosphere in the country that greatly impaired the ability to conduct Contra-war related interviews, led this trip to be aborted after one week and three interviews. Substitute data was obtained through documents retrieved from the archives of the Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign, a UK-based non-governmental organisation, which are stored at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. Additional efforts were also taken to locate Nicaraguan documents online, as well as the purchase of several rare English-language books on the Contra war. The decision to go to South Africa rather than Angola, as well as the aborted Nicaraguan fieldwork, means the interviews used for this study almost exclusively emanates from sources outside the war-affected countries. Readers may object that this could bias the results. However, a conscious effort has been taken to identify as many existing within-country sources as possible (e.g. through the rebel memoirs) and the information imbalance was taken into account when assessing the evidence. In total, 27 interviews were conducted, of which 23 are directly referenced in this thesis, and the remaining four were used as background information. Most interviews (22) were on Angola, and five were in relation to the Nicaraguan conflict. Twelve interviews were with South African military veterans, six were academics, five were (retired) journalists, two were former rebels, and two were ordinary citizens.

Method of data analysis The data is analysed using process tracing, which is ‘the analysis of evidence on processes, sequences, and conjunctures of events within a case for the purposes of either developing or testing hypotheses about causal mechanisms that might causally explain the case’ (Bennett and Checkel 2015, 7). The key characteristic of process tracing is that it uses a micro-level approach. Hume (1748) famously argues that causal processes can never be observed—only its effect can—to which proponents of process tracing have responded by striving to approximate causal process observations—which are defined here as ‘an insight or piece of data that provides information about context, process, or mechanism’ (Collier, Brady, and Seawright 2010, 184)—through the identification of changes at the smallest possible level (Collier, Brady, and Seawright 2010; Bennett and Checkel 2015; Roberts 1996). Critics have argued that this leads to the problem of infinite regress, whereby the researcher keeps searching for smaller and smaller units to analyse (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 86). In practise, however, finding the optimal unit of analysis

88 is rarely a problem since this emerges naturally. For this study, the level of analysis rests on the singular, group-level event, such as the arrival of new weapons or a battle won or lost. Although often seen as a single analytical tool, there are in fact different ways to apply process tracing. This study uses pattern matching, which follows two steps (Yin 2009, 136-141). The competing hypotheses are first translated into rival expectations (as done in Chapter 2). These expectations are then compared to the evidence from the data collected (Chapter 4, 5 and 6). If there is a match, and there is no evidence that the outcome is clearly caused by another variable, the hypothesis would appear to be correct and is therefore retained (in Chapter 7). But if there is a discrepancy between the expectations and the evidence, or if the relationship is clearly spurious, the hypothesis appears to be incorrect and is therefore rejected. It needs to be emphasized here that civil wars are complex events which arguably cannot be studied in their entirety. The case studies therefore only focus on those elements that are most relevant to answering the three questions posed in the Introduction. This has the practical implication that the qualitative analysis devotes considerable attention to some aspects (such as the type and quality of support awarded) while only briefly mentioning less relevant aspects (such as the role of the United Nations).

Possible objections Critics might take issue with this study’s selection of cases with high values on the key variable of interest. They might argue that, like studies which examine causes of revolution by only examining cases of revolution, omitting cases of non-events in the qualitative analysis creates a systematic error which distorts the results (Collier and Mahoney 1996, 56-57). Others may argue that, supporting Geddes’ (1990) influential article titled ‘How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get’, selecting cases that were both terminated through a negotiated settlement might bias this thesis’ likely conclusion. Following Mill’s (1858) method of difference and Przeworski and Teune’s (1970) most similar systems design, such critics may argue it would be more useful to imitate a natural experiment by conducting a comparison between two conflicts which are highly similar in all but one regard: in one conflict, the primary rebel group receives state support and in the other it does not. Since all other factors are equal, any difference

89 in conflict outcome can then only be explained by the stimulus, i.e. presence of state support (see Dunning 2015). This argument can be countered on four fronts. First, selection bias is only an issue when cases are selected with the same value on the dependent variable, not when they are selected on the independent variable (Geddes 1990, 131; King, Keohane, and Verba 1994, 137; Collier and Mahoney 1996, 62). This is because selecting cases on the presence of state support does not ex-ante exclude possible outcomes. Second, the fact that both wars ended with a negotiated settlement does not predetermine the outcome of the qualitative analysis. This is because the chosen research design allows for the possibility that state support did help the insurgents, but that in both cases rebel victory was prevented by an exogenous factor. Likewise, the design perfectly permits a situation in which state support gravely damaged the two rebel campaigns but that the reason why both UNITA and the Contras still managed to obtain a peace agreement was because of an unrelated factor. Third, the alternative of comparing two highly similar conflicts would be ill-suited for the purposes here because no two conflicts are ever the same. Automatically attributing any variation in outcome to the presence of state support would therefore likely be fallacious. Furthermore, using this approach would reduce the number of cases with state support to just one, which makes it problematic to generalise about the causal mechanism. Fourth, as will become clear in Chapter 5 and 6, in both wars there turned out to be considerable fluctuation in the level of support awarded. This variation on the independent variable provides a useful opportunity to conduct within-case comparisons. Finally, some might challenge the cases selected here claiming these are archetypal Cold War conflicts which are irrelevant to understanding wars outside this period. While it is certainly true that the Cold War was a unique era in which the two competing superpowers exerted unparalleled influence on civil wars throughout the developing world (see Westad 2007), dismissing these wars as mere Cold War relics would be mistaken because of the strong parallels between these wars and contemporary conflicts. For instance, the Soviet Union’s support for communist insurgents in South-East Asia in the 1970s (Kanet 2006) is not unlike Russia’s current support for pro-Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine (2014 – current). Similarly, Yugoslav support for Communist rebels in the Greek Civil War (1946 – 1949) (Shrader 1999) arguably bears resemblance to Iran’s current support for rebels fighting in the Yemeni Civil War (2015 – current). This is not to argue that today’s conflicts are the same as yesterday’s but merely to point out that the

90 common focus in the literature on armed conflict on what has changed from the past (e.g. Kaldor 1999; Van Creveld 1991) often obscures the many aspects that have remained the same (Strachan and Scheipers 2011; Strachan 2013). Cold War-era conflicts are therefore still relevant to understand today’s armed conflicts.

Conclusion This chapter explained how this study tests the three views formulated in Chapter 2: it adopts a mixed method research design consisting of a large-n analysis followed by a small-n examination of two case studies. The quantitative analysis is conducted by assembling a new cross-sectional data set that borrows data on state support from the DCP state-Nonstate Armed Groups Cooperation (NAGs) data set. For conflict outcome, this study relies on information taken from the UCDP Conflict Termination Data set (CTD). The quantitative analysis, which consists of multinomial logistic regression, encompasses six of the nine types of support identified in Chapter 1. The effect of political support, basic needs, and intelligence assistance is exclusively analysed in the case studies. The qualitative analysis consists of a double case study of the Angolan War and the Nicaraguan Contra War. These cases have been selected because these conflicts have now been terminated, were sufficiently long, involved extensive foreign government assistance to the insurgent side, and because there is sufficient data on them (or can be gathered) to carry out the analysis. The focus on each case is on the fortunes of the dominant rebel group, which in the former was the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA, primarily supported by South Africa and the US) and in the latter the Contras (primarily supported by the US and Honduras). Data on these conflicts is collected by consulting existing primary and secondary sources, as well as by conducting interviews obtained through fieldwork. Collected data is analysed using process tracing, in which expected patterns of behaviour are matched with observed events. Having set the stage, this study now turns to the empirical chapters. It starts with the quantitative analysis (Chapter 5) and then discusses the Angolan and Nicaraguan conflicts (Chapter 5 and 6, respectively). The analysis is then evaluated in the Discussion (Chapter 7).

Chapter 4: Quantitative Analysis

So far, this study has conceptualised foreign state support for rebel groups (Chapter 1), articulated three rival views on how this may affect conflict outcome (Chapter 2), and discussed the research method chosen to explore this topic (Chapter 3). What follows is the first of three chapters (4-6) that analyse empirical data on how foreign government assistance affects the likely mode of civil war termination. This chapter does so by conducting a large-n analysis of all terminated intrastate armed conflicts between 1946 and 2010. Its goal is two-fold: (1) to investigate whether rebel groups who received foreign government assistance were more, less, or as likely to win as groups who did not receive such aid, and (2) to investigate whether there is variation in associations between particular types of support and conflict endings. This chapter can be understood as a first test of association, the results of which are further explored in a qualitative setting in Chapter 5 and 6. Additionally, the case studies also investigate the underlying causal mechanism. This chapter is structured as follows. It first discusses how the data set is constructed. Some aspects of this have briefly been covered in the previous chapter (Chapter 3), but this is discussed in greater detail here. Next, this chapter conducts the statistical analysis by first using state support as an aggregated concept that is measured as a dichotomous variable (i.e. the presence or absence of foreign state support to the rebel side). It does so by following four steps. First, it explores some descriptive statistics, such as how often state support has been awarded to insurgent organisations and how often this has led to a rebel victory. Second, it calculates whether state support affects conflict outcome using a multinomial logit model, which has the benefit of allowing for the control of exogenous factors such as conflict duration. Third, it runs several regression diagnostics to check the model’s strength. Fourth, the chapter calculates substantive effects, which is a measure that shows not just whether state support affects the likely mode of conflict termination, but also by how much. This is important because a substantively large effect is analytically and politically more interesting than if state support only has a substantively small effect. Following these statistical analyses, this chapter disaggregates the concept of state support and examines whether there is variation in the effect of six different types of support included in the NAGs data set. To do so, it follows the same four steps as described above for the dichotomous measurement. Having completed this part, this

92 chapter discusses the quantitative results more broadly, before a final section concludes by pointing out its implications for the subsequent two case studies. Before continuing it is important to mention that, as is often the case with statistical analysis, space constraints and style considerations (i.e. excessive tables) prohibit this chapter from displaying every result from every analysis conducted on the data set. This chapter therefore only displays the most important results. However, for the purpose of replication, the syntax file that accompanies this thesis not only contains the commands needed to replicate the main results reported here at the click of a button, but also contains every line of code needed to generate the analyses that are briefly mentioned in this chapter but that could, for the sake of brevity, not be displayed here. Finally, it is worth noting that this chapter repeatedly uses the term effect to describe associations between variables. This is only done here for the purpose of legibility and should not be interpreted as making a direct claim on a causal process, which cannot be inferred from the correlations estimated here. The causal mechanism is instead probed in detail in Chapters 5 and 6.

The data set The data set consists of three types of variables: the independent variable, the dependent variable, and six control variables. This section discusses each in turn. As mentioned in Chapter 3, data on the independent variable (state support) is drawn from the state-Nonstate Armed Groups Cooperation (NAGs) data set (San-Akca 2016). Although this study encountered some issues with the NAGs annualised coding (as mentioned in Chapter 3), an examination of the NAGs data set shows that in 84 per cent of dyads in which the rebels received support, they already did so from the first year of fighting, and over 90 per cent received it within two years. This is important because it means that state support and conflict outcome do not confound. In other words: it is not true that rebels only seek and obtain support when they are losing the war and are then defeated anyway. Instead, rebels first get their support and then start the conflict dyad. As for the dependent variable (conflict outcome), this chapter makes use of the UCDP Conflict Termination Data set (CTD) (version 2, 2015), which covers all intrastate armed conflicts between 1946 and 2013 (Kreutz 2010). Data from this has been taken up to (and including) the cut-off year of the NAGs data set of 2010. Many conflict dyads experienced interim outcomes, which have been coded in the CTD. As the focus here is on the conflict’s final outcome, only the last entry has been recorded. In the rare cases

93 where the rebels received support before the conflict reached its 25 annual battle deaths threshold to be included in the CTD data set, the conflict has been coded for the first year of CTD inclusion. Rebel groups whose goals fall short of replacing the incumbent government (i.e. secessionist insurgents) may also achieve their goal through a peace agreement. The use of the CTD classification risks incorrectly identifying this as a negotiated settlement rather than a rebel victory. To overcome this problem, all conflicts which ended with a peace agreement have been manually checked to assess whether the rebels had secessionist aims and whether the conflict ending constituted a victory for them. This was the case for ten rebel groups, whose conflict outcome has been recoded as full victory. More information on these conflict dyads can be found in the Data set codebook.

Control variables The effect of state support may, of course, be influenced by external factors. Secessionist conflicts may, for instance, be easier for the rebels to win than those fought over full governmental control because in the former the rebels only need to seize control of part of the state’s territory. If state support is more often awarded to groups fighting these easier types of conflicts, the analysis will underestimate the difficulty that rebel groups face. This problem can be ameliorated by controlling for factors that may influence the likelihood of particular conflict outcomes. The use of the term control variable has been contested (e.g. Schrodt 2014, 296) as it may be incorrectly interpreted to suggest the use of a controlled experiment, which is not the case here. In this chapter, the term control variable strictly refers to the fact that these variables are neither the key independent variable nor the key explanatory variables of interest but are merely included to minimise the risk of omitted variable bias.15 To avoid creating an over-fitted ‘garbage can’ regression model (Achen 2005, 327), the decision has been taken to restrict the number of control variables to six: war duration, post-Cold War conflicts, rebel goals, ethnic war, incumbent government support, and democracy. Their rationale is next discussed in turn. First, the duration of a conflict is controlled for because this is likely to affect its outcome. A key study in this field, for instance, finds that the longer a war endures the less likely the rebel group is to be militarily defeated (Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan 2009). One explanation for this is that long conflicts reach what Zartman (1993)

15 This distinction is, of course, for the purpose of interpretation only since the control variables used in the statistical models are simply treated in Stata as additional independent variables. 94 calls a mutually hurting stalemate, in which neither party is able to win and the conflict must therefore be settled through a negotiated settlement. Conflict dyad duration is measured using data from the CTD. As conflicts may contain extensive lulls in fighting, duration is measured by taking the sum of hostility years that exceed the threshold of 25 annual battle deaths. As this data was found to be highly positively skewed, the models in this chapter have also been calculated using duration measured as its square as well as a dichotomous variable with wars that lasted less than two full years counting as a short conflict (55 per cent of all conflict dyads), and all wars that exceed this limit being coded as a long war (45 per cent). Second, this chapter controls for conflict dyads that were terminated following the end of the Cold War. The civil war literature mentions that norm changes may have changed the way in which conflicts have ended since this period, with negotiated settlements becoming more common at the expense of direct victories by either the government or the rebels (Howard and Stark 2018; see also Kalyvas and Balcells 2010). Post-Cold War conflicts are controlled for by assigning a one for conflicts where fighting ended after 1 January 1992. This date was chosen as this was shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 16 December 1991. Data for this has been taken from the CTD and is based on the last day of fighting (war episode end date). The third factor, rebel goals, has already been briefly mentioned. The literature on civil war frequently makes reference to the effect of the type of incompatibility the government and rebel group have on the dynamics of armed conflict (e.g. Fearon 2004; Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan 2009). Although this is most commonly made in reference to its effect on conflict duration, it is also discussed in relation to other factors such as the geographic spread of intrastate war (e.g. Buhaug and Gates 2002). Governmental conflicts are considered here as possibly being more difficult for the rebels to win than territorial wars because the latter does not require the complete overthrow of the incumbent government. When the pressure from the rebels becomes too much to bear, state leaders can simply give in to the insurgents’ demands and still retain office. Dichotomously structured data on the type of incompatibility (government or territory) has been taken from the UCDP CTD (Kreutz 2010). Fourth, ethnic wars are controlled for because they are often regarded as a particularly complex form of armed conflict. Unlike ideological wars, group membership in ethnic civil wars is largely fixed (Posen 1993). Because belligerents are generally unable to persuade those from the rival ethnic group to join their side, ethnic conflicts can often

95 only be sustainably resolved through either territorial conquest or partition, the latter of which is highly unpopular among members of the international community of states and international organisations (Kaufmann 1996, 1998). Although the idea that ethnic mobilisation makes partition the only sustainable form of conflict ending apart from decisive victory is contested (see, for example, Sambanis 2000), the idea that this type of war might be categorically different from other intrastate wars is generally not (see, for instance, Horowitz 1985; Lake and Rothchild 1998; Kaufman 2001a; DeRouen and Sobek 2004). This justifies its inclusion as a control variable here. To code whether a conflict should be classified as an ethnic war (a dichotomous variable) this study makes use of the ACD2EPR v.4-2014 data set (Wucherpfennig et al. 2012). This data set connects information about rebel groups active between 1946 and 2013 in the Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) data set (Vogt et al. 2015) to the UCDP CTD used for the dependent variable. Following its original design by Wucherpfennig et al. (2012, 95), groups are classified as being ethnically motivated when they make explicit ethnic claims and exclusively recruit from a particular ethnic group. Fifth, if there is a relationship between foreign state support for rebel groups and conflict outcome (as hypothesized in Chapter 2), then it is reasonable to think that such assistance awarded to the incumbent government may also affect how a war is likely to end. The data set therefore includes a dichotomous measure of whether state support was awarded to the government side. This is taken from the NSA data set discussed in Chapter 1 and 3 (Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Salehyan 2013). Sixth and finally, rebel groups may be more likely to defeat democracies than authoritarian governments. A long-standing view in the field of (counter)insurgency studies holds that democracies, although superior at interstate war (see Reiter and Stam 2002), are poorly equipped to wage counterinsurgency campaigns (Merom 2003). Proponents of this view, Lyall (2010) summarises, argue this has three reasons: democracies are comparatively less prepared to absorb the material and human costs associated with counterinsurgency operations, they are more restrictive in the level of violence they are able to use against citizens, and they have a free media which the insurgents can exploit. This does not necessarily mean that rebel groups fighting democracies are more likely to achieve victory, but it does suggest that they may be less likely to be defeated (and therefore have a higher probability of obtaining a negotiated settlement).

Data on whether the conflict took place in a democracy has been taken from the Polity2 score contained in the Polity IV data set (Center for Systemic Center for Systemic Peace 2016), which awards states an annual score ranging from -10 (full autocracy) to 10 (full democracy). The use of this indicator to explain armed conflict has been criticised because it is measured in part by the level of factionalism, which can turn suspected relationships on civil war into a tautology (Vreeland 2008; Hegre et al. 2001, 36). This is, however, not a problem here as the object of interest is not conflict onset but outcome. Fearon and Laitin (2003, 85 fn. 30) point out that the Polity IV score may also be influenced by prior conflict (possibly involving another rebel group) but this is again not a problem here as this is part of the situation the rebels must seek to overcome. Democracy score may, of course, change during the conflict and thereby affect the challengers’ probability of success, but this is likely to be related to the conflict itself and is therefore omitted. Where possible, democracy scores have been lagged by one year, meaning they have been taken for the year preceding the first year of the dyad’s hostilities. To conduct the statistical analyses, the negative values in the Polity2 score have been removed by recoding them to run from 0 to 20. The Polity2 scale is a (positively skewed) ordinal scale, which means that the variable either must be treated as a ratio variable or split up into separate categories. Both have their drawbacks: treating it as a ratio variable ascribes it characteristics the variable does not possess, while separating it into several discrete categories (e.g. democracy, anocracy, and autocracy) reduces information richness. Choosing to err on the side of caution, this chapter opts for the latter, but does use a ratio measure of democracy as a robustness check. Following the Polity IV definition, states with a Polity2 score of six (sixteen as used here) or higher are classified here as a democracy (21.28 per cent). All others are classified as an authoritarian state, which means that this chapter merges Polity IV’s little- used in-between category of anocracy with autocracy. Having discussed each of the control variables included in the newly assembled data set, it is worth pointing out that two additional control variables on state strength—gross domestic product per capita and defence spending per capita—were considered but were eventually dropped because they were clearly statistically insignificant (cf. Hosmer and Lemeshow 2000, 95) and because missing values from World Bank data meant that they considerably lowered the number of cases included in the analysis, which resulted in far

97 larger confidence intervals for all variables.16 Another variable, on whether the conflict was a war of national liberation, which were arguably comparatively less difficult to win, was also considered but dropped because of its extreme rarity (23 out of 376 observations).

Data structure The data is cast in a dyadic perspective, meaning that each row in the data set indicates a government fighting a single rebel group. A few rebel groups have fought multiple states, which are listed as separate conflict dyads. More common are conflicts involving multiple rebel groups, which are also listed separately. Multi-rebel group conflicts challenge the assumption of independent observations, which holds that the outcome obtained in one conflict dyad must not be influenced by the presence of other dyads. In practice, this assumption may not always be tenable. An incumbent government may, for instance, offer all rebel groups the same peace agreement regardless of their (relative) strength. To solve this problem the multinomial regression analyses that follow are clustered by national territory (as indicated by the government fought). This relaxes the assumption of independent observations by allowing for correlation on the dependent variable of war outcomes within the same state, while still allowing for cross-conflict comparison. Practically, the creation of 166 conflict clusters has the effect of improving the reliability of the (now robust) standard errors, while leaving the regression coefficient unchanged. Turning to the data set itself, this consists of 473 conflict dyads. For the statistical analysis that follows it is important that the coefficients are calculated on the basis of exactly the same sample. This is because if the adding of control variables the reduces the number of cases included in the sample (because of missing values) it cannot be known whether a resulting coefficient difference is caused by the adding of extra independent variables or by the change in the sample analysed (Long and Freese 2001, 67). To avoid confusion about missing values, all statistical analyses that follow are therefore only carried out on the 376 conflict dyads on which data is available on all eight variables (the independent variable, dependent variable, and the six control variables). A manual inspection of the 97 conflict dyads that were dropped reveals that most of these are (very) small rebel groups in (very) small armed conflicts. The implication of this is that the results below may not be generalisable to this type of conflict dyads.

16 The decision was made not to work around this low-n issue by estimating values based on the values of later years for which data was available because the countries affected went through large economic changes in the period affected, which severely reduces extrapolation reliability. 98

Overall effect Starting with several descriptive statistics, of all terminated intrastate armed conflicts between 1946 and 2010, the rebel side received some form of foreign state support in just over half of all conflict dyads (see Table 3). State support is therefore a highly common phenomenon. Turning to the control variables, the mean length of conflict dyads is three and a half years. Just under half of all dyads were terminated after the end of the Cold War. A third of wars were fought over territory (i.e. secessionist wars), with the rest being fought over full governmental control. A slightly higher percentage of conflict dyads were ethnic wars. Interestingly, the incumbent government received support in just under half of all conflict dyads, which means that foreign state support is slightly more common to insurgents than to defending governments. Finally, just over a fifth of conflict dyads took place in established democracies, with the rest occurring in authoritarian states.

Frequency State support 189 (50.27) Duration* 3.46 Post-Cold War 172 (45.74) Territorial conflict 129 (34.31) Ethnic war 149 (39.63) Inc. gov. support 170 (45.21) Democracy 80 (21.28) Table 3. Univariate descriptive statistics. Cells display n (per cent). N = 376, * mean value presented.

One question often asked about state support to rebel groups is whether this also leads to assistance being awarded to the incumbent government. Although it is difficult to determine which side received support first, a cross tabulation (in Table 4) reveals that in conflicts where the rebels received support the incumbent government was significantly more likely to have received support as well: the relative frequency of assistance to the incumbent government increases from 36 per cent to 55 per cent. Still, this means that in almost half of all conflicts (46 per cent) with state-supported rebels the government did not receive such assistance. Providing aid to a rebel group therefore does not automatically cause the incumbent government to obtain similar assistance.

No support to Support to Total inc. government inc. government No support to rebels 120 (64.17) 67 (35.83) 187 (100) Support to rebels 86 (45.50) 103 (54.50) 189 (100) Total 206 (54.79) 170 (45.21) 376 (100) Table 4. Cross tabulation of state support awarded to each side. Cells display n (per cent). Pearson’s Chi2 is 13.2249 (df = 2, p = .000).

Moving to the dependent variable, the most common outcome, occurring in just under two-thirds of all conflict dyads, is rebel defeat (see Table 5, bottom row). One in five dyads ended in a negotiated settlement for the rebel group. Full rebel victory is the rarest outcome, occurring in just thirteen per cent of cases. These figures can be interpreted as meaning that rebel groups generally have great difficulty in achieving their objectives. Splitting these results up by whether the rebels received state support, the same table shows considerable differences between categories. Starting with the first column, the relative frequency of rebel defeat is almost exactly the same. State supported rebel groups are therefore as often defeated as their non-state supported counterparts. But with an eight-percentage point difference, negotiated settlement is more common in conflict dyads with state-supported rebel groups, and at minus ten percentage points, rebel victory is far less common amongst state supported groups compared to groups without such aid. These findings are also displayed visually in Figure 4. Because there is a substantial relative frequency difference between conflict dyads with and without state supported rebels for the outcomes of negotiated settlement and victory, the Pearson’s chi-square test of association is (statistically) significant at the 99 per cent level (p = .009). This means that there is a reliable difference in the distribution of outcomes based on whether the rebels had foreign backing, although the chi-square does not require this to be linear across outcomes or even between them.

Defeat Neg. settlement Victory Total No state support 119 (63.64) 35 (18.72) 33 (17.65) 187 (100) State support 124 (65.61) 50 (26.46) 15 (7.94) 189 (100) Total 243 (64.63) 85 (22.61) 48 (12.77) 376 (100) Table 5. Cross tabulation of state support with conflict outcome. Cells display n (per cent). Pearson’s Chi2 is 9.4896 (df = 2, p = .009).

100

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20% Relative frequency

10%

0% Defeat Neg. settlement Victory Conflict Outcome

Without state support (N = 187) With state support (N = 189)

Figure 4. Outcomes of conflict dyads with and without state-supported rebel groups.

Multinomial Logit Model For a more thorough test of association it is useful to use a discrete choice model. Such models have three core criteria: the dependent variable must be mutually exclusive, exhaustive, and finite (Train 2003, 15). Each of these is met. For ordinal dependent variables like the one used here it is sometimes possible to use ordinal logistic regression, in which the regression coefficient is calculated as a single value for the entire range of outcomes. However, a Brant test (not reported for reasons of space) revealed that, in the full model, there is a significant difference in the regression coefficients between the three outcome comparisons. This violates the assumption of parallel lines and means that it is necessary to use either a conditional logit or multinomial logit model (Long and Freese 2014, 385). Since the determinants of the model’s result can safely be assumed to be largely caused by the independent (rather than the dependent) variable,17 this chapter makes use not of a conditional but multinomial logit model (MNLM, also known as a discrete choice, polychotomous, or polytomous model). As a rule of thumb, for MNLM the sample size must be greater than 100 and there must be at least ten observations per parameter (Long 1997, 54). The data set satisfies both criteria. The MNLM analysis is carried out by conducting three comparisons: (1) the

17 This is opposed to, say, a statistical model that calculates the probability of a person buying one of five possible cars, the determinants of which are more likely to be found in variation in the characteristics of the available vehicles (such as purchase price and fuel consumption), in which case it would be more appropriate to use a conditional logit model. 101 probability of a rebel group achieving a negotiated settlement compared to defeat, (2) the probability of the insurgents being victorious compared to defeat, and (3) the probability of the rebels winning compared to merely achieving a negotiated settlement. Importantly, unlike a binomial logistic regression, the MNLN retains all 376 observations for each of the three comparisons. Following the standard set by Fisher (1937), statistical significance is (somewhat arbitrarily) set here at 95 per cent, but indicators are also given for p values between 0.05 and 0.10, as these approximate significance. Such results are referred to here as being borderline significant. To distinguish between significant and borderline significant results, stars are indicated for the former (one star for p values below 0.05 and two stars for p values below 0.01) and a dagger for the latter. All p values presented here are for (nondirectional) two-tailed tests. Model 1A in Table 6 shows that state support is negatively associated with rebel victory. This can be read from the minus sign in the middle column (which indicates the direction of the relationship), with the single star indicating that this association is significant at the 95 per cent confidence level. This means that insurgent organisations who receive foreign government assistance are less likely to win compared to defeat than those who do not receive such aid. That this finding is statistically significant (i.e. sufficiently reliable) can also be calculated manually by multiplying the standard error of 0.339 by 1.96 standard deviations from the mean, which is where 95 per cent of observations lie in a normal distribution. At 0.664 this number does not exceed the regression coefficient of (-)0.830, meaning the finding is reliable at a 95 per cent confidence level. The result in Table 6 challenges conventional wisdom on this topic (as articulated in the positive view) and holds both when comparing victory to the base category of defeat and when comparing it to obtaining a negotiated settlement. State support is not significantly related to a group’s probability to obtaining a cease-fire or peace agreement when compared to a defeat. However, these results should be interpreted with caution as this model does not consider external factors that may influence a rebel group’s probability of success.

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Variable Neg. settlement Victory Victory vs. defeat vs. defeat vs neg. settlement (n/n = 85/243) (n/n = 48/243) (n/n = 48/85) State support 0.316 (0.270) -0.830 (0.339)* -1.145 (0.411)** Constant -1.224 (0.197)** -1.283 (0.211)** -0.059 (0.280) Table 6. Multinomial logit model on the effect of state support (Model 1A). N = 376. Cells display coefficient estimate (robust standard error clustered on territory). † p < .1, * p < .05, ** p < .01.

The results remain largely the same in Model 1B (in Table 7), which does include the six control variables. State support still has a significant and negative effect on the likelihood of an insurgent victory compared to defeat. Contrary to popular opinion, foreign government assistance is therefore not effective in helping an insurgent organisation to obtain a more favourable outcome. Interestingly, however, the coefficient for the comparison between victory and negotiated settlement has now lost significance. This means that state support still makes a rebel victory less likely when comparing this to the base (and most common) outcome of defeat, but the difference with negotiated settlement is now no longer reliable to the 95 (or even 90) per cent level. This means that it cannot be ruled out that this variation is simply due to coincidence. As for the control variables, conflict duration has a borderline significant positive association with conflicts ending in negotiated settlement compared to defeat. Fighting a long war may therefore help rebels obtain least some concessions from the incumbent government. Post-Cold War conflicts, ethnic wars, and cases where the incumbent government receives state support are more likely to end in a ceasefire or peace agreement when compared to either alternative. Contrary to expectations, rebel groups are more likely to lose secessionist wars (as opposed to wars fought over full governmental control). Whether the war takes place in a democracy does not appear to influence a rebel group’s probability of success. Finally, five of the six control variables have at least a borderline significant association in at least one of the comparisons. This justifies their inclusion in the model.

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Variable Neg. settlement Victory Victory vs. defeat vs. defeat vs neg. settlement (n/n = 85/243) (n/n = 48/243) (n/n = 48/85) State support -0.151 (0.292) -0.737 (0.375)* -0.585 (0.456) Duration 0.043 (0.024)† 0.020 (0.043) -0.023 (0.045) Post-Cold War 1.302 (0.311)** -0.338 (0.378) -1.640 (0.442)** Territorial conflict -0.740 (0.361)* -1.321 (0.559)* -0.581 (0.628) Ethnic rebel group 1.016 (0.302)** -0.861 (0.521)† -1.877 (0.610)** Inc. gov. support 0.815 (0.294)** -0.858 (0.388)* -1.673 (0.475)** Democracy 0.034 (0.348) -0.871 (0.574) -0.905 (0.607) Constant -2.544 (0.314)** -0.335 (0.249) 2.210 (0.378)** Table 7. Multinomial logit model on the effect of state support, with control variables (Model 1B). N = 376. Cells display coefficient estimate (robust standard error clustered on territory). † p < .1, * p < .05, ** p < .01.

Returning to the main variable of interest, the loss of statistical significance for state support in the full model for the final comparison (victory versus negotiated settlement) is interesting and worthy of further exploration. One possibility is that the loss of significance is caused by overfitting the model. The addition of the control variables may simply have caused the (robust) standard error to rise, which leads to a loss of statistical significance. However, a close reading of Table 7 shows that the loss of significance is caused not so much by a change in the standard error (which only increases slightly compared to the finding in Table 6) but is instead caused by a far lower regression coefficient. This suggests that some of the correlation found in the basic model (1A) is, in fact, better explained by one (or several) of the control variables. In other words, the loss of significance is not caused by overfitting the model but instead by the control variables soaking up some of the variation that was initially incorrectly linked to state support. Unfortunately, Model 1B does not automatically show which of the control variables absorb part of the variation found in the basic model. This can be revealed by taking Model 1B and removing variables one at a time to see when the statistical significance for state support reappears. A trial and error method (not displayed) reveals that this is the case when the post-Cold War variable is removed from the full model. This finding

104 prompts the question whether state support perhaps had a greater negative effect on conflict outcome on conflicts either before or after the Cold War ended. This can easily be tested by creating an additional model with an added interaction variable between state support and post-Cold War conflicts. The result (not displayed) is not significant, meaning the effect of state support did not change since the end of the Cold War. Instead, the base model’s finding was simply caused by the fact that Model 1A did not take into account that post-Cold War conflicts are less likely to end in rebel victory (compared to negotiated settlement). Model 1B’s results may raise the question whether conflicts that feature state support on both sides are more likely to end in a negotiated settlement than in a victory by either side. This can be tested by adding an interaction variable that indicates whether support was awarded to both sides. The result (not displayed) is not significant, which means that this does not appear to be the case.

Regression diagnostics To test whether Model 1B is structurally sound (that is, to check whether the results make statistical sense) it is useful to conduct some regression diagnostics. The first test is to check for multicollinearity. Put simply, this is to make sure that two or more independent or control variables do not covary (go up and down together) so much that it is impossible to discriminate between their effects. Multicollinearity can be tested by a variance inflation factor (VIF) test. Variables are considered to overly co-vary when they have a VIF score of 10 or higher (Acock 2014, 288). Table 8 shows the VIF scores do not exceed 1.6, which means that there is no issue with multicollinearity. In other words, all of Model 1B’s variables are either independently associated or non-associated with conflict outcome.

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VIF State support 1.17 Duration 1.17 Post-Cold War 1.12 Territorial conflict 1.59 Ethnic rebel group 1.50 Inc. gov. support 1.09 Democracy 1.11 Mean 1.25 Table 8. Multicollinearity test on Model 1B.

The second test is an indicator that measures whether the regression model is significantly different when a given variable is included compared to when it is not. If state support really matters, this should be the case. This is most commonly measured using a likelihood-ratio (LR) test but this test cannot be used here in its standard format because the model makes use of clusters. This thesis therefore resorts to the highly similar Wald test, the result of which is shown in Table 9. The result for state support is not significant (the p value is above 0.05), which means that the full model does not reliably differ from the model without this variable. In other words: although state support has a significant effect on conflict outcome, this relationship is not quite as important as some of the other variables in the model. Note that four of the control variables do have a significant effect on the predicted outcome.

Chi2 DF P>Chi2 State support 3.993 2 0.136 Duration 3.171 2 0.205 Post-Cold War 20.445 2 0.000 Territorial conflict 8.720 2 0.013 Ethnic rebel group 13.701 2 0.001 Inc. gov. support 13.242 2 0.001 Democracy 2.479 2 0.290 Table 9. Wald test on Model 1B.

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A third and final useful regression diagnostic is to get a measure of fit. This indicates whether the model is able to explain some of the outcome variance. The most popular measure of this is the McFadden pseudo-R2, which is based on the measure of explained variance as used in ordinary least square (OLS) regression analysis. A direct measure of explained variance can unfortunately not be calculated for MNLM, but the pseudo-R2 does give a good indication how well the independent variables help to explain conflict outcome. The interpretation of the pseudo-R2 is somewhat ambiguous (and notably different from an R2 calculated on the basis of ordinary least squares regression), but its inventor says that values ‘of .20 to .40 represent an excellent fit’ (McFadden 1977, n. p.35). Table 10 shows that the pseudo-R2 for the full model falls slightly short of this value, which nonetheless suggests it is still a reasonable fit. An additional model (1C) that only includes the control variables yields a highly similar figure, which supports the earlier finding that that state support, although important, does not offer as much explanatory power as the other control variables (combined).

Model Pseudo-R2 (McFadden) 1A (without controls) 0.015 1B (with controls) 0.150 1C (controls only) 0.144 Table 10. Pseudo-R2 of Model 1A, 1B, and 1C.

Robustness checks

The regression diagnostics indicate that the model is structurally sound, but it is useful to conduct some additional robustness checks as well. If removing variables or making changes to their measure substantially changes the values observed for the dependent variable of interest, then the MNLM model is less reliable than if this remains the same no matter how the model is constructed. Starting with the measure of conflict duration, the positive skewness of the distribution of this variable indicates that it is useful to run a model with a measure of time squared. This essentially changes the assumed functional form of the effect of duration from a linear shape to an exponential relationship. As mentioned at the start of this chapter, another way is to measure time dichotomously, with the cut-off point for

107 short versus long conflicts set at two years. In both cases (not displayed), the directions of the coefficients for state support remain the same but its significance in the comparison between rebel victory and rebel defeat drops to the 90 per cent confidence level. The fact that changing the measure of conflict duration does not substantially change Model 1B’s principal outcome means that the model is reasonably robust. Model 1B showed that whether the war took place in a democracy did not have a significant effect on how it is likely to be terminated. It is therefore worthwhile to see whether this result changes when democracy is either measured as a ratio variable or simply removed from the model. The answer is yes, slightly: as before, in both cases (not displayed) the direction of the coefficient for state support remains the same but is now only significant at the 90 per cent level. A final model with duration squared and a ratio democracy measure yields the same result. Together, these checks indicate that the direction of the finding in Table 7 is robust but that minor changes in model specifications leads statistical significance to drop below the desired 95 per cent level, although it remains borderline significant (above 90 per cent). This means that the model is reasonably robust to minor changes in specification.

Predicted probabilities The previous section has given an indication of the direction and certainty of the effect of state support. But the regression coefficients were unable to give an indication of the size of the effect. This is important, because the finding in Table 7 is more interesting when state support has a substantively large effect on conflict outcome than when it only has a substantively small effect. There are different ways of measuring substantive indicators, and this chapter does so by calculating predicted probabilities. These estimate a percentage point change comparing the hypothetical situation of a conflict where a rebel group receives foreign state support with the exact same situation where it does not. The great benefit of this measurement is that this is far more intuitive to interpret than the common alternative of odds ratios. As predicted probabilities depend on the value of all the other (control) variables included in the model, they can be calculated in a number of ways (see Williams 2012). This thesis does so by estimating them at the most realistic scenario, which is when holding all other variables to their modal (or most common) values. Following the frequencies of each variable in the restricted sample of 376 observations, this is a war lasting less than a full year, terminated before the end of the Cold War, fought for

108 governmental control, does not feature an ethnic rebel group, has no state support to the incumbent government, and is fought in an authoritarian state. Figure 5 shows that in this scenario the presence of state support increases the probability of a conflict ending in a rebel defeat by fifteen percentage points (95 per cent confidence interval 1 to 29) and decreases the likelihood of it being terminated in a rebel victory by sixteen percentage points (95 per cent confidence interval -30 to -1). The probability of a negotiated settlement remains unchanged. In the lowest and highest outcome, the 95 per cent confidence interval lines (the whiskers) at both ends of the coefficient estimates do not cross the zero line in the middle of the figure, which indicates that, in this scenario, state support has a statistically significant effect on the likelihood of each of these outcomes. The way to read the results in Figure 5 is to observe that, if a government is considering sponsoring a foreign rebel group it would be well-advised to bear in mind that groups who receive such assistance fare substantially worse than those who do not. An additional test (not displayed) in which all other values are held at their mean show a similar, though less pronounced, result. This is also the case for a third test in which the average effect is calculated for all 376 cases in the data set.

Figure 5. Predicted probabilities of state support on conflict outcome. All other variables held at their modal value. Outcome 1 is rebel defeat, 2 is negotiated settlement, and 3 is rebel victory. N = 376. 109

Types of support So far, this chapter has examined the effect of state support by measuring it as a single variable. But as Chapter 1 has shown, states assist insurgent organisations in many different ways. If different forms of support have different effects this dichotomous operationalisation may not adequately explain its relationship with conflict outcome. As discussed in Chapter 3, this chapter therefore next disaggregates the concept of state support and examines associations for six different types of assistance: troops, transport, weapons & logistics, training, sanctuary, and financial aid. Starting with some descriptive statistics, of the six types of support taken from the NAGs data set, safe havens and weapons & logistics support were the most common forms of assistance awarded to the rebels, occurring in a third of all conflict dyads (see Table 11). Training is given in almost a quarter of cases, and financial aid in just under a fifth. Transport and troop support were the rarest forms of sponsorship, occurring in just over a tenth all cases.

Total Defeat Neg. Victory Chi2 Settlement Troops 43 24 13 6 1.8863 (11.44) (55.81) (30.23) (13.95) (0.389) Transport 45 26 14 5 2.1163 (11.97) (57.78) (31.11) (11.11) (0.347) Weapons & Logistics 128 78 38 12 6.4613 (34.04) (60.94) (29.69) (9.38) (0.040)* Training 89 58 26 5 6.9235 (23.67) (65.17) (29.21) (5.62) (0.031)* Sanctuary 136 93 34 9 7.3140 (36.17) (68.38) (25.00) (6.62) (0.026)* Financial aid 73 49 20 4 4.7745 (19.41) (67.12) (27.40) (5.48) (0.092)† Table 11. Cross tabulation of types of state support with conflict outcome. Total frequency and conflict outcome columns display frequency (percentage). N = 376. Chi2 column displays Pearson’s value (p value). † p < .1, * p < .05, ** p < .01.

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The cross-tabulation shows that, compared with cases of non-support (displayed in the first row of Table 5), rebel groups receiving troops, transport, and weapons & logistics assistance are slightly less likely to end up being defeated (minus eight, minus six, and minus three percentage points, respectively), while rebel groups receiving training, sanctuary, and financial aid are more likely to experience this outcome (at plus two, five, and four percentage points). Rebel groups with any of the six types of support are far more likely to reach a negotiated settlement (by around ten percentage points higher). Finally, all forms of support are less likely to lead to a rebel victory. This is especially the case for groups that receive training, sanctuary, and financial aid, which only experience this outcome in one in twenty cases (five per cent). The Pearson’s Chi-square for weapons & logistics assistance, training, and sanctuary is significant at the 90 per cent level because cases with such support ended far less often in defeat and considerably more frequently in a negotiated settlement and victory. Inferences from this, however, should me made with caution since the Chi-square does not require associations to be linear across conflict outcomes and because external factors are not controlled for.

Multinomial Logit Model Turning to the MNLM, Table 12 shows the effect of each type of support on conflict outcome without adding any control variables. Only one of the eighteen associations is significant: the presence of a foreign safe haven decreases the probability of a rebel victory compared to defeat. In other words, making use of a sanctuary abroad does not help but hurt rebel groups. As for the other forms of support, the confidence level for these variables does not meet the 95 per cent threshold or even the 90 per cent level. They do display some regularity, with troops, transport, and weapons & logistics all having a positive effect on conflict outcome (i.e. in favour of the supported party), while training and financial aid have a detrimental effect on rebel groups. Still, the fact that these associations are not statistically significant means that it cannot be ruled out that this difference is simply due to chance.

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Variable Neg. settlement Victory Victory vs. defeat vs. defeat vs neg. settlement (n/n = 85/243) (n/n = 48/243) (n/n = 48/85) Troops 0.255 (0.421) 0.646 (0.491) 0.391 (0.512) Transport 0.281 (0.423) 0.842 (0.554) 0.561 (0.586) Weapons & Logistics 0.600 (0.438) 0.424 (0.364) -0.176 (0.483) Training 0.002 (0.359) -0.942 (0.575) -0.944 (0.587) Sanctuary -0.246 (0.326) -0.941 (0.466)* -0.695 (0.491) Financial aid -0.207 (0.397) -0.955 (0.630) -0.749 (0.594) Constant -1.209 (0.190)** -1.362 (0.214)** -0.153 (0.280) Table 12. Multinomial logit model of types of state support (Model 2A). N = 376. Cells display coefficient estimate (robust standard error clustered on territory). † p < .1, * p < .05, ** p < .01.

Table 13 shows the same associations only now with the control variables added to the model. The results are broadly the same. The only difference concerns the effect of sanctuary, which has now become significant at the 95 per cent level for the comparison between negotiated settlement and defeat and is now only significant at the 90 per cent level for the comparison between victory and defeat. As for the control variables, four of the six control variables are significant at 95 per cent confidence level in at least one of the comparisons. This justifies their inclusion here.

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Variable Neg. settlement Victory Victory vs. defeat vs. defeat vs neg. settlement (n/n = 85/243) (n/n = 48/243) (n/n = 48/85) Troops 0.478 (0.449) 0.858 (0.648) 0.381 (0.707) Transport 0.099 (0.459) 0.756 (0.588) 0.657 (0.632) Weapons & Logistics 0.675 (0.432) 0.529 (0.397) -0.146 (0.499) Training -0.195 (0.366) -0.774 (0.697) -0.580 (0.699) Sanctuary -0.682 (0.329)* -0.974 (0.526)† -0.292 (0.570) Financial aid -0.346 (0.414) -0.911 (0.741) -0.564 (0.748) Duration 0.046 (0.026)† 0.036 (0.049) -0.010 (0.049) Post-Cold War 1.393 (0.330)** -0.298 (0.420) -1.691 (0.481)** Territorial conflict -0.862 (0.368)* -1.473 (0.578)* -0.611 (0.639) Ethnic rebel group 1.083 (0.314)** -0.775 (0.539) -1.858 (0.626)** Inc. gov. support 0.780 (0.301)** -1.055 (0.439) -1.835 (0.510)** Democracy 0.078 (0.363) -0.690 (0.585) -0.768 (0.615) Constant -2.609 (0.311)** -0.442 (0.254)† 2.167 (0.383)** Table 13. Multinomial logit model of types of state support, with control variables (Model 2B). N = 376. Cells display coefficient estimate (robust standard error clustered on territory). † p < .1, * p < .05, ** p < .01.

The finding that sanctuary has now become statistically significant at the 95 per cent confidence level for the comparison between negotiated settlement and rebel defeat is interesting and worthy of further investigation. A trial and error method (not displayed) found that this is related to four control variables: if duration, post-Cold War, territorial conflict, or ethnic rebel group is removed from Model 2B, the coefficient for sanctuary loses significance again. Considering this finding, it is useful to create additional models that include an interaction variable between sanctuary and these four control variables. The results (not displayed) do not paint a clear picture, except for the finding relating to conflict duration: when the rebels do not have a sanctuary, increased war duration makes them more likely to get a negotiated settlement (compared to defeat). But when the rebels do have a foreign safe haven, this relationship no longer exists. This partially explains why the coefficient for sanctuary is significant in Model 2B but not in 2A. From a theory standpoint, this

113 means that rebel groups who reside outside their own country appear to be missing out on the weakly positive effect that increased duration has on insurgent ability to obtain at least some concessions from the incumbent government.

Regression diagnostics As with the dichotomous measure of state support it is useful to carry out several regression diagnostics. Starting with a check on multicollinearity, Table 14 shows neither the variables of interest nor the control variables overly co-vary. As for their individual contribution to the model, Table 15 shows that five of the six types of support can be dropped from the model without making a significant difference to the overall result. As expected, the only form of aid that does significantly contribute to the model is sanctuary. Finally, Table 16 shows that the base model is a poor predictor of conflict outcomes. The full model fares slightly better than the dichotomous measure of state support (see Table 10) and now approaches what McFadden calls an ‘excellent fit’ (McFadden 1977, n. p.35).

VIF Troops 1.29 Transport 1.46 Weapons & Logistics 2.00 Training 1.70 Sanctuary 1.46 Financial aid 1.57 Duration 1.28 Post-Cold War 1.11 Territorial conflict 1.63 Ethnic rebel group 1.51 Inc. gov. support 1.14 Democracy 1.13 Mean 1.44 Table 14. Multicollinearity test on types of support.

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Chi2 DF P>Chi2 Troops 2.403 2 0.301 Transport 1.683 2 0.431 Weapons & Logistics 3.321 2 0.190 Training 1.301 2 0.522 Sanctuary 6.618 2 0.037* Financial aid 1.796 2 0.407 Duration 3.371 2 0.185 Post-Cold War 20.288 2 0.000** Territorial conflict 10.476 2 0.005** Ethnic rebel group 13.865 2 0.001** Inc. gov. support 13.679 2 0.001** Democracy 1.635 2 0.442 Table 15. Wald test on types of support. † p < .1, * p < .05, ** p < .01.

Model Pseudo-R2 (McFadden) 2A (without controls) 0.031 2B (with controls) 0.169 Table 16. Pseudo-R2 on types of state support.

Predicted probabilities Turning to indicators of effect size, Figure 6 shows the predicted probabilities, which are only shown here for sanctuary, as this is the only form of support that has a significant association in Model 2B. As before, the predicted probabilities have been calculated while holding all other variables (including other forms of support) at their modal value. Since no type of support is given in at least half of all 376 conflict dyads under investigation, the calculation has been given for the situation in which no other form of aid was supplied. The result is that the presence of sanctuary increases the likelihood of a rebel defeat by 20 percentage points (95 per cent confidence interval 3 to 38 per cent), decreases the probability of a negotiated settlement by one percentage point (-4 to 1 per cent), and

115 decreases the likelihood of a rebel victory by nineteen percentage points (-37 to -1 per cent). The whiskers for rebel defeat and rebel victory do not cross zero, which indicate that—when holding all other variables at their most common value—these two estimates are statistically reliable. The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that, in the scenario painted here, having a foreign sanctuary greatly reduces the chances of a rebel victory, increases the chances of a rebel defeat, but has almost no effect on the in-between category of a ceasefire or peace agreement. Two additional models (not displayed)—one that holds all other values at their mean and another that presents the average effect across all cases— yield similar results, with the only difference being that these give lower estimates for the effect on the probability of a negotiated settlement.

Figure 6. Predicted probabilities of sanctuary on conflict outcome. All other variables (including other types of support) are held at their modal value. Outcome 1 is rebel defeat, 2 is negotiated settlement, and 3 is rebel victory. N = 376.

Discussion This chapter’s results can be summarised as follows. State support for rebel groups is a highly prevalent phenomenon, with the rebel side in half of all terminated conflict dyads

116 having received some form of foreign government assistance. This figure is even slightly higher than support awarded to the incumbent government. Despite their frequent state support, rebel groups experience great difficulty in winning civil wars: almost two-third of all conflict dyads end in rebel defeat and only one in seven are terminated through a rebel victory. When measured as a dichotomous variable, state support has a decidedly negative effect on the outcome a rebel group is likely to obtain. The predicted probabilities show the substantive effect is large: state support, for instance, decreases the probability of an insurgent military takeover by sixteen percentage points. This runs counter to conventional wisdom, captured in the positive view (H1), that state support should help rebel groups win. Of the effect of the six different types of support measured here, this chapter found that the only form of aid to have a significant effect is sanctuary, which increases the likelihood of a rebel defeat (compared to a negotiated settlement). This chapter’s findings are considerably different from those reported in the nine studies discussed in Chapter 2, seven of which found a positive effect and two found no relationship. This may be explained through four factors. First, this chapter has studied the effect of state support directly, rather than using it as a control variable for a study designed for another purpose (e.g. Lyall and Wilson III 2009). As a consequence, it only included the most appropriate control variables. Second, this chapter makes use of the best available real conflict data, instead of using indirect sources of information, such as surveys conducted with conflict specialists (as used in Manwaring and Fishel 1992; Connable and Libicki 2010). Third, it only includes support provided by foreign states (unlike Jones 2017b) and includes as many forms of assistance as possible (in contrast to Akcinaroglu 2012). Fourth, the method used in this chapter considers duration separate from outcome (compared to Gent 2008; Jones 2017a). That this chapter’s findings substantially diverge from what is found in the literature is therefore no cause for disappointment, but rather shows the importance of using a purposely-designed statistical model.

Hypotheses Importantly, this chapter’s results offer a useful first empirical test of the three hypotheses formulated in Chapter 2. Starting with the most common, positive view (H1)—that state support helps rebel groups achieve a more favourable outcome—this chapter’s evidence clearly does not support this position. Record (2006, 2009) and O’Neill (2005) claim that rebel groups require such assistance to win, but the quantitative analysis counts 33 dyads

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(17.65 per cent) in which the insurgents managed to achieve this outcome without foreign government assistance (see Table 5). This figure is even ten percentage points higher (not lower) than the relative number of state-supported conflict dyads ending in a rebel victory. This chapter’s findings also do not support Connable and Libicki’s (2010) observation that rebels who receive foreign backing are twice as likely to win than to lose. In the data analysed here, state-supported insurgents achieved an outright victory in 15 conflict dyads (9.94 per cent) against 124 defeats (65.61 per cent).

This chapter also does not find evidence for the neutral view (H2), which holds that state support does not affect conflict outcome. Instead, it found extensive evidence for the third and final view (H3) that state support decreases a group’s likelihood of success: a multinomial logit model with six control variables showed that insurgents with foreign government assistance are more likely to be defeated and less likely to be victorious than those who do not receive such support. The chances of the war ending in a negotiated settlement remains the same. The finding that the effect of state support is most clearly related to the presence of a foreign sanctuary does not appear to support the causal mechanism behind Weinstein’s (2005, 2007) theory, as it is difficult to see how the presence of a foreign safe haven would attract opportunistic recruits intent on violence and looting. Elaborating on the effect of different types of support, this chapter found little evidence for Byman et al.’s (2001) claim that safe havens, financial assistance, and direct military support are most helpful to rebels, and that training, weapons, and other material support are slightly less so. It also found little evidence for Sawyer, Cunningham, and Reed (2017)’s theory that non-fungible forms of support (weapons, sanctuary, basic needs, financial assistance) are more effective than fungible forms of aid. In fact, supporting Carter (2012), the only form of aid that has a significant effect is sanctuary, and this is negative (not positive). Unfortunately, the statistical analysis is unable to say what causes this negative association. Perhaps rebels leaving the target country become alienated from the local population, or they might use a foreign safe haven to shirk from war (as suggested in H2). The case studies may be able to shed light on this.

Conclusion By conducting a quantitative analysis of the determinants of war termination for all conflicts between 1946 and 2010, this chapter provides an important first test of association on which the subsequent qualitative analysis can build. Its outcome is

118 important, because it challenges the traditionally held view that state support is effective in helping rebels win. This chapter’s implications for the case studies in Chapter 5 and 6 are as follows. If it is indeed true that state support reduces the chances of a rebel victory, is this—as

Weinstein suggests—because it attracts unproductive rebels (H3) or is this perhaps the result of extensive state-rebel friction (H2)? Alternatively, it may be that state support is highly beneficial to rebel groups (H1), but that its effect is undermined through a hitherto unknown factor. As for the effect of different types of support, the following two chapters will examine whether it is indeed true that sanctuary has a greater (that is, more reliable) negative effect than other forms of support, and why.

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Chapter 5: The Angolan War

Cabinda

ZAIRE

Lunda Norte Cafunfo

Lunda Sul

Sumbe Bie

Moxico

ZAMBIA

Cuito Cuanavale Mavinga

Cunene Cuando Cubango Jamba Caprivi Strip 60 miles SOUTH WEST AFRICA / NAMIBIA

Map 1. Map of Angola.

Source: Google (2018). Arrows indicate rebel offensive/retreat. Stars indicate key

locations.

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This chapter probes the quantitative findings from Chapter 4 through a case study of the Angolan War (1975 – 1991). As discussed in Chapter 3, the qualitative analysis not only seeks to verify the results obtained using a quantitative research method, but also explores the causal mechanism that underpins this. It does so by consulting extensive evidence from newspaper articles, participant biographies, and interview data with South African veterans (amongst others), as well as histories of the war. The Angolan conflict is analysed by discriminating between five war phases which correspond to fluctuations in state support (see Table 17 and 18). Although these phases are externally imposed, they have two benefits: (1) they provide the opportunity to study the effect of a given form of aid (or aid package) in isolation from other periods; and (2) they provide the opportunity to conduct comparisons between war fighting periods that vary on the independent variable (level of support). Before continuing, it is useful to stress that this chapter strictly focuses on the Angolan War, which was fought from November 1975 until May 1991. This conflict was preceded by Angolan War of Independence (1962 – 1974) and what is commonly known as the Second Angolan War of Independence (July – November 1975). It was followed by Angolan Civil War (1992 – 2002), which involved the same two warring parties as the conflict discussed in this chapter, only then supported not by foreign states but by oil (incumbent government) and diamonds (UNITA) (see Dietrich and Cilliers 2000; Hodges 2001). This chapter proceeds as follows. It first discusses each war phase separately, focusing on the type of support that UNITA received and explaining how this affected their war prospects. After discussing all five phases it shows what this means for the hypotheses developed in Chapter 2. A final section concludes by discussing this chapter’s implications for the next case study.

Phase Description Period 1 Conflict onset Nov 1975 – Sep 1978 2 Support increases Oct 1978 – Feb 1984 3 Support decreases Mar 1984 – Jul 1985 4 Support increases again Aug 1985 – Dec 1988 5 Support decreases again Jan 1989 – May 1991 Table 17. Overview of Angolan War phases.

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Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Troops - x - x - Transport & Logistics - x - x - Weapons - x x x x Training - x x x x Sanctuary - - - - - Basic needs x x x x x Financial assistance - x x x - Intelligence - x x x x Political support x x x x x

Table 18. Overview of types of state support received by UNITA by war phase.

Phase 1: Conflict onset The Angolan War emerged out of the first and second Angolan War of Independence and was fought between two of the three main national liberation parties. By the time of Angola’s independence on 11 November 1975, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) had seized control of the capital Luanda and assumed office. In the weeks that followed, their main rival to power, the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), quickly disintegrated, but the leader of the third main national liberation party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), vowed to continue to ‘fight or die’ (Savimbi quoted in The New York Times 1976a), thus starting what would become known as the Angolan War. UNITA’s stated goal was the ‘immediate liquidation’ (i.e. overthrow) of the MPLA government (Savimbi in The New York Times 1976b).18 In the run up to Angolan independence, UNITA had received considerable foreign state support. In early to mid-1975 this included assistance from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as well as South African troops (Stockwell 1978; Miller 2013, 2016; Warwick 2012). For the new war, however, the rebels were unable to count on such aid. In late 1975, US Congress passed the Clark Amendment, which barred the US government from providing further assistance to UNITA (Johnson 2003). The South African Defence Forces (SADF) did continue to offer limited assistance to UNITA forces

18 Officially, UNITA made a distinction between its political wing and its armed wing, called the Armed Forces of the Liberation of Angola (FALA), but for the purpose of readability the group is exclusively referred to here as UNITA. 122 fleeing across the border into South West Africa (SWA, now Namibia) but this only consisted of basic needs, such as food, medicine, and clothing (Malan 2006, 136; Nortje 2015, 6; Interview 9 2018; Interview 20 2018). This appears to have been used as intended.

Contrary to the neutral view (H2), there was therefore no agency slippage. The only states that were prepared to continue to provide robust support for UNITA were Zaire and Zambia, both of which offered sanctuary (Interview 9 2018). Savimbi, however, declined this form of assistance because he believed that a rebel group could only be successful if it operates on the territory of the government it is fighting (Bridgland 1988, 77, 256). This meant that, at the start of the Angolan War, UNITA was mostly on its own.

Effects UNITA’s loss of state support following end of the War of Independence had a profound effect on the start of the new conflict. South African assistance during 1975 had given the insurgents a strong starting position as it controlled most of the territory between the southern outskirts of Luanda and the SWA border some 600 miles south. Crucially, this included Nova Lisboa, soon renamed Huambo, which was the second largest city in Angola and which Savimbi intended to make the new state’s capital (Malaquias 2007, 39). The rebels were also able to count on considerable support from the Ovimbundu tribe, which at two million people constituted the country’s largest ethnic group (Gleijeses 2013, 26). The new government, however, had one comparative advantage: it was able to count on extensive assistance from the Soviet Union (material aid) and Cuba (troops). The Soviet Union’s support for the Angolan government likely stemmed from its long- standing commitment to aid socialist governments around the world, as well as a more practical consideration to increase its influence in the mineral rich areas of Southern Africa. The considerations for Cuba’s decision to send large numbers of its Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) to Angola for a prolonged period of time is more complicated, but is likely influenced by Fidel Castro’s strong personal revolutionary idealism (Gleijeses 2006, 45-49; see also Saney 2006). As soon as the battle for Luanda had been settled the government turned the MPLA’s armed wing into the first official Angolan military, called the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA), and ordered a major offensive to drive UNITA out of Angola’s towns and cities (Dash 1977, 24-25). Without foreign

123 government assistance, Cuban helicopter pilots were quickly able to locate and attack the rebels (Bridgland 1988, 220). As a result, the former head of the CIA operation in Angola notes that, ‘the military situation turned from bad to disastrous. Without South African armour and leadership, UNITA could not stand in the face of Cuban/MPLA advances’ (Stockwell 1978, 233). On 7 February 1976 the rebels were forced to evacuate from Huambo and flee to the countryside (Dash 1977, 45; The Washington Post 1976). Savimbi managed to convince some citizens to voluntarily join them, while likely forcing others (Pearce 2015, 54). The state of UNITA during this period has been described by one of its members as one of ‘complete disorganisation’ (quoted in Beck 2012, 96). Living conditions during this time were tough. Food was in short supply and the rebels often had to walk up to 25 miles a day to avoid government patrols (Dash 1977, 18-19, 59). UNITA later referred to this period as their ‘Long March’ (Chiwale in Pearce 2015, 57; Bridgland 1988, 247), after Mao’s famous twelve month trek through China to evade the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek. Hundreds died or were too weak to continue fleeing. At its lowest point, Savimbi’s entourage had shrunk to just 79 people (Bridgland 1988, 278). As one South African journalist sums it up, ‘UNITA had nothing’ and merely ‘fought for its survival’ (Interview 11 2018). The insurgents eventually managed to regroup and started a classic guerrilla campaign of harassment. They repeatedly attacked MPLA-controlled villages, killing government forces and raiding the town of arms, ammunition, food, and other supplies. Then, knowing they would be unable to resist the inevitable government troop reinforcements, the rebels quickly retreated back to the countryside (Dash 1977, 27). Because UNITA had little to no external assistance, it needed to obtain its resources (food, clothes, vehicles, etc.) from the population. Its Ovimbundu supporters, however, were poor and possessed little resources to donate to the group. As a result, the rebels made little military progress. Still, UNITA did greatly increase its membership. By 1978 the group was able to count on a reported 20,000 members, around half of which was combat personnel (Dash 1977, 23; The New York Times 1978; The Washington Post 1978a). Although some of UNITA’s recruits had been kidnapped, tricked, or scared into joining the group (Dash 1977, 41; Brittain 1998, 15-16; Beck 2012, 112-113), the majority appear to have the signed up voluntarily. As one former SADF member describes it,

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UNITA was a ‘close-knit community’ for whom ‘bushcraft [living in the savannah] was like second nature’ (Interview 26 2018). Most UNITA rebels appeared to have been friendly to civilians but some UNITA troops did commit violence toward non-combatants. On 13 February 1977, for instance, a group of insurgents attacked a Zambian football team at a Huambo bar (The Washington Post 1977). A year later UNITA bombed several crowded markets, killing non-combatants (The Washington Post 1978b). This challenges the negative view (H3), which would expect such behaviour to occur not before but after the arrival of foreign government assistance.

Analysis Between November 1975 and September 1978 UNITA received very little state support and was struggling as a result. It started the war from a strong position, holding large swathes of territory and even a major city (Huambo). But without foreign government assistance it was unable to resist the FAPLA advance and was forced to retreat into the Angolan savannah (see Map 1). In its haste to avoid FAPLA attacks the group had lost control of most of the material assets it had accumulated during the first and second War of Independence. By 1978 UNITA had managed to somewhat recover from its perilous position and had started to increase its following again to mid-1975 levels. Yet having to rely on popular support proved difficult as the local population did not possess the materials the group needed to properly take on the Angolan government. As a result, UNITA remained a relatively minor security issue that did not seriously endanger the continuation of the MPLA government.

Phase 2: Support increases The situation changed in October 1978, when P.W. Botha replaced B.J Vorster as Prime Minister of South Africa. Adopting a more aggressive foreign policy than his predecessor, Botha dramatically increased Pretoria’s assistance to UNITA. The new government’s ‘Total Strategy’ (Davies and O'Meara 1985, 183) had two goals: (1) to combat the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), which was a rebel group fighting for the independence of South Africa-controlled SWA that received sanctuary in Angola (Scholtz 2015b, Chapter 10; Larsdotter 2014); and (2) contain the Red Danger, which was the South African perception that the Soviet Union, together with its perceived surrogate

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Cuba, had its eyes on controlling South Africa’s strategic minerals and Cape sea route as a way to win the Cold War (Davies and O'Meara 1985; Interview 7 2018; Interview 9 2018; Interview 11 2018; Interview 20 2018).19 South Africa saw UNITA as a useful ‘buffer’ to keep SWAPO, the Soviets, and Cubans at bay (Interview 10 2018). The SADF-UNITA alliance was therefore not a marriage of love but one of ‘convenience’ that ‘served a very good strategic purpose’ (Interview 7 2018, emphasis added). UNITA would focus on Cuando Cubango province, while the SADF operated unilaterally in Cunene province (Interview 24 2018, see also Map 1). In deciding to support UNITA, South Africa did not risk adverse selection because it knew what the group would be capable of following their previous cooperation during the 1975 scramble for power in Luanda. As a result of the trust that had been created during their previous experience, the South Africans ‘never told Savimbi what to do’ (Interview 11 2018) and treated it not as ‘a proxy force but as an ally’ (Interview 8 2018). On its part, UNITA accepted aid from the controversial Apartheid government simply because it was in dire straits and needed the resources. As Savimbi later told a reporter, ‘[i]f you are a drowning man in a crocodile-infested river and you’ve just gone under for the third time you don’t question who is pulling you to the bank until you’re safely on it’ (Savimbi quoted in Bridgland 1988, 180). South African aid was split into three separate operations. The first consisted of the deployment of the South African Special Forces Brigade, which was a reconnaissance unit commonly known as the ‘Recces’, some of whom joined UNITA forces in the field and assisted them in planning and carrying out guerrilla attacks, as well as to help coordinate SADF airdrops (Interview 9 2018; Interview 14 2018; Interview 16 2018). Others were based with the South African Navy (SAN) and carried out amphibious assaults on coastal targets disguised as UNITA fighters (Steyn and Söderlund 2014; Interview 12 2018). The second part consisted of ad-hoc operations by various regular SADF units to assist UNITA in capturing towns or resisting FAPLA offensives. These units also provided medical treatment to injured UNITA troops, including a secret UNITA ward at 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria (Interview 6 2018; Interview 9 2018).

19 Contrary to popular perception, South Africa’s decision to support UNITA was therefore not immediately related to Pretoria’s campaign against anti-Apartheid rebel groups such as the African National Congress (ANC), which was instead largely waged through South Africa’s premier domestic intelligence organisation, the Bureau of State Security (BOSS) (see Sanders 2006). 126

The third operation was an elaborate assistance operation. Consisting of around 150 to 180 staff from the well-resourced SADF military intelligence department (Interview 7 2018; Interview 13 2018), this unit supplied UNITA with any supplies it needed within three months of the rebel request (Minter 1994, 189). Early aid was ‘very rudimentary’ and involved the SADF buying up old pick-up trucks in SWA and converting them into donkey carts so that UNITA could use them to transport goods across Angola (Interview 13 2018). Soon, however, the aid programme developed into a major operation involving supplies flown into southern Angola in C-130 and C-160 cargo planes. The SADF assistance operation included basic needs such as food supplies for missions in the form of 24-hour ration packs (Interview 6 2018; Interview 13 2018). Aid also included medical equipment, generators, and air conditioning systems (Interview 9 2018). The depth and breadth of supplies was so large, that at one point the SADF even donated UNITA-branded shopping bags (Interview 12 2018). In an apparent attempt to retain plausible deniability about the assistance it was providing the insurgents, South Africa did not supply the rebels with any of its own Armscor weaponry. Instead, it provided them Soviet small arms and light weapons (SALWs), as well as self-propelled artillery, that it had captured from SWAPO, FAPLA and FAR forces (Weigert 2011, 80; Interview 7 2018; Interview 11 2018; Interview 13 2018; Interview 19 2018). Much of this was in excellent condition, with plastic covers sometimes still attached to the seats of captured vehicles (Bridgland 1990, 154; Interview 11 2018). The amount of captured Soviet weaponry was sufficiently large to adequately equip UNITA forces with SAWLs, but not for heavy weaponry, such as tanks. This was not a major issue, however, since UNITA forces during this time mostly fought unconventionally, for which they did not require heavy weapons. As part of the assistance mission the SADF also established extensive training facilities, including a dedicated Guerrilla Warfare School in SWA where UNITA members received various types of combat training (Gleijeses 2013, 380; Interview 9 2018). Two interviewees say the SADF set up ten training bases in Angola offering a wide range of courses (Interview 13 2018; Interview 25 2018), while another says there were fifteen in Angola and SWA combined (Interview 24 2018). Basic training took just two weeks (Interview 24 2018), after which UNITA recruits received specialised training depending on their unit’s tasks. Upon completion, UNITA units entered the field, where SADF units regularly visited their former students to assess in which areas they required further assistance (Interview 25 2018).

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The SADF also provided UNITA with intelligence. Through its extensive domestic intelligence programmes, the South African government possessed excellent intelligence gathering capabilities, and used these to provide information about the enemy (Interview 9 2018). Most useful to UNITA was its electronic warfare (EW) programme, which allowed the SADF to listen in on FAPLA/FAR radio communication (Interview 17 2018; Interview 20 2018). The SADF also had access to intelligence from other states in the region (Interview 7 2018). Intelligence, however, was supplied to UNITA on a need-to- know basis (Interview 7 2018). It was also reciprocal, although the intelligence UNITA provided in return was not always accurate (Interview 3 2017; Interview 9 2018, see below). Although South Africa did not go so far as to officially recognise UNITA as the legal representatives of the Angolan people, it did give the group extensive political support. This did not appear to help the insurgents much. The South African regime was internationally highly isolated—one interviewee says it was viewed as ‘the skunk of the world’ (Interview 13 2018)—and won few favours among the Angolan population, too (Interview 5 2018). To some extent, having Pretoria’s blessing even worked against the insurgents because it provided the Angolan government the opportunity to portray the rebels as ‘puppets’ of the Apartheid regime (see The Washington Post 1981a). Still, this did not appear to have much of a negative impact either because until the mid-1980s few Angolan citizens were aware of South Africa’s extensive involvement in the conflict (Interview 5 2018). Around the same time as the increase of South African aid, other states also resumed their assistance programmes. Morocco gave the rebels 10,000 uniforms, an office in Rabat, and agreed to train UNITA officers at a military base near Marrakesh (Bridgland 1988, 324). China sent a one-off supply of 500 tonnes of SALWs, which Savimbi called ‘decisive for our struggle’ (quoted in Bridgland 1988, 344). Lastly, several Arab states made financial donations (Bridgland 1988, 348; The New York Times 1987k). Their reasons for doing so varied widely: Morocco sponsored UNITA because the government of Angola supported Morocco’s rival Algeria; Chinese aid for UNITA was a remnant of the Sino-Soviet rivalry from the 1960s; and Arab governments appeared to help UNITA to raise the cost of Soviet expansionism.

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Effects

Lending support to the positive view (H1), the dramatic increase of foreign state support to UNITA had a major positive effect on the rebel campaign. At the onset of strong state support, sustained FAPLA offensives had pushed UNITA all the way to Cuando Cubango province in southern Angola (see Map 1), where there was only a weak FAPLA presence (Interview 13 2018). There, the SADF started working with the rebels. Their initial impressions were not good. The rebels were highly ‘fragmented’ and ‘not very disciplined’ (Interview 8 2018; also Interview 24 2018). One South African veteran says of this period that ‘[y]ou really had to keep them under your thumb’ (Interview 8 2018). SADF training greatly alleviated these problems. SADF veterans indicate that UNITA forces were like ‘sponges’, soaking up all the lessons the South Africans taught them (Interview 24 2018). SADF instructors were able to teach UNITA how to use their Soviet and Chinese weaponry, despite the fact they had themselves been taught to use South African Armscor weapons (Interview 25 2018). Soon, UNITA troops ‘were well motivated and fairly well trained. Not as good as the SADF but better than FAPLA’ (Interview 11 2018). The later head of the SADF assistance operation was highly impressed with UNITA’s improvement, calling it ‘a metamorphosis’ (Interview 13 2018). By the end of the decade, some (admittedly less crucial) UNITA standards—such as personal hygiene—even exceeded that of the SADF, although most remained substantially lower (Interview 15 2018). This indicates that, contrary to the neutral view’s expectation, there was no agency slack. South Africa’s investment bore its first real fruit in December 1979 when, just over a year after the aid increase and following three and a half years of gruelling mobile bush war, UNITA managed to take control of a small town called Jamba (Bridgland 1988, 357, see Map 1). To the Angolan government, Jamba was strategically unimportant as it was only a minor settlement on the periphery of its territory but to UNITA Jamba was all- important since it offered the rebels ‘a good hiding place’ (Interview 7 2018) and a permanent base from where they could expand their operations. It also provided them with the opportunity to grow into a ‘state within a state’ (The Washington Post 1986g). Having permanent control of Jamba had one further benefit, and this was likely one of the main reasons for its conquest: being located just ten miles from the SWA border in Angola’s far south-eastern corner, Jamba was ideally positioned to receive South African aid (Brittain 1998, 11).

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Once under UNITA control, the South African assistance programme transformed Jamba from a backward colonial outpost to a 20th century town. It soon had a postal service, schools, multiple hospitals, churches of various denominations, and a large parade ground (Bridgland 1988, 410-411; Pearce 2015, 109-110; Interview 9 2018; Interview 13 2018; Interview 26 2018). Over the next decade, the rebels built clothing factories and farms, as well as weapons and vehicle repair shops. Food and other supplies was made available free of charge to its residents (The Washington Post 1986g; Interview 9 2018). The mood in the early 1980s in Jamba was optimistic: ‘[f]rom early morning to late evening you could hear the sound of singing’ (Interview 26 2018). As a direct result of South African aid, living standards in Jamba were ‘well above those in the rest of Angola’ (Beck 2012, 116). Like the South African training, the Moroccan assistance also paid off, with the North Africans instructing UNITA how they could use their captured Soviet artillery not only before battles to soften up enemy defences but also after the infantry had been sent in. This greatly increased the rebels’ combat capability (Bridgland 1988, 371-372). Finally, the Recce forces deployed with UNITA were perceived by the SADF as highly valuable, as they substantially increased UNITA’s capabilities (Interview 20 2018). As for the SAN- based Recce attacks, these greatly worried the FAPLA/FAR (Interview 19 2018), but with many of them being carried out independently of UNITA, these did not have much of an impact on the rebel movement itself.

Expansion The strongest evidence of the major positive operational effect that South African assistance had on UNITA can be found in its territorial expansion. Once the group had taken control of Jamba, the insurgents suddenly made enormous headway (see Map 1). After taking control of Cuangar on 14 April 1980, the first major operation was an attack on a town called Savate (Scholtz 2015b, 242-243; Bridgland 1988, 368-369; Nortje 2015). UNITA informed the SADF that it wanted to take the town but did not yet have the capacity to do so on its own. The SADF agreed to help. But as the fight unfolded, problems emerged: the UNITA liaison had twice navigated the SADF troops to the wrong location, there were far more enemy units than UNITA had indicated, and when push came to shove it was not UNITA but the SADF that did most of the fighting (Nortje 2003, 147-153). Although UNITA’s conduct had created some resentment among SADF

130 troops and created a number of casualties (Nortje 2015, 153), the Savate attack was an operational success. Soon after, the rebels were able to take control of the strategically even more important town of Mavinga (Weigert 2011, 73; The Washington Post 1981b) and its adjacent airfield, which quickly became UNITA’s ‘window to the outside world’ (Interview 11 2018), with as many as twelve supply flights per night landing at Mavinga airport (Interview 24 2018). A key factor that enabled UNITA to capture Savate and Mavinga was that the Angolan and Cuban governments had withdrawn most of their military units north of an imaginary line that runs from Namibe to Lubango to Matala to Menongue, because locations south of this area were within striking range of the South African Air Force (SAAF). By January 1982 UNITA had grown confident enough to cross this line and, with the help of the Recces, started attacking towns in Moxico, Huambo, and Bie provinces (Bridgland 1988, 481, 451; George 2005, 165; The New York Times 1982; Interview 16 2018). In 1983 UNITA continued its attacks in Central and Eastern Angola and expanded it to Malanje and Cuanza Sul (Bridgland 1988, 506, 512-513, 515; Gleijeses 2013, 221- 223; Steenkamp 1989, 110; Shubin 2008, 87; The Washington Post 1983b). UNITA’s territorial expansion was made possible in part because Eastern Angola is sparsely populated, and therefore had only a low FAPLA presence (Interview 24 2018). Still, UNITA’s progress greatly concerned the incumbent government, which therefore launched a major counteroffensive in August 1983 on Cangamba in Moxico province, which UNITA was soon losing (Shubin 2008, 89). The insurgents then called on the SADF to help them out, which it did by providing air support and ground troops (The New York Times 1983b). Although the SADF assistance operation only lasted ‘a couple of days’ it was enough to thwart the government offensive (Interview 3 2017). During its 1980-1984 advance, UNITA had an ambiguous relationship with Angolan civilians. Within UNITA’s territorial control, they generally treated people well. One ex- SADF member who spent three months in Jamba in 1982 says he ‘never saw or heard of any maltreatment to the civilian population’ (Interview 26 2018). Yet outside UNITA’s immediate territorial control, rebel forces were known to regularly commit crimes against Angolan civilians (e.g. Brittain 1998, 13-14). Such rebel crimes were dealt with through the group’s own military police, which investigated allegations and, if necessary, brought the perpetrators to a UNITA court in Jamba (Interview 13 2018). South Africa, not wanting to ‘preach’ to UNITA, largely stayed out of these internal matters (Interview 11

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2018). Contrary to what the neutral view would expect, Pretoria felt neither need nor desire to police the rebels.

Friction

A key expectation from the neutral view (H2) is that there should be extensive friction between the patron and client, which should undermine the efficacy of support. Although the relationship between the SADF and UNITA was generally amicable, there was indeed some friction. This centred around four key issues. The first point of friction (which, in fact, challenges P-A theory), was that there was disagreement over the goals for which each actor fought. South Africa merely wanted UNITA to survive so that it could function as a buffer against SWAPO, FAPLA, and FAR (Interview 7 2018; Interview 10 2018; Interview 20 2018). For this reason, the SADF also preferred that the group kept operating in Southern Angola (Interview 7 2018), although the South African government (through the Recces) also supported rebel activities further afield. UNITA, however, did not just want to serve as a buffer, and instead aimed to completely overthrow the MPLA government. As a result, the SADF would and could ‘only help UNITA so far’ (Interview 6 2018). Although Savimbi appears to have ‘understood’ and ‘accepted’ this (Interview 11 2018), he was clearly more ambitious than the South Africans (also Interview 25 2018). The second issue (which supports P-A theory) concerned UNITA’s fighting capability. Although the SADF’s assistance programme greatly increased UNITA’s capacity to wage war, it never reached the level of the SADF. This led some South Africans to feel that they were getting a poor return on their investment (Interview 9 2018; Interview 20 2018). Illustrative of this is the sentiment of one retired South African officer who says that, ‘we gave them lots of material [yet] they did not take the initiative’ (Interview 20 2018). This issue was particularly salient during the late 1980s, when the SADF repeatedly had to ‘save UNITA’s bacon’ (Interview 8 2018) from repeated FAPLA/FAR offensives (also Interview 19 2018). One SADF officer even complained of UNITA shirking their responsibility: ‘[t]here was a tendency to give us disinformation in order to get more action from the SADF’ (Herman Mulder quoted in Bridgland 1990, 44). This sentiment, however, does not appear to be widespread. Overall, UNITA largely carried out its duties. Contrary to the second view (H2), there was therefore little agency slack.

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The South African military liaison with UNITA suggests that some of the SADF’s frustration with UNITA may have been due to a lack of consideration for how the rebels fought (Interview 13 2018; also Interview 27 2018). A key problem was that SADF planners often did not consider that while the SADF entered battle in vehicles, UNITA moved on foot. This meant that they needed far more time to reach a given location, which was not always calculated into battle plans (Interview 13 2018). Still, this does not explain why UNITA forces sometimes abandoned stopper groups designed to halt or at least slow enemy forces (Interview 19 2018). A more plausible explanation is that the rebels’ expert knowledge of bush life made them excellent guerrillas but their lack of formal education (e.g. literacy) and lack of formally trained leaders made UNITA troops poor fighters in conventional warfare (Interview 3 2017). This led them to withdraw whenever they encountered overwhelming FAPLA force, thus allowing them to fight another day. SADF staff who judged UNITA as guerrillas were usually highly impressed (e.g. Interview 14 2018; Interview 25 2018; Interview 27 2018), while those who judged them by conventional military standards were not (e.g. Interview 19 2018; Interview 24 2018). The third point of friction surrounded UNITA intelligence. UNITA forces regularly supplied the SADF with intelligence on local matters, such as the terrain and the location of enemy forces. Yet to the great frustration of many SADF troops, UNITA intelligence was ‘repeatedly incorrect’, which jeopardised SADF operations (Interview 3 2017). Although some UNITA information certainly did appear to be incorrect (such as that provided during the Battle of Savate), one senior SADF officer suggests at least some of the blame may also be placed at incorrect SADF interpretation of UNITA information (Interview 13 2018). The fourth and final issue was one of pride. South African troops frequently assisted UNITA in battle, for which Savimbi would take credit. This was generally accepted by the Recces, who were trained to conduct covert operations, but went down poorly with the regular (conscripted) South African forces, who felt they should get credit for their hard-fought victories (Bridgland 1990, 211; Interview 3 2017; Interview 9 2018). As one analyst describes it, to many troops it almost felt like the SADF was ‘fighting the war on its [UNITA’s] behalf’ (Interview 7 2018). This was not appreciated by those SADF regulars who personally felt ‘no strong allegiance’ to UNITA (Interview 19 2018). These four points of friction occasionally escalated into full-blown arguments, with UNITA refusing ‘to take part in anything’ (Interview 11 2018). Yet contrary to what the

133 neutral view (H2) would expect, the rows between the SADF and UNITA were generally quickly settled. In practice, one SADF veteran says, everybody ‘got along very well’ (Interview 25 2018), while another says he ‘never had any problems’ (Interview 26 2018). Importantly, at the highest levels both South Africa and UNITA were generally satisfied about their cooperation and wanted it to continue. As one analyst put it, ‘from a strategic perspective, the marriage worked’ (Interview 7 2018; also Interview 20 2018).

Analysis The discussion above shows that South Africa did not risk adverse selection because it already knew Savimbi and his forces from the Second Angolan War of Independence (1975). It also shows that there was no agency slack: although there were important points of friction, which is arguably to be expected in cooperation between such different organisations, these were quickly resolved. Importantly, Pretoria’s increased involvement in the Angolan War had a major positive effect on UNITA activity. At its onset the rebels were nothing but a peripheral nuisance that had little fighting power. But once South African aid increased, UNITA transformed into a powerful force that was able to control territory—admittedly sparsely populated—the size of England. There was therefore a major shift in the military balance of power. South Africa’s role in this change is undeniable. As one Russian civil servant deployed to Angola puts it, ‘without the support of the South Africans, the UNITA rebels could not have re-emerged out of the bush where they had been driven in 1975-1976’ (Adamishin 2014, 6). Had the conflict continued as it was, the rebels probably would have soon been able to open attacks on the more urban areas in northern Angola. With continued South African support, the FAPLA/FAR forces stationed there would likely have had great difficulty to stop such an advance. After the disastrous bush years of the mid to late 1970s a rebel victory therefore now lay in sight.

Phase 3: Support decreases The situation changed again in early 1984. In September 1978 the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) adopted resolution 435, which ordered South Africa to withdraw from SWA so that Namibia could gain independence (United Nations Security Council 1978). But when hardliner P.W. Botha became Prime Minister two weeks later, Pretoria did the exact opposite. Instead of drawing down South Africa’s involvement in what it called the Border War, Botha increased it by expanding the UNITA aid programme.

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Although Pretoria’s new, aggressive posture was effective in holding communist forces out of SWA, it did substantially strengthen international opposition to the Apartheid government.20 By early December 1983, the international community’s opposition to South African policy vis-à-vis the Border region led to the draft of a new UNSC resolution that proposed far-reaching economic sanctions against Pretoria (SADF Military Information Bureau n.d., 9). If adopted,21 these sanctions were likely to cripple the South African economy. To avoid the adoption of the draft resolution, the South African government announced on the eve of the UNSC meeting scheduled for 16 December 1983 in which the draft resolution would be discussed that it offered to withdraw its troops from the Angolan battlefield (SADF Military Information Bureau n.d., 9). This policy change was internationally well-received and led the proposed economic sanctions for the time being called off (Heitman and Dorning 1988, 2). Importantly, Pretoria did not reduce its support because of state-rebel friction. Quite the opposite; the South African government wanted to continue the entire support operation, but only reduced it because its Border policy had generated strong international opposition. Having offered to withdraw most of its regular forces from Angola, Pretoria surprisingly quickly managed to come to a ceasefire agreement with Luanda on 16 February 1984. In the Lusaka Accords, as the agreement became known, South Africa agreed to pull its troops out of Cunene province provided that the government ensured neither SWAPO nor the FAR moved in to fill the vacuum (Gleijeses 2013, 236). A Joint Monitoring Commission, comprised of both South African and Angolan government forces, was created to oversee the implementation of the agreement (Heitman and Dorning 1988). For UNITA the signing of the Lusaka Accord was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the Angolan promise to remove SWAPO and FAR forces from Cunene province provided the group with an excellent opportunity to fill this vacuum. On the other hand, the Lusaka Accord also meant that UNITA could no longer rely on SADF troop and transport assistance to help defeat FAPLA units elsewhere. Fortunately for the rebels, the Lusaka Accord did not prohibit Pretoria from giving weapons, training, basic needs, financial aid, intelligence, and political support to the insurgents, which therefore

20 This negative side-effect was already acknowledged by Pretoria during the war (SADF Military Information Bureau n.d., 6-8). 21 The fellow anti-communist US could, of course, simply veto any UNSC sanctions, but since Washington opposed Apartheid and supported SWA independence, Pretoria could not be certain of US protection. 135 continued as before (Interview 13 2018). In contravention of the agreement, relatively minor off-shore Recce operations also continued (Steyn and Söderlund 2014; Interview 12 2018).

Effects Although the South African troop withdrawal would eventually have a considerable negative effect on UNITA’s war prospects, at first it appeared as if it was business as usual. In early 1984 UNITA continued its advance and reached Lunda Sul province on the Zairean border (Gleijeses 2013, 247). It then started to move west, towards the capital. The first major obstacle was Cafunfo in the diamond-rich province of Lunda Norte (see Map 1). On 23 February 1984 the rebels attacked the town and took it within an hour. UNITA rebels took several dozen foreigners hostage and ordered them to walk 200 miles to the Benguela railway line. From there they were transported by road to Jamba and subsequently released (Bridgland 1988, 541-542). Although it was of no military value, this kidnapping (and subsequent ones) was a major public relations boost for UNITA and brought much desired international attention to the war. The effect of the loss of SADF troop support became clear a month later, when the rebels—seemingly unsupported by either the embedded or SAN-based Recces—attacked Sumbe, a small city located on the Atlantic coast and some 500 miles away from UNITA’s core territory (see Map 1). In the early morning of 25 March 1984, UNITA rebels opened a sophisticated attack on the city from both the north and south. Initially, the operation went well, and the insurgents managed to capture the town centre. But while the rebels attacked the local MPLA office, fleeing FAPLA troops called in for FAPLA and FAR air support. When these arrived, the attack turned into a disaster for the rebels. Unable to defend themselves against the airborne attack (their ageing SA-7s were not effective) the insurgents were easy pickings for the new, sophisticated Soviet aircraft that were now stationed in Angola. The rebels therefore quickly called off the attack, took several hostages, and fled into the surrounding countryside (George 2005, 185-186; Bridgland 1988, 543-544; The New York Times 1984c). The Sumbe disaster was a major blow to the rebels. Pretoria’s assistance had turned UNITA into excellent guerrilla fighters, which were also able to fight conventionally alongside SADF troops. But the Sumbe affair showed that, without the South Africans, UNITA could not win conventional battles for territory (Interview 3 2017). Even the rebels’ more modest goal of filling the vacuum left by the departing SADF in Cunene

136 soon proved impossible (Nortje 2003, 211). As one South African veteran describes, ‘[w]e felt quite strongly that once you handed territory over to them [UNITA] you would lose that ground’ (Interview 19 2018). This was partly caused by opposition from Cunene’s population, which was dominated by the SWAPO-supporting Ovambo tribe, and partly because UNITA troops did not have the training and equipment to take on the remaining FAPLA/FAR units, which had far more and better Soviet equipment (Interview 27 2018). Five days after the Sumbe disaster Savimbi organised a press conference and, for the first time, announced he was prepared to enter negotiations for a peace agreement (The New York Times 1984b; Savimbi 1984). The MPLA government did not bite, however, to which the rebels responded by briefly flirting with a change to terrorist tactics by bombing a Huambo hostel, a train, and two ships (Bridgland 1988, 548-549). The insurgents, however, soon abandoned this tactic again. Sensing UNITA had lost momentum, the Angolan government then attempted to capitalize on the situation. In May 1984 FAPLA launched a major offensive against the rebels stationed at Luena in Moxico province. The insurgents managed to repel the 15,000-troop strong attack but it came at the cost of hundreds dead. FAPLA/FAR units then launched another attack in August 1984 in Cuando Cubango province but the rebels once managed to hold their ground (Bridgland 1988, 544-545). Insurgency activity thereafter was relatively low.

Analysis By 1984, the large-scale SADF programme to assist UNITA in Angola had generated strong international opposition to the South African government, to which Pretoria responded by scaling back its involvement in the Angolan War through the withdrawal of its troops from Cunene province. The events of 1984 and early 1985 show the operational impact this had on the UNITA campaign (see also Map 1). In the first month the rebels were still able to expand their area of control to Lunda Sul and Lunda Norte. But a subsequent attack on the Atlantic coast failed, as did efforts to seize Cunene province. The SADF’s withdrawal had decidedly shifted the military balance of power back in favour of the incumbent government and effectively led to the collapse of the rebel campaign, evaporating most of UNITA’s hard-fought achievements. Shortly thereafter, the insurgents indicated they were willing to talk about a negotiated settlement. The close timing (one week) between the Sumbe disaster and the peace offer strongly suggest these two events are related. But the government did not

137 respond to the offer and one month later FAPLA/FAR units started new and heavy attacks. Although the insurgents had by then retained sufficient strength to repel repeated government offensives, they proved unable to retake the initiative. By early 1985 the insurgency had almost come to a complete standstill. The change of UNITA’s fortunes appears to have largely been due to its reliance on continued South African assistance. When the rebels fought alongside the SADF, as it had done in Savate, UNITA typically came out on top. But when it had to operate alone, as it did in Sumbe, it lost. There is no doubt that UNITA had greatly developed under South African tutelage, but the group was only able to convert this into military success for as long as Pretoria continued to provide strong operational assistance.

Phase 4: Support increases again The situation changed once again in July 1985, when Navy-based Recces launched a covert attack on Angola’s oil facilities in the Cabinda enclave north of Angola proper (Steenkamp 1989, 131; Stiff 1999, Chapter 27, see Map 1). The attack failed and led Luanda to find out that South Africa had been violating the Lusaka Accords by carrying out minor attacks disguised as UNITA rebels. The Lusaka Accord was subsequently called off, after which open warfare between the two states quickly resumed (Scholtz 2015b, 190; Heitman and Dorning 1988, 25). The South African government was not keen on redeploying large numbers of forces inside Angola, but likely felt it had little choice now that the peace agreement had collapsed and that Angolan troops would soon be redeployed along Angola’s southern border in Cunene province, thus facilitating the SWAPO insurgency in SWA and bringing the Red Danger closer to the South African homeland. The return of regular SADF troops in Angola was a major boost for UNITA and came on top of news about the possible return of US assistance. In late 1984, Ronald Reagan was re-elected as US President on a platform to roll back communism in the Third World (Scott 1996), which the rebels interpreted as a return of the US aid it received during the Second Angolan War of Independence. To ensure Reagan would follow through on his plan, UNITA launched a major public relations offensive. The group even used some of the money it received from various Arab governments, as well as funds obtained through private donations, to pay $600,000 to Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, a US public relations firm, to help rally support for their cause (The Washington Post 1986i). In January 1986, Savimbi also travelled to the US, where he gave several speeches

138 and visited the White House (The New York Times 1986a, 1986f; see also Huang 2016, 115-121). Whether it was for this reason or another, the lobby was a success. Congress repealed the Clark Amendment (The Washington Post 1985d), which had previously terminated US assistance for UNITA, and the Congressional intelligence committees approved the allocation of $15 million from the CIA contingency fund for covert aid to the rebels. On 18 February 1986, the insurgents received the final green light from the White House (The New York Times 1986g). For 1987 Congress appropriated an additional $18m and in 1988 another $40m (Scott 1996, 137-138). In contrast to South Africa’s political support, which was tainted due to Apartheid, UNITA greatly valued having the US’ political support as this was a major boost to the group’s international legitimacy. Like Pretoria, Washington’s political assistance did not go so far as to provide legal recognition of UNITA as the official representatives of the Angolan people, but Reagan did make many statements to the press and in international fora in support of Savimbi’s organisation. To make full domestic political use of their new political ally, the rebels built a nine meter high billboard with a picture of Savimbi meeting Reagan in the Oval Office (The Washington Post 1986f). Yet as important as it was for morale and prestige, the operational effect of US political assistance appears to have been be limited. Many of Reagan’s generous words of support turned out to be simple Cold War rhetoric, which did not translate into any tangible gains for the rebels on the ground. Thankfully for UNITA, the US also provided extensive material aid. The aid package included all forms of assistance except troops and was managed by the CIA. Particularly useful were FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, which were superior to the group’s SA-7s because its rockets could fly high and fast enough to down MiG-21, MiG-23, and SU-22 fighter aircraft (Interview 7 2018; Interview 13 2018). Interestingly, some of the Stingers were delivered to Cape Town, and then brought overland to Angola by SADF personnel (Interview 24 2018). The US was also known to train UNITA troops near Jamba and brought high-value TOW anti-tank missiles, as well as fuel for UNITA vehicles (Interview 13 2018; Cohen 2000, 237). There is no evidence to suggest that these were used for any purpose other than its intended one. Contrary to the neutral view (H2), there was therefore no agency slippage. Despite the US’ superpower status, ties between the UNITA and the CIA remained far smaller than between the SADF and the rebels (Interview 3 2017). Whereas the SADF fully took UNITA under their helm, the US simply sent supplies along with a few

139 instructors. Contrary to H2’s expectations, the US therefore did not appear to police the insurgents. Neither did the arrival of the US as the rebels’ second main sponsor harm the effectiveness of Pretoria’s assistance. Rather, it appeared to have the opposite effect. As one Russian war participant observed, ‘[a]t times it was as if they [South Africa and the US] were competing over who could aid UNITA more effectively’ (Adamishin 2014, 9- 10).

Effects

Supporting expectations from the positive view (H1), the return of South African troops, and to a lesser extent the introduction of US aid, once again transformed the conflict. Following the collapse of the Lusaka Accord, the Angolan government was the first to go on the offensive. On 18 August 1985 it initiated Operation Second Congress which aimed to push the rebels back south. The plan was to first capture Cuito Cuanavale, then Mavinga, and then advance all the way to Jamba, where Savimbi’s forces were to be driven across the border into SWA (George 2005, 192). The first part went according to plan as FAPLA retook Cuito Cuanavale and UNITA was unable to stop the government advance. In fact, the situation got so severe the rebels feared they were going to lose their Jamba headquarters (The New York Times 1985h). The FAPLA/FAR success prompted the SADF come to UNITA’s rescue once again. The SADF started three missions. First, it launched Operation Magneto, which consisted of airstrikes on FAPLA/FAR troops. Second, it started Operation Weldmesh, which consisted of a deployment of infantry troops as well as mechanised units. Third, it opened Operation Wallpaper, which consisted of the use of C-130 and C-160 aircraft to transport UNITA forces from a FAPLA diversionary attack in Moxico province to the main battle site in Cuando Cubango (Scholtz 2015b, 244; Oelschig 2012, 208). The SADF missions were a major success and forced FAPLA to halt their advance just 20 miles from Mavinga (Steenkamp 1989, 136; The Washington Post 1986f). As one SADF veteran says, ‘without the help of [SADF] 32 Battalion the town [of Mavinga] would almost certainly have fallen’ (Nortje 2003, 218; also Interview 8 2018). Following their rescue in Cuando Cubango province, UNITA tried to start a new offensive in Northern Angola, from where the US would be able to supply the group via Zaire. On 8 February 1986 the rebels attacked Camabatela in Cuanza Norte (Minter 1994, 48). The attack ended in a massacre in which the rebels killed over a hundred civilians (The Washington Post 1986c). Soon after, FAPLA units retook control over the town.

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UNITA then gave up on its northern offensive, where it struggled to receive regular supplies (Interview 24 2018), and turned its attention back to Cuando Cubango, where FAPLA/FAR forces were preparing another offensive. Making use of vital South African Air Force logistical assistance, UNITA did succeed in taking back territory in Moxico province (Heitman 1990, 16). In 1986, FAPLA/FAR launched another offensive but this was cut short due to a successful Recce attack on the coastal town of Namibe, which severely disrupted the FAPLA/FAR supply line, as well as SADF artillery attacks on Cuito Cuanavale (Malan 2006, 263; Steyn and Söderlund 2014; Interview 11 2018; Interview 12 2018). On 9 August 1986, the rebels, together with the SADF (Operation Alpha Centauri), launched a 4,000-troop strong surprise attack to retake Cuito Cuanavale (Oelschig 2012, 210). This time UNITA took the lead, with the SADF merely advising and assisting the rebels (Nortje 2003, 228). UNITA managed to take out a costly radar system but failed to take the town (Steenkamp 1989, 186). As one observer puts it, ‘Savimbi’s troops were simply not up to conventional warfare’ (Nortje 2003, 229). That same year (1986), UNITA also launched Operation Shuva, meaning ‘rain’ (Oelschig 2012, 210). The operation consisted of dozens of small UNITA attacks (raindrops) all over Angola, which forced FAPLA/FAR to disperse their forces. As a result, it had fewer forces available for their next major offensive against UNITA (Interview 13 2018; Interview 27 2018). This offensive eventually came in mid-1987 and led to some of the most intensive fighting of the conflict. It has become known as the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale.

Battle of Cuito Cuanavale The confrontation started on 12 July 1987 when the Angolan government launched Operation Salute to October, which was a ‘carbon copy’ of the major offensive they had launched two years earlier (Gleijeses 2013, 393). There was one important difference: the Angolans had learned from their previous mistake and this time brought along advanced surface-to-air missiles (SAM-8s) to neutralise the SAAF airborne threat. During the attack, some 18,000 FAPLA troops clashed with an estimated 8,000 rebels (The Washington Post 1987h). UNITA, which called the FAPLA/FAR attack one of ‘life and death’ (The Washington Post 1987a), was once again unable to resist the offensive without SADF support. ‘The South African commanders realised that if FAPLA was to be stopped, it

141 would be up to them to do so, as UNITA clearly lacked the ability’ (Nortje 2003, 257). Anonymous SADF officials acknowledged that non-intervention would amount to a UNITA military defeat (The New York Times 1987h). Initial gains by Angolan and Cuban troops were halted on 4 August 1987, when South Africa sent in 1,500 SADF troops under the name of Operation Moduler (Scholtz 2015b, 265). The SADF units were well-equipped, bringing along heavy weapons including hundreds of Ratel armoured vehicles, dozens of Olifant tanks, as well as ample 127mm Valkiri multiple rocket launchers, 120mm mortars, and 155mm G-5 and G-6 howitzers (Steenkamp 1989, 151; Sergeev 2014, 173). The FAPLA forces were also well-equipped, bringing in large numbers of BM-21 multiple rocket launchers and T-54/55 tanks (Kalan 2014, 63). The introduction of large amounts of heavy and advanced weaponry changed the dynamic of the conflict into a large-scale, conventional military-on-military conflict. The rebels were unable to keep up with the intensity of the fighting and, as a consequence, ‘played a secondary role’ (Scholtz 2015b, 266). As one analyst writes, ‘[t]he unprotected UNITA troops would not be expected to fight hard; they were merely intended as a kind of tripwire to warn the South Africans of the proximity of the enemy’ (Scholtz 2017, 101). Still, UNITA also conducted other tasks. UNITA troops waged divisionary attacks to confuse the enemy, mined roads to force the FAPLA/FAR forces to ‘bundu bash’ through the dense bush, kept pressure on the enemy by using extensive mortar fire, and gathered intelligence, such as spotting minefields and notifying the SADF of impending air attacks (Scholtz 2017, 213, 214; Zhdarkin 2008, 3, 49). Furthermore, UNITA secured the long SADF supply lines that connected the battlefield to Mavinga, Jamba, and beyond (Interview 27 2018). Operationally, it therefore often seemed that UNITA was helping the SADF, rather than the other way around. The SADF presence had a tremendous psychological impact on UNITA’s opponents. Particularly frightening to the FAPLA forces were the South Africans’ constant air raids and heavy shelling using its G-5 and G-6 howitzers (Bakush 2014, 138; Kalan 2014, 64). FAPLA troops were also scared of direct combat against South African forces. As one Soviet veteran testifies, whenever Angolan army forces encountered an SADF unit, they ‘threw down all their equipment and retreated’ (Gritsuk 2014, 154; see also Bondarenko 2014, 30; Bakush 2014, 135). With the South Africans firmly in the lead again, the SADF/UNITA operation went far better than expected and quickly thwarted the FAPLA/FAR offensive, completely wiping out a Cuban brigade at the Lomba river (The Washington Post 1987j; Scholtz

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2017). Being surprised by the SADF’s fighting prowess, as well as the use of white phosphorus to mask their movements, FAPLA troops fled an masse (Zhdarkin 2008, 6, 11). At one stage, SADF/UNITA troops even had to hold their fire, as the battlefield was turning into a massacre (Interview 7 2018; Interview 13 2018). After the FAPLA/FAR offensive had been thwarted, the South African Minister of Defence Magnus Malan believed that ‘[t]his time UNITA had to be helped in such a way that it would no longer be necessary for Savimbi to ask for military aid [i.e. troops] every year’ (Malan 2006, 266). The SADF therefore decided to switch to the offensive and try to push FAPLA back across the Cuito river so that the insurgents would be able to retake Cuito Cuanavale (Scholtz 2010; Malan 2006, 266; Interview 3 2017; Interview 7 2018; Interview 11 2018).22 The advance, however, went slower than expected—in part because UNITA struggled to keep up in the now full-blown conventional war (Heitman 1990, 79). This gave the Angolan government time for to ask Cuba for further assistance. After analysing the situation, President Castro of Cuba decided on 15 November 1987 to grant the request of President Dos Santos of Angola and send additional troops (Gleijeses 2013, 409). Cuban reinforcements arrived on the scene on 5 December 1987, which brought their total troop presence in the African country to 55,000, the highest in twelve years of fighting (Gleijeses 2013, 421). Importantly, the Cubans also brought ample numbers of advanced MiG-21, MiG-23, and SU-22 fighter aircraft. As these were a match (and possibly superior) to the SAAF’s Atlas Cheetahs (a domestically upgraded Dassault Mirage II), the incumbents were for the first time able to challenge South Africa for air superiority (Heitman 1990, 310; Interview 8 2018). Not wanting to risk expending its irreplaceable air force,23 the SAAF severely reduced its air attacks on FAPLA/FAR troops. Having lost the ability to supply its combat units via air, the SADF was now also restricted to long and costly road supply lines. Thankfully for both UNITA and the SADF, the rebels by then had taken delivery of US Stinger missiles. Although these weapons did not give the protagonists air superiority, it did force FAPLA and FAR to fly far higher (Venter 2011, 330; Interview 13 2018). As a result, their unguided bombs fell far off the mark and posed no real threat to either UNITA or the SADF (Bridgland 1990, 37, 162; Interview 3 2017; Scholtz 2017, 171-172; Interview 8

22 The SADF did not appear to aspire to hold he town themselves. 23 South Africa was under a United Nations Security Council weapons embargo at the time and did not possess sophisticated surface to air defence systems either. 143

2018). Savimbi later described the US weapons as having been ‘decisive’ in stopping the 1987 FAPLA offensive (The Washington Post 1987i). Between January and March 1988, the SADF and UNITA waged four large-scale joint assaults in the Cuito Cuanavale area. They managed to do substantial damage to the military base but having extended themselves beyond their capabilities they were unable to decisively defeat the FAPLA/FAR troops. Consequently, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale ended in a military stalemate. With the SADF’s weaponry slowly giving up the ghost, the SADF forces subsequently withdrew from the battle zone (Interview 17 2018; Scholtz 2015a). All in all, UNITA played an important role in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. As one South African veteran says, ‘the SADF could not have done that [whole operation] without UNITA support’ (Interview 27 2018).

Analysis The events of 1985 to 1988, and particularly the discussion on the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, show that the resumption of strong South African troop assistance (and, to a lesser extent, the return of US support) once again transformed the Angolan war. The 1985 FAPLA/FAR offensive had a real possibility of bringing UNITA to a military defeat, and it was only because of SADF assistance that this scenario was averted. The SADF air transport mission (Operation Wallpaper) was especially valuable to stop the enemy’s advance. Much the same can be said of the 1986 and 1987 offensives. Had Pretoria not come to UNITA’s rescue the rebels might have been militarily defeated. The arrival of large numbers of SADF troops did, however, prompt the Angolan government to request additional troops from Cuba. Although this did not give the incumbent government the upper hand, it did greatly escalate the war and led to a military stalemate. Two Soviet participants in the war testify that, had it not been for the Cubans, the SADF- UNITA alliance would likely have been victorious at the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale (Bondarenko 2014, 43; Gritsuk 2014, 162). Critically, however, the resumption of strong South African support—and, to a lesser extent, US assistance—greatly fostered material dependency on continued foreign government assistance. Much of what UNITA achieved between 1986 and 1988 was because of its assistance from Pretoria and Washington. Should this support disappear, then so too would all of the gains made. Although UNITA by then had started to diversify its income (most famously by entering the diamond trade, see Dietrich and Cilliers 2000;

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Le Billon 2001), at this point this provided the group nowhere near as much resources as their state sponsors did.

Phase 5: Support decreases again As in 1984, the escalation of hostilities during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale had generated substantial opposition to the South African government. Yet unlike in 1984, opposition this time was not just international but also domestic. Between August 1987 and March 1988 alone, the Border War had led to the loss of 42 South African lives (Scholtz 2015b, 424), as well as many more injured, which caused substantial consternation amongst the white South African population (George 2005, 245; Baines 2014).24 One of the ways in which popular South African resistance to the war manifested itself was through the increasing number of conscientious objectors to military conscription (Conway 2012). Aggravating the domestic opposition problem to the Angolan War was that in March 1988 the Cubans were ready to open a second front in Cunene province and possibly extend the war into SWA, which by then had been renamed South West Africa / Namibia (Scholtz 2010, 89-91; Interview 17 2018). In preparation the Cubans built a new airfield at Cahama, stationed 17,000 troops along the border, and occasionally made threatening air excursions across it (Steenkamp 1989, 163; Interview 17 2018; Interview 27 2018). Having lost air superiority and with no UNITA troops with surface-to-air missiles to cover them in SWA, SADF troops ‘had to run and cover our vehicles’ whenever enemy aircraft approached (Interview 19 2018). Not wanting to see the war come closer to home—where the South African government already had its hands full with rising tensions in the townships—Pretoria therefore indicated it wished to proceed with peace talks, which had been ongoing ever since the early 1980s under the sustained effort of US Assistant Sectary of State for African Affairs Chester Crocker (1992). Talks reached their first fruition on 8 August 1988, when Angola, South Africa, and Cuba signed the Protocol of Geneva (UNSC 1989). In it the three parties agreed, inter alia, that the SADF would start pulling its troops out of Angola on 10 August, with the last forces departing no later than 1 September. In return, Cuba agreed not to enter SWA/Namibia. Negotiations between the three parties thereafter continued, culminating on 22 December 1988 in the New York Accords (UNSC 1988).

24 Unfortunately, the total number of SADF battle deaths during the Border War quoted in the literature varies too much to give a reliable figure, but several hundred casualties is a useful (conservative) estimate. 145

In this new agreement, South Africa vowed to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 on SWA independence, Cuba promised to withdraw all its troops from Angola, and all three parties agreed to terminate their sanctuary for foreign rebel groups. Both sides were subsequently able to claim victory: Havana and Luanda that it had forced Pretoria to relinquish its control of SWA/Namibia, and Pretoria that it had finally managed to remove the Cubans from Southern Africa (and thereby greatly reduced the Red Danger) and that it had forced Luanda to close the ANC’s sanctuary. For UNITA, the New York Accords were a major blow. Although the group would no longer have to fight Cuban troops, it would also no longer be able to count on South African troop assistance (both Recces and regular units). In contravention of the peace agreement, South Africa did continue a downscaled assistance operation, which included training, basic needs, intelligence, and political support (Oelschig 2012, 207; Interview 20 2018). Regular SADF forces, many of whom personally opposed the signing of the New York Accords (Interview 25 2018), also left behind vast numbers of captured SALWs and other supplies for UNITA during their withdrawal (Adamishin 2014, 97; Interview 3 2017; Interview 27 2018). Yet the military impact of this assistance was far less than what the insurgents had received previously. Thankfully for the rebels, US support continued as before, and did not change with the election of George H.W. Bush. In fact, as his first foreign policy decision Bush wrote a letter to Savimbi promising continued US assistance (The Washington Post 1989a; Cohen 2000, 88). US aid amounted to $40m in 1989 and between $60m and $90m in 1990. For 1991 the US offered $60m but only delivered half of it because of the developments in Angola discussed below (Scott 1996, 143-144).

Effects As before, the reduction of South African support in early 1989 had a major negative effect on UNITA’s war campaign and effectively meant that the insurgents would be unable to defeat the MPLA government. Since UNITA had not been involved in the peace negotiations, violence continued into 1989. As one Angolan citizen says of this period, ‘the battle never stopped’ (Interview 5 2018). Still, international pressure (particularly from the US) meant that some tentative efforts were made to end the conflict through a negotiated settlement. On 22 June 1989 UNITA leader Savimbi even met President Dos Santos of Angola at Gbadolite in northern Zaire to discuss a peace

146 agreement but their allegedly verbally agreed deal quickly fell through (Cohen 2000, 91- 93). UNITA’s true battlefield strength became clear in December 1989, when FAPLA launched a new offensive on Mavinga (Shubin 2008, 113). The rebels struggled to hold their ground and asked the US to step in. Washington quickly obliged. The US aid surge was effective and ‘helped UNITA break the back of the FAPLA offensive’ (Cohen 2000, 99). Having learned how to use their 30 captured T-54/55 tanks in battle, on 6 May 1990 the rebels even managed to force FAPLA to retreat from the town (Bridgland 1990, 388;

Wright 1997, 153). Contrary to the neutral view (H2), there was therefore no agency slack. While further peace talks were in progress, both sides made a final attempt to improve their hand at the negotiating table by military means. UNITA launched an offensive in northern Angola using American supplies shipped in through Zaire (Minter 1994, 50) and FAPLA once more tried to push UNITA troops out of Mavinga and then Jamba (Pycroft 1994, 247). Both offensives failed, but afterwards UNITA did make some headway in Huambo and Bie using equipment captured during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale (Interview 13 2018). One former SADF official says that by 1990 UNITA was in a ‘commanding position’, with troops waging battles all over Angola (Interview 13 2018). The available evidence, however, indicates that this is an overstatement. Although UNITA certainly ‘did well’ (Interview 27 2018) and even advanced a little, it was not by much and certainly not enough for a direct military victory. Not helping matters was that the CIA experienced some difficulties in delivering its supplies to Jamba. On 27 November 1989, for instance, a Lockheed L-100 supply plane crashed on UNITA’s runway, which resulted in several deaths and led to the suspension of CIA supplies for two months (Cohen 2000, 97-98; The Washington Post 1989b). After a long and arduous process, UNITA and the MPLA eventually came to a comprehensive peace agreement on 31 May 1991 that would end the war. In the agreement, known as the Bicesse Accords (UNSC 1991), the two parties agreed, inter alia, to settle their dispute through a free and fair general election. UNITA rebels also received a general amnesty and were allowed to fill half the army positions in the new Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).

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Analysis

The events between 1989 and 1991 show that, with only US and South African non-troop assistance, UNITA was able to sustain but not greatly improve its position vis-à-vis the incumbent government. US assistance did help to withstand FAPLA attacks but was not enough to force a breakthrough. Now that the SADF had left Angola and was highly unlikely to return, UNITA had little choice but to accept the invitation to enter peace negotiations. Once negotiations were underway it took a long time for the two parties to strike a deal, which might be explained by the long-standing personal animosity between Savimbi and Dos Santos. The peace agreement itself was highly favourable to UNITA as it offered the group a realistic opportunity to achieve their objective to gain power via elections.

Discussion This chapter has shown that, in the Angolan conflict, state support clearly increased UNITA’s operational capabilities, which allowed them to intensify the war and thereby increase their pressure on the incumbent government. Yet it did not lead to a rebel military victory because, following substantial domestic and international pressure on the South African government, Pretoria reduced its assistance at key moments during the war. This finding is summarised in Table 19. At the start of the conflict dyad the rebels received very little state support. As a result, the insurgents remained a marginal force that did not seriously threaten Luanda. Then, when aid increased in late 1978 the group transformed into a major fighting force that was soon able to hold large swathes of territory. Considering the extent of support given and the impact it had on UNITA, it is clear this played a major role in the rebels’ transformation.

Phase Description Support level Interim outcome 1 Conflict onset Low Low insurgency 2 Support increases High Strong rebel advance 3 Support decreases Medium Rebel retreat 4 Support increases again High Slow rebel advance 5 Support decreases again Medium Peace agreement Table 19. Overview of Angolan War phase including interim outcome.

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In fairness, it is likely that, had South Africa and others not increased their aid, UNITA would in the early 1980s nonetheless have made some gains. This is because UNITA’s membership during the late 1970s had been growing steadily and by the turn of the decade had risen to a level that would have allowed them to start taking territorial control. Still, two factors suggest it is unlikely the insurgents would have done as well as they did during this period without Pretoria’s aid. First, the interview evidence indicates that, although UNITA had the required manpower, it did not possess the material goods needed for sustained operations. Having had to abandon almost all of its equipment following the group’s ousting from Huambo in early 1976, weapons in particular were scarce. Without the necessary firepower the rebels would have struggled to transition into a large fighting force. Second, had UNITA not received foreign government assistance during this period it is difficult to see how they would have gained the skills needed to transition to a conventional fighting force. Admittedly, before starting their War of Independence against Portugal, Savimbi and a dozen of his men did receive some training from China (Savimbi 1985, 19; Bridgland 1988, 97). But this training had been short and could not have included modern weaponry. State support solved this problem. Returning to the correlation of effects, the pattern described above continued when Pretoria reduced its assistance in February 1984. After only one month the rebel advance halted and forced the rebels into the defence. In other words, the rapid and unexpected reduction of South African assistance greatly reduced UNITA’s operational capabilities and effectively prevented a possible rebel victory. It was only after large numbers of SADF troops returned in mid-1985 that UNITA activity greatly increased again. This led to major fighting from late 1985 until mid-1988 between UNITA and the SADF on the one side and FAPLA and FAR on the other side. Although the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale ultimately ended in a military stalemate, UNITA had clearly greatly benefited from South African aid and, to a somewhat lesser extent, US assistance. In late 1988 Pretoria signed a peace agreement with Luanda and Havana, which resulted in a substantial reduction in support to UNITA. Although the rebels could still count on considerable non-troop US and South African assistance, the practical effect of the SADF’s troop withdrawal from Angola was that UNITA was no longer able to engage in major (conventional) hostilities against FAPLA. Between 1989 and 1991 UNITA did make some battlefield improvements, but this was not enough to force a breakthrough.

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Being unable to defeat the incumbent government militarily, the insurgents eventually had little choice but to agree to resolve the conflict through a peace agreement in 1991. The Bicesse Accords was favourable to the insurgents as it offered the group a real chance of obtaining power via the ballot box. Considering that the MPLA was an authoritarian, Marxist-Leninist party at the time, its agreement to stage free and fair internationally monitored elections was a major concession. Yet importantly, this outcome fell far short of what Savimbi envisioned when the conflict dyad started in late 1975. As it was, UNITA lost the 1992 general election, and by late 1992, a new war ensued. In what became known as the Angolan Civil War (1992 – 2002, not discussed here), UNITA was unable to count on any meaningful foreign government assistance. To fund its operations, the rebels therefore turned to the international diamond trade instead (Malaquias 2001). This gave the group much monetary but little military fortune and ultimately led to the group’s militarily defeat in 2002 (Weigert 2011).

Hypotheses The Angolan case study lends partial support to each of the three views articulated in

Chapter 2, but strong support for none. Starting with the positive view (H1), this chapter supports the claim that state support helps rebel groups fight. As discussed, South African support was instrumental in helping UNITA advance in the early 1980s. Yet this effect was not so strong that it was able to propel them straight to a military victory.

Turning to the neutral view (H2), the Angolan case provides mixed evidence. Starting with adverse selection, this was clearly not a problem in Angola. Having worked extensively with UNITA during the Second Angolan War of Independence (1975), South Africa knew exactly who it was getting involved with and had a very good idea of what the rebels could and could not do. Under Savimbi’s strong leadership, UNITA forces proved to be sound fighters. There was therefore no adverse selection. The Angola case also displays little agency loss. UNITA largely carried out its tasks as agreed. Indeed, during the 1980s, UNITA was fully committed to the war, with all rebel activities geared toward defeating the incumbent government. There was therefore no agency slack. One South African did speak of having to keep UNITA rebels ‘under your thumb’ (Interview 8 2018) but this was an exception and referred to the late 1970s, when South Africa had only just started to increase its cooperation with the rebels again. The extensive research for this chapter did not come across any substantial evidence of

150 rebel corruption. Contrary to the neutral view (H2), there was therefore no agency slippage either. As for the predicted ensuing state-rebel friction, this chapter did indeed find some South African troops complaining of low rebel performance. However, it must be borne in mind that in both wars the vast majority of rebels were unskilled and often illiterate fighters. Their performance should therefore be strictly judged in the context of the skills they had been taught and the equipment they were provided with. South African interviewees who took this into account consistently spoke highly of UNITA (e.g. Interview 13 2018). Furthermore, and contrary to what the neutral view would expect, the South African military was generally satisfied about its cooperation with UNITA. The South Africans, for instance, appeared to see little need to police the insurgents. Admittedly, South Africa did twice substantially reduce its assistance to the rebels, but this was not caused by executive dissatisfaction with the client. Although friction certainly existed, this chapter found that the primary reason why South Africa reduced its assistance was because of domestic and international pressure.

Evaluating the merits of the negative view (H3), this chapter found that, as predicted, state support ultimately negatively affected the group’s ability to achieve a direct military victory. Crucially, however, this negative effect was not—as the negative view suggests— because it attracted opportunistic recruits that are violent toward non-combatants. UNITA rebels already committed such atrocities before receiving South African assistance, and this did not change after the group obtained greater aid from Pretoria. Challenging a variation of this view advanced by Salehyan, Siroky and Wood (2014), rebel violence also did not reduce following the onset of assistance received from Washington, a democratic sponsor. Instead, foreign assistance initially helped the UNITA campaign, but when this was subsequently reduced the rebels found themselves in a position in which they could not defeat the incumbent government. The reason why foreign government assistance ultimately reduced UNITA’s chances of victory was therefore not because it attracted opportunistic and violent recruits, but—supporting Byman (2007, 19)—because of state support’s fickle nature. This chapter also found little evidence of Salehyan et al.’s theory that there is variation in how democratic and non-democratic supporters deal with rebel violence. As predicted, authoritarian sponsor Pretoria did indeed largely look away from UNITA abuses, perhaps believing it stood little to gain from interfering. But challenging this theory is that the US involvement was similarly limited. This might be explained by the

151 fact that, having only sent a few dozen CIA liaison officers to the Southern African state, Washington may have simply not been aware of much of what went on in the vast Angolan savannah.

Types of support Turning to the impact of different types of support, there is no clear indication of variation between these forms of aid. Starting with troop assistance, this clearly helped UNITA. SADF troop support was highly useful to capture some towns (e.g. Savate) and it indirectly helped them to gain control of others. South African air cover was particularly beneficial as it ensured that FAPLA, as well as the assisting FAR, were unable to attack the group’s headquarters from the air. Had it not been for the rapid deployment of South African combat forces in response to the 1985, 1986, and 1987 FAPLA/FAR offensives, UNITA may have even been defeated. The causal mechanism that underpins the positive effect of troop support is intuitive; the South African troops were better trained and possessed superior equipment to the rebels and were therefore highly effective combat partners. This being said, the effect of troop support should not be overstated. The arrival of large numbers of SADF forces, including heavy weaponry, during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale not only prompted the Angolan government to seek (and receive) additional support from Cuba, but it also led to major conventional warfare in Cuando Cubango province, in which UNITA was only able to play second fiddle. Transport and logistical aid were also useful. At the start of the war UNITA possessed few vehicles of their own and therefore greatly benefited from South African transport (donated donkey carts) and logistical assistance (the C-130s). SAAF air transport during Operation Wallpaper was particularly useful in helping UNITA move troops from Moxico to Cuando Cubango in 1985. As for weapons supplies, the steady stream of SADF-captured weapons allowed the rebels to wage large and frequent attacks. US-supplied Stinger missiles were highly effective in alleviating the FAPLA/FAR airborne threat. Turning to training, this form of assistance is frequently cited by interviewees as having been one of the most useful forms of support to UNITA because it transformed the group from a rag-tag group of undisciplined rebels into a formidable rebel fighting force. As one interviewee points out, it also had an important sling-shot effect: As UNITA forces received training they fared better on the battlefield, and as its battlefield performance improved the group was able

152 to capture more weapons, which in turn improved battlefield performance even further (Interview 13 2018). Similarly, the training supplied by Morocco appears to have been highly useful in showing UNITA how to effectively use mortar fire in battle. Basic needs aid was vital to develop Jamba into a major rebel headquarters. The ration packs were instrumental to keep the rebels well fed while conducting operations, and medical assistance greatly helped save UNITA lives. Intelligence also appears to have been useful as it allowed UNITA to better locate the enemy. Whether the intelligence that UNITA supplied to the SADF in return was also useful is a point of continuing debate. Unfortunately, there is no tangible evidence that indicates the impact of financial support. UNITA’s high level of discipline during the 1980s suggests that financial donations were likely to have been used as intended, but its impact on the organisation is unclear. The area in which UNITA operated at the time had a barter economy, with few goods being traded using Angolan currency, let alone foreign currency. Still, it is likely that UNITA sourced some items abroad during the 1980s, much like it would later do in the 1990s. Political support was given by various states including South Africa, the US, Zambia, and Zaire, as well as other African states. South African political support, due to its policy of Apartheid and resulting international isolation, appeared to have little effect. American political backing appeared to be more useful, as evidenced by the erection of the 9-meter high banner, but to what extent it helped them on the ground remains unclear. To repeat, the Angolan case underscores the finding from the quantitative analysis that there is no support for the ideas taken from Byman et al. (2001) and Sawyer et al. (2017) that some forms of aid are more effective than others. It should be noted that this preliminary finding excludes sanctuary because even though this was offered by multiple states, UNITA chose not to make use of a foreign safe haven.

Conclusion The qualitative analysis of the Angolan War found some support for each of the three views articulated in Chapter 2, but strong support for none. State support did indeed help UNITA to intensify their campaign, but it did not bring the insurgents to victory because of sudden reductions of support. It is likely that, had UNITA consistently received strong US and South African support from the start of hostilities in 1975 the insurgents would have fared (much) better than they did, although it is impossible to say whether this would have led to a direct rebel victory. As for the types of support, this chapter did not find

153 evidence to suggest that there is variation in the effect of the eight different forms of assistance awarded to the insurgents. It is possible, of course, that the Angolan conflict is simply an outlier case and therefore not representative of the wider conflict dyad population. To explore whether this is true the next chapter conducts the same analysis in the case of the Nicaraguan Contra War, in which the rebels similarly received strong foreign government assistance.

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Chapter 6: The Nicaraguan Contra War

HONDURAS

North Atlantic 1987

NICARAGUA Samotillo

Chontales

Sapo á

30 miles COSTA RICA

Map 2. Map of Nicaragua. Source: Google (2018). Crosses indicate major rebel camps. Arrows indicate rebel offensive/retreat. Stars indicate key locations.

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The quantitative analysis in Chapter 4 found that foreign state support is negatively associated with conflict outcome. The qualitative analysis in Chapter 5 offered a reason why this might be so: in Angola state support helped the rebels intensify the war but ultimately negatively affected their ability to achieve a military victory not because of state- rebel friction or because it attracted unsuitable recruits, but because of sudden reductions in the level of support awarded to the insurgents. This chapter conducts the same analysis on the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979 – 1990). As in the previous chapter, this chapter has three objectives: (1) to assess the overall effect of state support on conflict outcome, (2) to examine possible variation in effect between different types of support, and (3) to scrutinise the causal mechanism. This chapter is structured as follows. Like the previous chapter, it first discusses five war phases which correspond to fluctuations in the level of state support (see Table 20 and 21 below). For each phase, the section first discusses the extent of support awarded and then shows its impact. Following the examination of all five war phases, the chapter evaluates the findings in light of the hypotheses formulated in Chapter 2. Before proceeding to discussing the war, a few words are needed on the scope of this chapter. Contrary to the Angolan case, the Nicaraguan Contra War involved a multitude of rebel groups which included the Northern Front (the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN), the Southern Front (Democratic Revolutionary Alliance, or ARDE), the Internal Front, and an indigenous Miskito force on the Atlantic (Caribbean) Coast called Misurasata. This chapter only focuses on the main rebel force, which was the Northern Front located on the Nicaraguan-Honduran border (see Map 2). This chapter also excludes the re-Contra conflict, which was a relatively minor armed conflict that erupted shortly after the termination of the Contra War in 1990 (see Horton 1998, Chapter 9). Another issue is that the main Contra rebel group went through several name changes. They first called themselves Popular Militia Against Somoza / Sandino (MILPAS) and the Legion of 15 September. In August 1981 the rebels formed a new organisation called the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN). Finally, in April 1987 this group changed their name to the Nicaraguan Resistance (NR) and formed an umbrella group called the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO). Yet throughout the conflict, the rebels were best known as the counterrevolutionaries, or ‘Contras’. This chapter uses the name of specific groups when referring to that unit only, and the Contra name when referring to the armed political movement more broadly.

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Phase Description Period 1 Conflict onset Jul 1979 – Dec 1981 2 Support increases Jan 1982 – Oct 1984 3 Support decreases Nov 1984 – Sept 1986 4 Support increases again Oct 1986 – Feb 1988 5 Support decreases again Mar 1988 – Mar 1990 Table 20. Overview of level of support to the Contras by war phase.

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Troops - - - - - Transport & Logistics - x x x - Weapons - x - x - Training x x - x - Sanctuary x x x x x Basic needs x x x x x Financial assistance x x x x x Intelligence - x x x - Political support - x x x x Table 21. Overview of types of state support received by the Contras by war phase.

Phase 1: Conflict onset The Contra War emerged as a response to the Nicaraguan Revolution of July 1979, when a rebel group called the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) managed to take power from the then-ruling Somoza family in a conflict that claimed an estimated 50,000 lives (Seligson and McElhinny 1996, 226). Upon their victory, the new government, led by Daniel Ortega, set out to implement its Sandinista political ideology, which consisted of a mix of socialism, Christianity, and nationalism (Langlois 1997, 698). An influential 1979 Nicaraguan white paper showed that, in practice, this amounted to the establishment of a vehemently anti-American, authoritarian state influenced by Communist economic principles (Frente Sandinista de Liberacioń Nacional 1986; Ramírez 2012, 74). To replace Somoza’s widely despised National Guard (a hybrid army/police force), the revolutionaries created three new institutions: the Sandinista Police (PS), the Sandinista Popular Army (EPS), and the Popular Sandinista Militias (MPS) (Gorman 1981, 137, 142-

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146). The government did so with assistance provided by the Soviet Union (material goods) and Cuba (advisors) (Coll 1985, 9-10; Ramírez 2012, 108). Some of the new government’s plans—such as a literacy campaign and improvements in health care and infrastructure—were widely welcomed, but many others were not. Particularly problematic were the nationalisations of firms, the introduction of low maximum prices on goods and labour, forced land reform, and the curtailment of civil liberties (Kinzer 1991, 76-79, 153-155). Not helping matters was the hard, authoritarian hand with which the new government implemented its policies (e.g. Chamorro 1996, 187; Ramírez 2012, 162). Within weeks of the revolution the government’s plans created strong resentment among pro-democracy liberals, business leaders, and large landowners (Kinzer 1991, 137; Staten 2010, 91; Langlois 1997, 698-699). Resistance also emerged among exiled members of Somoza’s National Guard and among peasants whose livelihoods were being destroyed in the new economic system (Brown 2001, 32). Although few of the highly heterogeneous make-up of the opposition groups made it explicit, it was clear from the outset that their shared objective was to overthrow the Sandinista government. The Nicaraguan government, seeking to discredit its adversaries, soon started referring to the armed opposition as Contrarrevolucionarios or Contras for short. This was not entirely justified; many Contras had enthusiastically supported the Nicaraguan revolution against the corrupt Somoza regime. Their disagreement with the new government stemmed merely from the Sandinistas’ intrusive, authoritarian, and economically disastrous left-wing policies. Still, the Contra name stuck, both in Nicaragua and abroad. As its derogatory intention wore off the term was soon used by supporters and opponents alike, although the Contras themselves generally used the term commandos (Dillon 1991). At the onset of the conflict, the Contras faced three problems. First, they were poorly organised. Peasant rebels had created at least sixteen groups, the largest of which was the Popular Militia Against Somoza/Sandinista (MILPAS) (Horton 1998, 116). Former members of the National Guard had also formed a multitude of clubs, most important of which was the Legion of 15 September, which operated in the US and Honduras (Gutman 1988, 40-43). Lastly, Sandinistas opposing the leftist orientation of the new government formed yet another outfit called the Nicaraguan Democratic Union (UDN). Each of these groups operated independently in different areas and therefore struggled to make a fist against the new government.

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Second, the rebels lacked the resources needed to wage a rebellion. Most MILPAS were poor farmers with little possessions. As a consequence, one rebel says, ‘[e]verything we needed was in short supply, especially weapons’ (Pedro Javier Núňez Caberas in Eich and Rincón 1985, 48). The situation was largely the same for the ex-National Guard and ex-Sandinista rebels. Since they had both been forced to leave Nicaragua in a hurry—via land, sea, air, or the Guatemalan embassy—these rebels had only been able to bring whatever they could carry (Dickey 1985, 28, 53, 55). This meant that ‘[t]here were no funds, no resources at all’ (Bermúdez in Gutman 1988, 43). A couple of rebels did manage to get hold of some old .22 rifles but these were no match for the EPS’ Soviet-supplied AK-47s (Dickey 1985, 118). Third, the Contras suffered from a poor reputation. As soon as hostilities started the government portrayed the rebels as the violent henchmen of the ousted Somoza regime. Although this was an inaccurate description of group as a whole, some of the ex-National Guard rebels did resort to brutal crimes to survive, including armed robbery, kidnapping, and drugs smuggling (Garvin 1992, 19, 31; Interview 21 2018). Contrary to what the negative view (H3) would expect, citizen-directed violence therefore did not follow but already preceded state support onset.

Support onset The situation changed several months after the revolution, when the Contras started receiving their first foreign government assistance. Three governments, nicknamed ‘La Tripartita’ (Kinzer 1991, 141; Clarridge 1997, 210), were particularly important. The first was Honduras, the American-allied government of which was threatened by Managua’s sudden ambition to build the greatest military in Central America (Cruz Jr. 1989, 104). Honduras therefore provided the rebels with sanctuary along its lengthy and sparsely populated mountainous border with Nicaragua (see Map 2). The rebels gladly made use of this offer, but contrary to one rebel claim (Moreno 2016, 28) were never really accepted by the Honduran population (Interview 22 2018). The second sponsor to emerge was Argentina, which was in the latter years of a domestic counterinsurgency campaign known as the Dirty War (1974 – 1983). Following the Nicaraguan revolution, a key rebel group in the Argentine conflict, the Montoneros, had set up a headquarters in Managua (Bermúdez 1988, 58; Woodward 1987, 184). To pressure the Sandinistas to close the Montonero sanctuary, the Argentines offered to train fifty Contras in guerrilla warfare (Gutman 1988, 53; Dickey 1985, 90-92; Garvin 1992,

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34). This number would later rise to 1,000 (Kagan 1996, 202). Argentina’s involvement in the war was severely reduced in 1982, however, after Buenos Aires invaded the Falkland Islands and the US sided with the United Kingdom (Robinson and Norsworthy 1987, 55; Woodward 1987, 232). Two years later Argentina terminated its Contra assistance programme entirely (The Washington Post 1984a). The final state sponsor was the US. The Carter Administration had viewed the Nicaraguan Revolution as a security threat but nonetheless initially attempted to work with the new rulers, offering development aid in return for a moderation of the new leaders’ policies (Kagan 1996, 123-124). But as more information emerged about the new regime the White House decided to hedge its bets and assist members of the Nicaraguan opposition as well (Interview 23 2018). This was done by providing them with financial aid paid out of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) $50m annual contingency fund. The money was largely symbolic and amounted to no more than ‘several hundred thousand dollars’ (Woodward 1987, 111, 112). A substantial part went to peaceful members of the opposition, such as money donated to opposition newspaper La Prensa, with armed factions receiving only a small part of this already modest budget. FDN leaders largely used it to provide for their families while they focused on the growing rebellion (Dillon 1991, 63). Interestingly, initially none of the governments offered their political support. Whether the Contras regretted this is unclear but this may not have been the case as each sponsor had a poor reputation in Nicaragua: the Argentinian government was widely reviled because of its repressive tactics in the appropriately-named Dirty War, the US was repulsed because of its long-standing support for the ousted and hated Somoza regime, and the Honduran government was commonly perceived as little more than an American stooge.

Effects From its onset, state support immediately had a major positive operational effect on the Contras. Its first effect was on rebel organisation. The Honduran sanctuary brought the rebels physically together, which stimulated cooperation. At the recommendation of the US and Argentina, the Legion also merged with the UDN to form the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) (Gutman 1988, 56). The new organisation was initially headed by a three-member directorate but later expanded to a seven-member directorate lead by Nicaraguan businessman Adolfo Calero Portocarrero (Dickey 1985, 119; Robinson and

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Norsworthy 1987, 45). Calero was not a dominant leader, however, and focused largely on the political aspects of the campaign. Power in the FDN was largely concentrated around Chief of Staff Col. Enrique Bermúdez, the FDN’s regional commanders and, perhaps most importantly, with the CIA (Chamorro 1987, 11). Basic combat training, provided in Honduras by Argentinian military intelligence organisation G-2 was generally effective, with one Contra saying the Argentines ‘made good soldiers for the FDN, and in a short period of time’ (Jorge Ramírez Zelaya in Eich and Rincón 1985, 31). Another Contra rates the communications tips he received (Interview 23 2018). However, some rebels were less impressed. One FDN-member says the Argentine intelligence offers were ‘poorly qualified’ (Moreno 2016, 116), while another complains that the Argentine’s advanced training, given at a secret location near Buenos Aires (Eich and Rincón 1985, 46), was not useful. The course the Argentines taught was based on their experiences in urban counterinsurgency, but this was the opposite of what the rebels were doing, which was waging a rural insurgency. This made many lessons irrelevant (Dickey 1985, 115). Admittedly, from the onset of state support there was some friction between the sponsoring states and the rebels. The US took issue with the lack of leadership displayed by the rebels (CIA 1987, 21-22), which can be interpreted as an indication of adverse selection, while the FDN leadership complained of excessive CIA control (Bermúdez 1988, 60; Chamorro and Morley 1985). Still, these issues were relatively minor. All things considered, all parties were generally satisfied about their cooperation. Following the onset of state support, the Contras became more active but their actions remained in the realm of ‘minor hit-and-run operations against the Sandinistas across the border’ (Clarridge 1997, 200). In May 1980, for instance, a group of 60 insurgents went into Nicaragua to carry out an attack but failed and got arrested (The Washington Post 1980). Two months later some 80 fighters attacked and seized control of Quilalí in Nicaragua’s Nueva Segovia mountains but were quickly forced to retreat into the surrounding countryside (Horton 1998, 114). A final example comes from December 1981, when a Contra rebel tried to destroy the state cement factory to destabilise the economy. The plot, however, had been foiled by a Sandinista spy and the attacker was imprisoned (Eich and Rincón 1985, 26-29). Although the rebels had become increasingly active, insurgent mistakes meant that ‘at this point the concept of the counterrevolution was not a threat to Managua’ (Cruz Jr. 1989, 126; also Chamorro 1986, 237). Evidence of this can also be found in a speech

161 given at the second anniversary of the revolution, in which Minister of the Interior Thomás Borge points not to the rising insurgency as the government’s main problem, but its own inexperience in public administration (1982, 137).

Analysis From 1979 to 1981, the rebels received four out of the nine forms of state support identified in Chapter 1: training, sanctuary, basic needs, and (some) financial assistance. Overall, and supporting the causal mechanism advanced by proponents of the positive view (H1), this had a positive effect as it unified the rebels and helped them prepare for war. This effect was not substantially undermined by the minor level of state-rebel friction. The real issue was that the level of assistance provided to the rebels was only small, which only enabled the insurgents able to wage minor attacks against the Nicaraguan government. As a consequence, the rebellion did not pose a major threat to the newly installed Sandinista government.

Phase 2: Support increases The situation changed in early 1982, when the US dramatically increased its involvement in the war. A year earlier, Ronald Reagan had succeeded Jimmy Carter as the 40th US President and—to the great pleasure of the Contras (Interview 23 2018)—ordered an overhaul of US policy towards Nicaragua. Following the failure of diplomatic efforts by Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas O. Enders, as well as a reluctance to deploy US combat forces following the Vietnam War (1955 – 1975), the incoming Administration decided to substantially increase the US assistance programme for the Contras. On 9 March 1981 Reagan signed a Presidential finding which authorised the CIA to increase its involvement with the FDN (LeoGrande 1998, 115). Nine months later, on 4 January 1982, Reagan went one step further and signed National Security Decision Directive 17, which called for ‘military training for indigenous units and leaders both in and out of the country’ and ‘support [for] democratic forces in Nicaragua’ (The White House 1982, 1, 2). Reagan initially intended to use Washington’s support for the Contras not to achieve regime change but as a bargaining chip to force Managua to cease its aid for the Marxist rebels fighting the US-assisted government of El Salvador (Kagan 1996, 187).

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Since the new policy required a greater budget than the CIA’s contingency funds allowed, CIA Director William Casey requested and obtained approval from the Congressional intelligence committees for an initial $19m budget to set up a 500 rebel strong insurgent organisation (The Washington Post 1982b, 1982c). This budget was later increased by $24 million (Inouye and Hamilton 1987b, 3). In making his case for the Contras, Casey implied that the group was only going to interdict supplies being transported from Nicaragua to El Salvador (Kagan 1996, 205; LeoGrande 1998, 287). This created the wrong expectation about what the rebels were going to do and would later have major repercussions for the US assistance programme. The Project, as the FDN aid programme became internally known (Dickey 1985, 144), soon developed into an extensive covert operation encompassing all forms of aid except troops. Initially, weapons (almost exclusively SALWs) were obtained from the Honduran military, which received new US-manufactured M-16s in exchange for their used Belgian FAL rifles, which were subsequently donated to the Contras (Chamorro 1986, 238). Later, the Contras switched to the AK-47s as used by the EPS. Material support also included basic needs such as food, medicine, and clothing. The US even built a field hospital (Clarridge 1997, 239). US efforts were much appreciated by the Contras. As one rebel describes it, ‘the FDN received every conceivable kind of support from the gringos; weapons, money, everything one needs. In March [1982], the green stuff came: the weapons, the uniforms, the boots, the backpacks, the cartridge belts. All of it new, good material’ (Pedro Javier Núňez Caberas in Eich and Rincón 1985, 50). Also useful was the US donation of two C-47 cargo aircraft (effectively DC-3 Dakotas with cargo doors), which were flown by former members of Somoza’s air force. Although the rebels complained of their old age, the arrival of the C-47s allowed the rebels to receive air supplies in the field, which substantially increased the time they could spend in the theatre of operations before having to return to base (Chamorro 1986, 242). Unfortunately for the rebels, within eighteen months both planes had been downed by enemy fire (The New York Times 1984e). Not all material aid was useful. Since US officials did not want the rebels to look too militaristic, they initially decided that, rather than giving them regular military uniforms, they would give them blue work overalls and yellow boots. The boots, however, were far too large and had soles that were unsuitable for jungle use, and the uniforms made the rebels stand out in the bush like a sore thumb (Moreno 2016, 29, 178). The CIA

163 instruction manuals were not much use either. One showed Nicaraguan citizens how to carry out small scale forms of resistance such as disabling government vehicles, while another instructed the rebels how to wage psychological operations, including political assassinations (Central Intelligence Agency 1983, 1985). The manuals taught the rebels little they did not already know and did major reputation damage to the group when they were leaked to the press in October 1984 (The Washington Post 1984c). Ironically, CIA- contractor John Kirkpatrick had written the handbook with the intention of improving the FDN’s image (The Washington Post 1984d, 1984g). As for training, a six-week course in basic combat training, devised by US officials but given in the Honduran rebel camps by insurgents trained in Argentina, was generally effective (Moreno 2016, 155). Advanced training was also deemed useful (Woodward 1987, 252-256). In at least one incident, however, the training was not useful. In 1983, the US gave ten Contras an expensive one-month course on marine sabotage in preparation of a planned series of naval attacks, only for the instructors to conclude that the students were not up to the job (Eich and Rincón 1985, 92-97), which can be interpreted as evidence of adverse selection. The attacks were later carried out instead by an unrelated CIA proxy force called the Unilaterally Controlled Latin American Assets, or UCLAs (The New York Times 1984a, 1984g; Clarridge 1997, 262-266). The CIA also provided intelligence by listening in on EPS radios and by conducting reconnaissance flights over Nicaragua to gather information on EPS positions (Dillon 1991, 99). One former Contra says this was ‘invaluable’ because ‘[w]ithout it, our forces would not have been able to operate with any degree of effectiveness inside Nicaragua’ (Chamorro 1986, 242; also Calderón 1988, 16). The US also provided some financial support. This money was not available to buy SALWs or equipment—this was all supplied via the US—but only to pay for the rebels’ salaries (Chamorro 1986, 241). Supporting expectations from the neutral view, not all of this money reached their intended recipient. Foot soldiers were supposed to be paid a dollar a day, but most of them did not receive it (Moreno 2016, 75). The Contra leaders did cash their own pay cheques, which varied between $1,000 and $7,000 a month (Brown 2001, 115; Horton 1998, 196; Chamorro and Morley 1985; Cruz Jr. 1989, 233). The US also made some money available for FDN leaders to solicit support from other governments but, supporting the neutral view’s expectation of agency slippage, this was not always well spent (Chamorro 1987, 19-20). One former FDN leader says three of his

164 colleagues in the directorate ‘sometimes treated the trips as a free vacation, courtesy of the American taxpayer’ (Chamorro and Morley 1985). Lastly, the US offered the Contras extensive political support, although this did not extend to official recognition as the legal representatives of the Nicaraguan population. Starting in 1982, Reagan made ever more frequent references to the FDN and urged the American people to support them in whatever way they could. Whether the President’s rhetorical support helped the group, however, is difficult to say. On the one hand US superpower support helped to increase the group’s prestige and legitimacy. Yet on the other hand it also enabled the Nicaraguan government to portray the rebels as reactionaries who wanted to take Nicaragua back to its era of US dependence. As US aid increased, so too did friction between the patron and client. The foremost issue for the US was that the rebels were not advancing quickly enough, which Washington incorrectly appears to have interpreted as evidence of agency slack. Perhaps unrealistically, CIA operatives had expected the rebels to be in Managua by the end of 1983 (Chamorro 1986, 239). Contrary to the neutral view’s prediction, however, the main dissatisfaction came from not from the patron but the client, which complained of excessive CIA control. US officials, one rebel complains, ‘considered themselves gods and took decisions without consulting us or taking us into account’ (Moreno 2016, 177). Another says that ‘[a]s a Commander, I have seldom been allowed to make a military decision I consider in the best interests of our forces’ (Bermúdez 1988, 60), while a third says that the FDN was ‘never given the right to decide how much we would spend on weapons or what kind of weapons we wanted’ (Chamorro and Morley 1985). Particularly painful to the rebels was that the CIA refused to teach them how to run their insurgency without US support (North 1991, 250). Interestingly, the rebels had far less friction with the Honduran government, which also increased its support by supplying logistical sites, transport, medical assistance, and communications equipment (Dillon 1991, 81). This difference might have been caused by the fact that there was scant interaction between the Honduran government and the rebels. As one rebel explains, ‘[w]e stay out of their business and they [the Honduran government] stay out of ours’ (‘Pecos Bill’ in Eich and Rincón 1985, 185; also Revista Envío 1987).

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Effects

Again supporting the causal mechanism from positive view (H1), the arrival of strong US aid had a major positive operational effect on the Contras. This first of all manifested itself in increased recruitment. Bermúdez explains that, ‘[b]y showing we had the resources, we started to be trusted’ (1987, 9-10). Despite the rudimentary nature of the Honduran camps, SALWs availability soon attracted large numbers of highly motivated peasant recruits (Dillon 1991, 58; Horton 1998, 112). Peasants frequently showed up at rebel camps with their entire family, all of whom were given a task in the quickly growing rebel army (Interview 22 2018). The attraction of resources had such a powerful effect that the peasant rebels widely accepted the costly price of having to surrender their autonomy and being integrated in the ex-National Guard led FDN (Horton 1998, 119). As one Contra recruiter explains, the peasants ‘only had 20-caliber flints and perhaps several hundred rounds of ammunition. […] It was therefore relatively easy to convince them that it would be in their best interests to join the FDN’ (Pedro Esinoza Sánchez in Eich and Rincón 1985, 138-139). In fact, the influx of new fighters during the early 1980s was so large that the official CIA goal of 500 rebels was quickly surpassed and that FDN leaders even asked MILPAS to reduce their recruitment efforts on their behalf because the FDN could not cope with the large number of Honduran arrivals (Garvin 1992, 64). But after considering the political and military value of a large rebel group this restriction was soon lifted. By May 1983, the Contras (excluding a separate indigenous force) had grown to 6,000 fighters (The Washington Post 1983a). By late 1984, they numbered around 14,000 (Robinson and Norsworthy 1987, 129; The Washington Post 1985b). Admittedly, part of the FDN’s troop growth may have been the result of forced recruitment. The rebels were known to trick, manipulate, and kidnap peasants into joining the organisation (Americas Watch Report 1987, 37-43; Brody 1985, 95-99; Chamorro 1986, 238). Once they were under FDN control, the rebels would tell these peasants that if they were to escape and return home nobody would believe their story and instead suspect them of being Contra spies (Robinson and Norsworthy 1987, 130). It is, however, unlikely that these practices can entirely explain the 100-fold increase in FDN troop numbers. Most accounts suggest that the vast majority of Contras had signed up voluntarily.

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Another effect of increased foreign government assistance was on rebel activity. Between early 1982 and early 1984, strong state support allowed the rebels to launch several major offensives as well as many smaller operations. On 14 March 1982, the Contras used US-supplied C-4 plastic explosives to damage a bridge near Ocotal and destroy a bridge near Samotillo (see Map 2), which prompted the government to declare a state of emergency (Garvin 1992, 45; Dickey 1985, 133, 142). In late 1982 and early 1983, the rebels also launched two major offensives involving some 2,000 rebels each (Kagan 1996, 240, 251-252; The New York Times 1983c). A third offensive, carried out in late 1983 in conjunction with a rival rebel group called ARDE was even larger (Garvin 1992, 77). Throughout this period, the Contras also carried out a large number of small attacks which numbered as high as one a day (The New York Times 1983a). Challenging the neutral view (H2), there was therefore no agency slack. As Contra activities increased, the Nicaraguan government requested more aid from their allies Cuba and the Soviet Union. Both obliged (Chamorro 1987, 7), which partly negated the rebels’ improvement in the military balance of power. Still, the Contras were highly grateful for the assistance they received. One form of support that a former insurgent lists as having been particularly useful was communications equipment, which allowed commanders to communicate with each other in the Nicaraguan highlands. He explains that ‘[w]ithout this communications capacity, our forces inside Nicaragua would not have been able to coordinate their activities with one another and they would have been unable to launch effective strikes at the designated targets’ (Chamorro 1986, 241).

Offering some support to the negative view (H3), some Contras fought with little regard to the lives of non-combatants. One Contra commander says that since the Sandinistas had successfully ‘used terror as a weapon’, the Contras should use it as well (Moreno 2016, 10). Examples of this are legion. In May 1984 a rebel unit attacked a state farm in Jinotega province while a polio vaccination campaign was underway (Melrose 1985, 27, see Map 2). Two months later, a group of rebels assassinated seven people who were not affiliated with the Sandinista government (The Washington Post 1984h). In 1985, a Honduran government report stated that Contra death squads had been responsible for at least 247 deaths, including eighteen Hondurans (The Washington Post 1985e; see also The New York Times 1985b). These incidents were a problem for the US, as Washington is legally barred from assisting assassinations (The New York Times 1985b). The rebels responded by creating a rebel military police but the issue persisted (Moreno 2016, 123). Still, a rare report found in the archives of the Nicaraguan Solidarity

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Campaign, a UK nongovernmental organisation, reveals that although Contra abuses were widespread, they did not appear to exceed those committed by Nicaraguan government forces (Staines 1989; also Interview 22 2018). The increase of rebel attacks during 1982 to 1984 signified an important break with the early years of the conflict. No longer confined to small pinprick attacks, the rebels were now able to launch large scale attacks on Nicaraguan government forces. The rebels’ foreign aid played an important role in this development, which was acknowledged by Managua. ‘The kind of coordination required for this kind of aggressive action’, an official Nicaraguan statement during this time reads, ‘would not be possible without the direct participation of the Government of Honduras […] and the Government of the United States’ (quoted in The New York Times 1984f). The effect of the increase of rebel activity is perhaps best observed in the Nicaraguan economy. By 1984, the Latin American state was in a deep depression, with high unemployment, inflation, and widespread food shortages (Horton 1998, 159-160; Robinson and Norsworthy 1987, 153-154; Kagan 1996, 405). Part of this was likely due to the government’s own disastrous Communist-inspired economic policies (see Stahler- Sholk 1990; Kinzer 1991, 155-165; also Interview 23 2018). But the war also played a major role since it destroyed infrastructure and capital and forced the government to direct resources away from economically productive areas such as trade and development to economically unproductive areas such as the armed forces. ‘By the end of 1983’, the then head of the EPS admits, ‘the Contras were winning the war’ (Joaquín Cuadra Lacayo in Kruijt 2008, 122). To try to turn the tide the Nicaraguan government introduced conscription and requested additional assistance from its allies, most importantly the Soviet Union and Cuba (Kruijt 2008, 123-124). Assistance came in the form of military aid, including advisors and credit for weapons purchases, as well as civilian aid, such as basic foodstuffs. Both forms of assistance were vital to the regime. ‘Without Soviet and Eastern European credits, oil, machinery and edible goods,’ one analyst notes, ‘Nicaragua would probably not have been able to survive’ (Kruijt 2008, 114). Just how far the Contras had pushed the Nicaraguan government became clear on 21 September 1984, when President Ortega unexpectedly announced that his government was prepared to accept a far-reaching peace agreement proposed by the Contadora group, which consisted of representatives of the governments of Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela (The Washington Post 1984i). The proposal required that in return for US

168 termination of Contra aid, Nicaragua would agree, inter alia, to reduce its armed forces, reduce its arms stockpiles, expel all foreign military advisors, and start negotiations with the armed opposition (Bagley 1986, 8-9). US opposition to the plan meant that the deal eventually fell through, but Ortega’s offer illustrates well just how far the Contras had come. Nevertheless, the rebels still had a long way to go. The Contras were ‘almost exclusively’ active in the Highland area from where most of the peasant fighters originated and appeared both unwilling and unable to move into the cities (Brown 2001, 201). Another issue was that the rebels had become highly reliant on continued US aid. As one former Contra explains, ‘[t]he organisation became so thoroughly dependent on the United States government and its continued support that if support were terminated, the organisation would not only be incapable of conducting any military or paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government, but it would immediately begin to disintegrate. It could not exist without the support and direction of the United States government’ (Chamorro 1986, 246).

Analysis As expected by the positive view, the increase of US (and, to a lesser extent, Honduran) support played a crucial role in the Contras’ transition ‘[f]rom small, disorganised, and ineffectual bands [into a] well-organised, well-armed, well-equipped, and well-trained fighting force’ (Chamorro 1986, 238). The effect was impressive. By 1984, the FDN was ‘unmistakably shifting the political and military balance of power’ (Kagan 1996, 296). The government had even offered a peace agreement to terminate the rebel threat. If the war was to continue like this, the insurgents would be in a good position to further wear down EPS forces and eventually extract great concessions from Managua. Even a rebel victory now started to look like a real possibility.

Reflecting on the neutral view’s expectation (H2), during this period there was considerable state-rebel friction. Yet this was not so much due to adverse selection or agency loss but was instead caused by unrealistic US expectations about how quickly the rebels would be able to advance. Interestingly, the majority of the complaints did not come from the sponsor but from the rebels, who sought greater freedom in allocating resources. A final point to note is that the rebels did not have much strife with the Honduran government, on whose territory the rebels resided. This may be explained by

169 the fact that Tegucigalpa largely left the operational provision of assistance to the US, which gave Honduras little need to stand in close contact with the rebels.

Phase 3: Support decreases The situation changed once more in late 1984, when the Reagan administration’s Contra aid programme had generated substantial domestic political opposition. The root cause of the problem was that, to obtain Congressional funding for the Contras, Casey had told Congress that the Contras were merely going to interdict Nicaraguan aid to the El Salvadoran rebels (Kagan 1996, 205; LeoGrande 1998, 287). But as the US aid programme developed, an influential Newsweek (1982) article revealed in November 1982 that the rebels’ activities far exceeded this task. This was a problem because many parliamentarians (particularly Democrats) opposed what the Reagan administration had really been doing, which was to support the Contra campaign to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. This sentiment was perhaps best expressed by Congressman Tom Harkin of the Democratic Party, who said on 8 December 1982 that the Reagan administration was ‘not only doing something that is clearly illegal’ but also ‘antithetical to our own beliefs’ (quoted in Kagan 1996, 242). Later that day Congress therefore passed what became known as the Boland I Amendment, which explicitly stated that US assistance should not be given for the purpose of overthrowing the Nicaraguan government (The Washington Post 1982a). Since the amendment left room for interpretation—White House officials argued aid could be given with one goal in mind but used by the rebels for another (Woodward 1987, 250-251; LeoGrande 1998, 301)—it did not have the effect Congress desired. Then, in April 1984, news broke that the CIA had hired contractors to mine Nicaragua’s harbours (The Washington Post 1984b). Outraged, and despite a White House effort to underscore the threat the Nicaraguan government posed to the region (U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense 1984), Congress voted on 12 October 1984 in favour of an amendment known as Boland II, which completely prohibited all US government agencies involved in intelligence activities from using federal money to provide assistance to the Contras (The New York Times 1984d; LeoGrande 1998, 343-345). The Boland II Amendment was a major blow to the Contras. Fortunately for the insurgents, the White House continued to politically support them, with Reagan famously continuing to call the Contras ‘freedom fighters’ and the ‘moral equal of our Founding

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Fathers’ (The Washington Post 1985h; The New York Times 1985g). White House officials also minimised the impact of the ban by aiding the Contras instead through the National Security Council (NSC), which it considered not part of the intelligence community. The plan, dubbed ‘Project Democracy’, consisted of three elements. First and least successfully, White House officials requested the Department of Defense (DoD) to declare certain assets surplus and then donate them to the CIA, who would then pass it on to the Contras. This mechanism, however, was cut short after the DoD General Counsel declared it illegal. By then, the DoD had donated only three Cessna aircraft to the CIA (Inouye and Hamilton 1987b, 34-35; The Washington Post 1984e, 1984f, 1984j). Second and slightly more successfully, White House officials embarked on a project known as The Enterprise. Managed by NSC staff member Lt. Col. Oliver North, this involved the founding of several firms designed to generate revenue for the Contras. A key source of money involved the redirection of profits from a covert arms-for-hostages deal that the Reagan Administration had struck with post-revolutionary Iran. Estimates suggest that the deal generated around $20m of which some $3.8m actually reached the rebels (Inouye and Hamilton 1987b, 551). North retained a large degree of control over the covert aid programme, arguing that letting the Contras handle the operation could result in corruption (The Washington Post 1987c). US suspicions of rebel graft, however, were never substantiated. Third and most successfully, the Reagan Administration launched a diplomatic and PR-offensive to ask third parties to donate money to the FDN. Contacted actors included states, non-governmental organisations, and wealthy individuals. Saudi Arabia became a particularly generous sponsor, first donating $1m per month to the rebels and later doubling their contribution. Saudi financial support eventually totalled $32m (Inouye and Hamilton 1987b, 45). Brunei donated $10m but North’s secretary Fawn Hall transposed two numbers when giving the bank account number and the money never reached the insurgents (Woodward 1987, 543; Inouye and Hamilton 1987b, 12). Official US aid resumed in 1985, after reports surfaced that the Contras were going hungry in their Honduran camps. On 12 June 1985 Congress agreed to provide $27m for basic needs such as food, clothing, and medicine (The Washington Post 1985g). This limited range of support baffled one senior Contra member, who argued that wars cannot be won with food and medicine alone (Bermúdez in Kinzer 1991, 293). Contra leader Calero publicly attempted to expand the aid package to at least include transport

171 assistance (helicopters for air supplies), but Congress refused (The Washington Post 1985a). The new official aid was managed not by the CIA or the NSC but by the Department of State, which founded a dedicated agency for it called the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Assistance Office (NHAO). Two months later, Congress also gave the CIA permission to provide the rebels with intelligence assistance. This came with an additional $13m budget (Garvin 1992, 169-170, 205; The Washington Post 1987b). Although the Boland II amendment therefore severely reduced US aid, the FDN continued to receive some US support. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia and others provided financial assistance, and the Honduran government gave the rebels sanctuary and whatever other resources it was able to muster (The New York Times 1985e).

Effects A rare English-language Contra publication found in the archives of the Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign reveals that the impact of the reduction of US government support was so large that it ‘altered the strategic balance in favour of the FSLN’ (Matamoros 1987, 24). This had two reasons. First, in late 1984 the Contras had lost their regular supply of basic needs. This meant that they now had to ration their stockpile of food, clothing, and medicine. Although they were not quite starving to death, the rebels and their dependents were certainly going hungry (North 1991, 265; Interview 22 2018). Second, FDN units could no longer count on US-assisted airdrops in Nicaragua. Without this transport assistance, the rebels were only able to remain in Nicaragua for a short amount of time before having to return to their Honduran base. The NSC’s efforts were of little help. Most of the limited amount of money that reached the rebels was spent on the purchase of seven aircraft. But the planes were of poor quality and there were severe issues with the crew hired to fly them. As a result, few airdrops were made (Garvin 1992, 167-170). Contra leaders later described the whole air supply operation as ‘lousy’ and ‘very unprofessional’ (Calero in United States Congress 1988, 17; Robelo in Inouye and Hamilton 1987a, 527). Other equipment North and his associates sourced were also poor: hand grenades exploded early, boots fell apart, and SAM-7 missiles backfired (Cruz Jr. 1989, 219). The problem appeared to be the NSC’s great inexperience in dealing with these matters (Bermúdez 1987, 13; Moreno 2016, 158). A senior US government official says the Contras had ‘real problems’ solving their supply issues (quoted in The New York Times 1985c). They first tried to increase their use of their local supporters—known as correos—who had assisted the rebels from the

172 start of the war (Interview 22 2018). But while these silent assistants were usually able to feed a few insurgents, they lacked the means to do so for the large groups of Contras— which were now numbering in the hundreds—that the rebels wanted to send into Nicaragua. Furthermore, they were unable to help the insurgents obtain much needed SALWs. The rebels considered mitigating the loss of air supplies by creating a permanent supply trail. The path, which was intended to run all the way from the Honduran camps to the area of operations in Nicaragua, would be similar to the Ho Chi Minh trail used so successfully by the Vietcong during the Vietnam War (1955 – 1975). The supply trail, however, never materialised because the rebels deemed this mechanism too slow and too labour intensive. Furthermore, unlike their Asian counterpart, the supply trail would have been located entirely on Nicaraguan territory, which would have left it highly vulnerable to EPS interdiction (Garvin 1992, 148-149).

Idle rebels Low supplies and logistical difficulties meant that at ‘the beginning of 1985 [Contra] capacity in the field had diminished considerably’ (Bermúdez 1987, 13). New missions were cancelled, and deployed rebels returned to base. According to Bermúdez, by early 1985, 75 per cent of all Contras were sitting idle. ‘We constantly need ammunition, for AKs, FALs, grenade launchers, everything’ (Bermúdez quoted in The Washington Post 1985b). On 1 August 1985, after the resumption of humanitarian and intelligence assistance, the Contras launched their one and only major offensive of that year. It consisted of an attack on La Trinidad, a town situated on the Pan-American Highway. Initially, the attack was a success, as the insurgents managed to seize control of the town in less than an hour (Garvin 1992, 155-167; The Washington Post 1985i). But the situation turned sour after the attack, when EPS improvements started to bear fruit. In response to the FDN’s successes in 1982, 1983, and 1984, the Nicaraguan government had requested additional assistance from Cuba and the Soviet Union, which arrived in 1985. On the advice of the Cubans, the EPS formed highly effective Irregular Warfare Battalions (BLIs), which enabled the EPS to locate rebel units. Furthermore, the BLIs were supported by new Soviet Mi-8 and Mi-24/25 helicopter gunships flown by Cubans, which allowed them to strike the rebels from the air. According to the then-Nicaraguan vice-president, the helicopters ‘proved [to be] decisive for their attack and manoeuvring capabilities’

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(Ramírez 2012, 109), something even the rebels admitted (Bermúdez 1989, 12). By the time the rebels had made it back across the Honduran border the EPS had managed to kill over 200 Contras (Garvin 1992, 156-157; Dillon 1991, 161-162; Moreno 2016, 168). The Nicaraguan military did not stop there. Emboldened by its success, the EPS followed the rebels into Honduras and attacked two rebel camps (Kagan 1996, 393; Dillon 1991, 158). After the Honduran air force came to the FDN’s rescue (Moreno 2016, 163-164), Tegucigalpa decided to move the rebels further inland (The Washington Post 1985f). While this was effective at protecting them against the EPS, this did bring them closer to the Honduran local population—which the locals did not appreciate—and aggravated the rebels’ logistical problems (Kagan 1996, 394). Frightened by the enemy’s new helicopters, the insurgents refused to enter Nicaragua in large groups. As one observer put it, ‘[o]utgunned and outnumbered, their supplies dwindling, their peasant supporters fearful, most rebel commanders limped back to the Honduran camps during 1986’ (Dillon 1991, 162). In the first six months of that year, the rebels did not conduct a single major attack (Robinson and Norsworthy 1987, 331). Bored rebels killed their time in Honduras playing chess and baseball (Revista Envío 1987; Dillon 1991, 144). During this period, the Contras ‘were little more than vagabonds, huddled in out-of-the way camps, trying to stay out of sight’ (Garvin 1992, 159). Unsurprisingly, the Nicaraguan government withdrew its offer to negotiate with the insurgents (Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States in The Washington Post 1985j). As one FSLN official explained, the reason ‘the Sandinistas have no reason or motivation to negotiate [is] because the counterrevolution is in a ruinous state’ (Jaime Chamorro in The Washington Post 1986a). With resources getting thinner and rebels sitting idle in their camps, rebel criticism of FDN leadership increased. Supporting expectations from the second view (H2), many suspected corruption (Interview 22 2018). As one rebel says, ‘they’re selling dreams, and they’re getting the money for it, but they’re keeping it’ (Carr in Cockburn 1987, 45; also Revista Envío 1987). Contra leaders were suspected of currency manipulation and as well as purchasing beans from the previous year’s harvest at discounted prices while billing the organisation premium-rate beans (The New York Times 1986c). As a result of suspected rebel graft, which is a form of agency slippage, the leaders were said to pay ‘less and less attention to the war’ (Dillon 1991, 127). Whether these allegations were indeed correct is difficult to say. In 1987, Contra leader Calero testified to Congress that at least one charge—that of exchanging dollars

174 for local currency at black market rates and pocketing the difference with the official rate—is false. The rebels did make a $1m profit using the black market but this was put on the official books as additional rebel income (United States Congress 1988, 37).25 Despite one rebel claim to the contrary (Interview 21 2018), during this period of low state support, rebel violence toward non-combatants appeared to continue as before. One Contra defector explains that the insurgents were ‘kidnapping and killing people who just want to work. This wasn’t a struggle. It was banditry’ (Jose Efren Martinez Mondragon in The Washington Post 1985c). The defector also accused the Contras of abduction and rape of civilians. A US non-governmental organisation found that the Contras had also deliberately used mines against civilians during this period (The Washington Post 1986h). The situation for the rebels improved somewhat in late 1985, after US humanitarian aid arrived. The insurgents even briefly managed to open a new Internal Front in central Nicaragua (The New York Times 1985d, 1985a). Still, problems remained. The NHAO food deliveries were run by staff members who had relatively little experience in aiding insurgents, which led to severe logistical delays (Dillon 1991, 132; Cockburn 1987, 163). Furthermore, the NHAO was denied permission to operate in Honduras. This limited their ability to assess what aid was needed and whether the rebels spent and used it as intended (USGAO 1986, 1). The same reason later prevented a US General Accounting Office (USGAO) audit to verify whether NHAO aid had been redirected for other means (e.g. arms purchases, private gain) (USGAO 1986). Despite the influx of basic needs and intelligence aid, by early 1986 the rebels sat idle again in Honduras (The New York Times 1986e, 1986b). Yet surprisingly, continued citizen dissatisfaction with the Nicaraguan government’s policies meant that the rebel ranks continued to swell. A publication found in the archives of the Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign reveals that, by early 1986, the Contras counted no fewer than 19,000 members (Bermúdez 1987, 13). In another publication found in the same archive, one senior rebel says that the commanders even had to temporarily restrict the number of new recruits, as each additional member needed to be fed and armed (Calderón 1988, 18). This observation challenges the negative view (H3), which would instead expect rebel numbers to drop during times of scant resources.

25 There have also been extensive allegations the Contras were involved in the international drugs trade (which is another type of agency slippage) but this largely relates to ARDE, which was a minor rebel group based in Costa Rica and is not covered here (Cockburn 1987, Chapter 9 and 10; Webb 1998; United States Senate 1988, 136; Central Intelligence Agency Inspector General 1998). 175

Analysis In late 1984, the Contras were winning the war. Twelve months later they were in deep crisis. This difference appears to be well explained by the loss of US military aid: between October 1984 and October 1986 the rebels received substantially less official support than the two-year period that preceded it. High levels of assistance between 1982 and 1984 had made the insurgents deeply reliant on continued US support, for which the rebels had not made any contingency planning. Now that the Contras no longer received military supplies, rebel capacity to carry out attacks was greatly reduced. This tipped the military balance of power in favour of the incumbent government. Had it not been for their continued Honduran safe haven, the rebels would likely have suffered tremendously from EPS helicopter attacks. The Contras, of course, did continue to receive some form of aid, which one rebel says is the main reason why the insurgents managed to survive (Moreno 2016, 149). Senior White House officials went to extreme lengths to generate revenue for them. But while this was certainly welcome, the NSC experienced great difficulty in transforming these financial assets into what the rebels really needed to kick-start the war: SALWs and (air) transport. Interestingly, and running counter to expectations from the negative view (H3), sponsorship scarcity neither led to a loss of (opportunistic) rebel membership nor to a reduction in the level of rebel violence towards non-combatants.

Phase 4: Support increases again The situation changed once more in mid-1986. Six months earlier, on 8 November 1985, Ronald Reagan was re-elected as US president. In the run up to the election, Reagan had made further explicit his view on foreign policy, which by now had become widely known as the Reagan Doctrine. Reagan said the US could win the Cold War by increasing defence spending and rolling back the rise of Communism in the Third World (Scott 1996). Supporting the Contras was therefore no longer officially about combating the insurgency in El Salvador (which by now had largely abated) but about removing the Sandinista government (The New York Times 1985f). Reagan’s landslide victory over his Democratic Party rival Walter Mondale strengthened his position vis-à-vis Congress. On 26 February 1986 he therefore filed a new request for Contra aid, this time for $100m (The New York Times 1986h). This figure was much larger than earlier appropriations, but it was still small compared to the

176 economic and military assistance the US was providing to friendly governments in the region. El Salvador, for instance, received over $3bn in US assistance between 1981 and 1988 alone (USAGO 1989b, 11). With an estimated 19,000 FDN members, the $100m dollar single year budget worked out as just $14 per person per day. Of the entire aid package, $70m was earmarked for direct military aid and the remaining sum for non-lethal aid. By this time—and supporting the negative view’s sub- hypothesis that democratic states seek to restrain their clients—the US had become increasingly concerned about reports of rebel violence towards non-combatants. But instead of cutting off aid, as the neutral view would expect, the US decided to simply reserve three per cent ($3m) of the budget to improve Contra behaviour. The rebels promised to use the money to train human rights officers, hire prominent lawyer Marta Patricia Baltodano to investigate suspected rebel abuses, and set up a dedicated office to identify cases and bring suspects before a rebel court (see Dillon 1991). After a high-profile public relations offensive from the President, Congress voted on 25 June 1986 in favour of the $100m appropriation (The New York Times 1986d). The bill was signed into law in October and first deliveries started in November. The new funds placed Contra aid back under the responsibility of the CIA, which immediately resumed SALWs supplies including new FIM-43 Redeye surface-to-air missiles to counter the Mi-24/25s airborne threat (Dillon 1991, 177-182). The CIA also resumed rebel training (both in Honduras and on US soil), giving 600 rebels courses in various skills, and resumed CIA-assisted air supplies (Garvin 1992, 201, 206). The new air supplies were extensive, numbering over 350 in 1987 alone (The New York Times 1988h). Finally, the rebels used some of the money to purchase a new radio station (The New York Times 1987l).

Effects The resumption of strong and official US aid once again had a major positive operational effect on the FDN, which was renamed the Nicaraguan Resistance (RN) and saw the addition of a (largely ineffective) political body called the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO). The $100m ‘allowed [the rebels] to once again become a viable military force and[,] consequently, lifted [Contra] morale’ (Calderón 1988, 16). The RN was confident it now possessed the means to defeat the Sandinista government and completely reinvigorated its war effort (The New York Times 1987j). As Contra leader Calero said at the time, the rebels ‘have regained the initiative’ (quoted in The Washington Post

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1987d). ‘The only ones who can defeat us now’, another rebel said, ‘are in the Congress of the United States’ (unnamed Contra quoted in The Washington Post 1987g). A couple of factors were particularly important in bringing about this change. First, the resumption of US-operated air supplies increased recruitment and improved morale (Calderón 1988, 17). Second, the CIA lent organisational assistance by helping the insurgents write a 10-page strategy setting out a clear path to victory (Garvin 1992, 201- 202; The New York Times 1987f). Flowing from this strategy, the CIA gave a list of suggested physical targets to attack (The New York Times 1987a). This list was subsequently distributed to the FDN’s five regional commanders, who were given free rein to attack these and other targets as and when they saw fit (Garvin 1992, 206). The new approach, which was unlikely to have emerged without US assistance, was a major success, and in 1987 the Nicaraguan government admitted that the rebels carried out as many as fifteen attacks per day (Garvin 1992, 197). Third, the new US-supplied Redeye missiles were highly effective. Before their arrival the rebels had tried to take down the Mi-24/25 helicopters using Chinese-made SAM-7 missiles. But high humidity corroded the SAM-7 circuit boards and the two-stage firing mechanism often resulted in the missile veering off course (Garvin 1992, 208). The Redeyes delivered after the resumption of US weapons supplies proved far more reliable: within days the rebels managed to down an EPS helicopter (The Washington Post 1986e). Over the next two years, the Contras shot down more than two dozen enemy aircraft, which was over half the number the EPS possessed (Dillon 1991, 182; Moreno 2016, 191). As one rebel commander put it, ‘[h]elicopters used to be a terrible problem for us, but now we hardly ever see them’ (Walter Calderón in The New York Times 1987c; also Bermúdez 1989, 12). When it came to the Redeyes, there was therefore no agency slippage. Another weapon that was highly useful was mines. As part of the $100m aid package, the Contras received a large quantity of easy to use landmines which they placed on roads throughout North-Western Nicaragua (Kinzer 1991, 306). This severely reduced the EPS’ manoeuvrability by road and forced them to use expensive helicopters instead (which were now threatened by the Redeyes). A major downside of the use of the mines, however, was that it also caused substantial civilian casualties. This somewhat reduced public support for the rebels, although key segments of the population continued to support the Contras despite their use of mines.

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During this period, the rebels continued to treat the population harshly. Although one former Contra claims that ‘the [human rights] training was effective’ and that ‘things were much better’ after each commander had attended a human rights course (Interview 21 2018), documentary evidence suggests otherwise. In March 1987, for instance, the RN burned down a health clinic run by a pro-Sandinista religious organisation (The Washington Post 1987f; The New York Times 1987b). Three months later, reports surfaced of continued forced recruitment (The New York Times 1987g, 1987e; Americas Watch Report 1987). In 1987, a Contra defector said that the human rights officers attached to every Contra unit appeared to have no effect on rebel behaviour (Revista Envío 1987). Nonetheless, the RN continued to receive substantial support from the population. In late 1987, a US reporter travelling in Nicaragua said what he saw ‘sharply contradicted the Sandinista argument that the Contras are little more than an unpopular appendage of the Reagan Administration’ (The New York Times 1987d). Instead, the reporter found that citizens widely assisted the rebels wherever they could (see also Bermúdez 1989, 10). With their new funding the Contras expanded their activities from the northern departments southwards into Matagalpa, Boaco, and even Chontales (Revista Envío 1989, see also Map 2). The rebels plausibly claimed that by mid-1987 they operated in two-thirds of Nicaraguan territory (Bermúdez 1989, 10). Rebel attacks increased from an average of 60 per month in 1986 to 300 per month in 1987 (Moreno 2016, 190). The high-point of the $100m aid injection came in late 1987, when the Contras launched Operation Oliverso, which was their ‘largest and most successful military operation’ to date (The New York Times 1987i). The attack concentrated on three towns in the North Atlantic province, where the rebels had hitherto not been very active. The rebels were loath to admit it, but the entire operation had been devised and directed by the CIA, with the Contra leaders simply giving out orders written by their American patrons (Dillon 1991, 206). In the early hours of 20 December 1987, an estimated 4,500 insurgents started a highly complex, twelve-pronged attack on Bonanza, Siuna, and Rosita (see Map 2). It was a major success. The rebels managed to temporarily seize control of Bonanza and Siuna, and inflicted heavy damage on Rosita (Garvin 1992, 218-220). They also captured large amounts of weapons and ammunition (Bermúdez 1989, 11). In the words of Bermúdez: the attack ‘proved to ourselves, the communists, and the rest of the world that we stood a solid chance of victory’ (1989, 11).

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All this is not to say there were no problems with the renewed assistance. A key issue was that although the Contras were much stronger, their activities were still limited to rural areas. The Nicaraguan government had expected the rebels to use the $100m aid package to start attacking the cities including, possibly, the capital Managua (Rushdie 1987, 17-18). But the rebels did not, claiming that ‘in the urban centres the totalitarian control of the regime is more difficult to breach [than in the countryside]’ (Bermúdez 1989, 13; also Calderón 1988, 17). Like the first US aid increase, the support injection once again brought the Nicaraguan government to its knees, which indicates there was no agency slack. To try to find a way out of its predicament, the government joined ongoing talks between other states in the region for a solution. Since the early 1980s, several regional efforts had been undertaken to terminate the various conflicts in Central America via a multilateral settlement. Most important of these was the aforementioned unsuccessful Contadora process (Bagley 1986; LeoGrande 1986). Peace talks were revived in April 1986, after Óscar Arias Sánchez was elected President of Costa Rica. Arias pushed for a regional peace agreement between his country and the leaders of Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Nicaragua had long dragged its feet about such a deal but became more willing to talk following the Contras’ newfound strength in early 1987. This was supported by the Soviet Union which indicated that, as part of its domestic reforms programme, it sought to reduce its material assistance to Nicaragua (Ramírez 2012, 111). On 7 August 1987 these considerations led to what became known as the Esquipulas II agreement, in which each of the five Central American states agreed to terminate their support to foreign rebel groups, end repression of non-violent domestic opposition groups, give a blanket amnesty to all rebel groups, start to negotiate a ceasefire with their armed adversaries, and hold free elections (UNGA 1987). Three months later, President Ortega followed through and said that his government was prepared to start negotiating a peace agreement with the Contras (Kagan 1996, 554).

Analysis

Supporting the causal mechanism from the positive view (H1), the increase of US aid had a major positive operational effect on the Contras. Weapons supplies (Redeye missiles) and transport (airdrops) particularly helped the insurgents shift the military balance of power in their favour. As soon as military aid resumed, the rebels were able to increase

180 their attacks and thereby increase their pressure on the government, although the rebels were not able to enter (let alone take) the capital Managua. Rebel advances did lead the incumbent government to sign a regional treaty promising to hold a general election, and by late 1987 the Sandinistas were suing again for peace. This pattern of events indicates that, contrary to what the neutral view (H2) would expect, the efficacy of state support was not substantially undermined by state-rebel friction caused by adverse selection or extensive agency loss. Neither did the aid increase lead the rebels to suddenly attract opportunistic recruits.

Phase 5: Support decreases again In early 1988 the situation changed one final time. As with the first aid increase, the $100m Contra aid programme had once again generated strong domestic political opposition. US citizen opposition was spearheaded by the Anti-Contra War Campaign (ACWC), which was a large-scale social movement consisting of a coalition of hundreds of non- governmental organisations that promoted broadly left wing causes such as socialism and pacifism (Peace 2008, 66; 2010, 2012). Between 1982 and 1990 the ACWC organised rallies and fasts, wrote and called members of Congress, conducted acts of civil disobedience, published booklets, and placed newspaper advertisements. The campaign had some success: by 1987 over 100,000 people had signed the organisation’s pledge against Contra aid, and on at least three occasions its rallies drew over 25,000 protestors, although these were multi-issue protests that also concerned other topics such as denuclearisation (Peace 2008, 74-75; 2012, 184, 193, 212-213). Perhaps the greatest political consequence of the ACWC was that it showed members of Congress that ‘opposition to [Contra] aid would not have electoral repercussions despite the president’s popularity’ (Arnson and Brenner quoted in Peace 2010, 65). This was important because opposition to Contra aid also extended to Congress. Congressional dissatisfaction was not so much because of the $100m aid package (which parliament had, after all, approved itself), but because of the covert unofficial funding that preceded it. This scandal emerged when the EPS shot down a C-123 Contra supply plane on 5 October 1986 and arrested its sole surviving occupant, Eugene Hasenfus (The Washington Post 1986d). His confession, together with a separate article in Lebanese magazine Al-Shiraa on secret US arms transfers to Iran led to the revelation of Oliver North’s secret activities at the NSC (The Washington Post 1986b). The story became

181 known as the Iran-Contra scandal and was ‘the greatest political scandal since Watergate’ (Kagan 1996, 466). The redirection of profits to the Contras had enraged both Democratic and some Republican members of Congress, who together launched a formal investigation to reveal what exactly had happened. Although Congress did not repeal the $100m aid bill, the Contras feared Congress would still take the White House scandal out on them. This was a major problem. As Calero said in late 1987, ‘[w]e can stretch out our ammunition, but the food we cannot’ (in The Washington Post 1987e). Another rebel similarly said that, ‘[i]f aid is cut off it’s going to hurt us a lot’ (‘Pitufo’ quoted in The Washington Post 1987e). A third rebel even said that the effect of a cut-off would be ‘quite fatal’ (Walter Calderón in The New York Times 1987c). The rebels’ concerns proved justified on 3 February 1988, when Congress narrowly voted against a reduced White House request (down from $270m to $36m) for further Contra aid (The New York Times 1988f). The last aid batch expired on 28 February 1988 (USGAO 1990b, 2), which one rebel commander calls ‘the darkest day in the long struggle of the Resistance’ (Bermúdez 1989, 14). With the termination of US assistance, Honduras considered closing its rebel sanctuary as well. The Honduran government had initially welcomed the rebels but as the war continued it had started to look down on them and saw the insurgents instead as a liability (Moreno 2016, 156-157; The New York Times 1988e). Tegucigalpa subsequently signed international agreements to close the Contra sanctuary, but developments in Nicaragua meant that the Honduran government never had to go as far as forcibly removing the rebels from its territory. Around the same time of the US aid cut-off, the Soviet Union also substantially decreased their support to the Nicaraguan government. Although Cuban aid to the Sandinistas continued as before, it is useful to assess how the withdrawal of superpower involvement affected the war.

Effects Predictably, the withdrawal of US military assistance ‘sapped Contra morale’ (Cruz Jr. 1989, 243; also Central Intelligence Agency 1988a, 2). One Contra says that ‘[t]he Contras’ military prospects, once promising, now declined dramatically’ (Cruz Jr. 1989, 247). Not only did the rebels not get any new supplies, they also had to hand back their last aircraft and many of their vehicles, whose lease contracts expired (Bermúdez 1989, 14). The rebels responded to this setback by giving up their goal of establishing a ‘liberated’ zone

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(a permanently occupied area) and returning to conducting singular attacks (Revista Envío 1987). A 1988 CIA report states that ‘[o]verall, the average number of clashes dropped by roughly 50 percent’ (Central Intelligence Agency 1988a, 1). Following the news that the US would not renew its military support, the Nicaraguan government tried one more time to defeat the rebels by force. On 16 March 1988, the EPS launched a major offensive on the Contras called ‘Danto 88’, again crossing the border into Honduras (Ramírez 2012, 192; The New York Times 1988d, 1988b). Concerned that the situation might result in a full-scale interstate war, the Honduran government requested US assistance to force the EPS home. Reagan obliged and, after the deployment of 3,200 US marines, Nicaragua withdrew its forces from Honduras (Kagan 1996, 587-589). To Tegucigalpa, Operation Danto 88 highlighted the danger of hosting the Contras, after which it sped up its efforts to terminate the rebel sanctuary. Following the events of mid-March 1988, both the Nicaraguan government and the Contras had lost any reasonable prospect of defeating each other. They therefore agreed to meet on 21 March 1988 at Sapoá on the shores of Lake Nicaragua near the Costa Rican border to discuss a negotiated settlement (see Map 2). After three days of talks the two sides unexpectedly reached a 60-day ceasefire. The government also gave RN a general amnesty and the right to return to Nicaragua. In exchange, the insurgents agreed to move into cantonment areas and only receive basic needs aid for troops based in Nicaragua through neutral organisations such as the United Nations, although the latter would never materialise (The Constitutional Government of Nicaragua and the Directorate of the Counterrevolution 1988; Bermúdez 1989, 14). The reason the RN signed the deal, says one Contra leader, was that the rebels ‘saw that in the United States there was no political will to continue supporting the war. […] So we saw an opportunity to avoid further killing, give our troops a rest and test the good faith of the Sandinista government’ (Cesar quoted in The Washington Post 1988a). According to another Contra member, an additional consideration for signing the deal was that it allowed them to get renewed US humanitarian aid for the Honduran-based Contra troops (Cruz Jr. 1989, 250-251). The US government wanted the war to end and had told the rebels it would be easier to get Congressional approval for such assistance if the rebels signed a peace agreement. The White House was right. Within a month of signing the Sapoá agreement, Congress approved $47.9m in non-military aid (The Washington Post 1988b). On 10 August, Congress passed a bill appropriating a further $27m in basic needs assistance

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(The New York Times 1988c). This was distributed via the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Subsequent US government audits found that this money was spent as intended (USGAO 1989a, 1990a, 1990b). The few irregularities found were small; in the latter aid batch, for example, 18 out of 60,000 recipients unjustifiably received food assistance and 27 people received medical care where this was not permitted (USGAO 1990b, 3, 4). Contrary to the neutral view’s expectation, there was therefore almost no agency slippage. Follow-up talks after the Sapoá agreement collapsed after the rebels refused to disarm in exchange for unspecified government promises about elections (Bermúdez 1988, 62). This led to relatively minor hostilities, although major hostilities did not resume (The New York Times 1988g, 1988a; Moreno 2016, 204). In the meantime, there was some RN infighting about which strategy to pursue: a return to full-scale war or the pursuit of a negotiated settlement (LeoGrande 1998, 539-540). According to one CIA report, some rebels ‘thought the accord was a defeat and sought to disassociate themselves from the pact’ (Central Intelligence Agency 1988b, 2). A breakthrough came on 14 February 1989, when the Nicaraguan government signed the Tesoro Beach Agreement with the other four Central American states. The wide- ranging agreement meant that the Honduran government would close its sanctuary to the rebels (who subsequently slowly moved back to Nicaragua), but also included a promise by the Nicaraguan government to release prisoners of war and organise free and fair general elections on 25 February 1990 (UNGA 1989). One month later, the US government responded with an accord struck between Reagan’s successor President George H. W. Bush and members of Congress, which awarded the Contras $66.6m in non-lethal aid until the 1990 Nicaraguan elections (The New York Times 1989; LeoGrande 1998, 555). The RN said it supported the planned elections but warned that if these did not meet internationally acceptable democratic standards the rebels would ‘resume full-scale armed resistance’ (Bermúdez 1989, 15). Importantly, the elections did not provide the rebels the possibility for a new future as a political party (as it did in Angola). Being an illegal rebel group, the Contras were excluded from participation in the elections (Interview 22 2018). Instead, the main candidate to challenge the incumbent President Daniel Ortega of the FSLN was Violeta Chamorro of the United National Opposition (UNO, unrelated to the Contra organisation by the same acronym), a catch-all opposition group striving for the establishment of a liberal democracy. Chamorro surprisingly won the Presidential

184 elections by a margin of 54.1 to 40.8 per cent, with her party winning a majority in Parliament as well (Staten 2010, 118; The Washington Post 1990). The elections achieved what the rebels had been wanting for over a decade—the removal of the Sandinista government—which left no compelling reason for them to continue their campaign. On 27 March 1990 the Contras therefore reached an agreement with the President-elect, a sworn pacifist not tied to the Contras except for a single advisor (Chamorro 1996, 311), that would terminate the war. In the Toncontín Agreement, as it became known, the insurgents agreed to hand in their weapons in return for reintegration assistance (UNGA 1990). Contra demobilisation commenced shortly after the inauguration of Chamorro on 25 April. An observer mission registered the demobilisation of 22,500 Contras together with a further 18,000 dependents (Rosende and Beltrand 1997, 151; The International Commission for Support and Verification [CIAV] 1998). On 27 June 1990 the two sides held a ceremony in which they formally declared the war to be over (Garvin 1992, 259- 260). Most Contras then settled in Nicaragua, although a minority of rebels, having started families in Honduras during the war and being fearful of criminal reprisals, did not (Interview 22 2018).

Analysis In 1988 the US again cut off aid. This was not caused by concerns over the rebels, although these did exist. Instead, Contra aid stopped because of domestic opposition following the Iran-Contra scandal. Although the subsequent parliamentary enquiry did not result in any new allegations against the Contras, the topic of military aid—which had long been a highly controversial topic in US policy making circles—had now become politically toxic. The effect on the rebels was clear. Before the aid cut-off in February 1988, the Contras had always flatly refused to negotiate with the Sandinistas. Yet just 48 days after the Congressional rejection of further military aid and only 23 days after the expiration of the last batch, the rebels signed a ceasefire. Although talks about possible negotiations with the Nicaraguan government had been underway since before the Congressional vote, the close timing between these two events indicates they are related. Further proof of this can be found in the words of Bermúdez, who in mid-1988 argued that Congress’ termination of military aid ‘has now placed us in an extremely vulnerable position, causing us to accept a ceasefire’ (1988, 62, emphasis added). It appears that the rebels were well

185 aware that without military support, the relative military balance of power would soon shift in favour of the FSLN. The sooner they struck a deal to stop hostilities, the better (see also LeoGrande 1998, 537-538). The rebels may, of course, have simply signed the agreement to buy time. But with the Cold War ending it became increasingly unlikely that Congress would change its mind once again and resume support. Unable to find an alternative patron, the rebels appeared to have chosen to gamble on a favourable outcome in the general elections. The gamble paid off, and the rebels laid down their arms.

Discussion This chapter has shown that, like in the Angolan conflict, state support helped the Contras intensify the war but did not lead them to a military victory because of sudden reductions in the level of support awarded to the Contras. These sudden drops of official support appear to have been largely due to the unexpectedly high domestic opposition the Reagan administration encountered for the Contra aid programme. The subsequent termination of official support twice rapidly shifted the military balance of power and led to the collapse of the rebel campaign. This mechanism is particularly clear in Table 22 below. During the early years, when the Contras received little foreign government assistance, the rebels were only able to wage a small-scale insurgency. When the US increased their aid in 1982, the insurgency turned into ‘the largest guerrilla force ever seen in Latin America’ (Clarridge 1997, 231). It is therefore fair to conclude, as one analyst does, that American assistance was ‘critical in transforming localized rural rebellion into large-scale war’ (Horton 1998, 14). This pattern continued throughout the rest of the war. When Congress withdrew its official funding for the Contras in 1984, the insurgents ‘crumbled into a horde of hungry refugees’ (Dillon 1991, xii). Then, when Congress approved the $100m aid bill in 1986, the insurgents resumed their offensive and again made tremendous gains. Finally, when aid was cut off again in early 1988, the rebels quickly struck a ceasefire agreement with the Nicaraguan government and did not resume major hostilities thereafter. As one Contra explains, in order to defeat the Sandinistas the Contras required ‘consistent’ state support, which the US was unable to provide (Matamoros 1987, 28).

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Phase Description Support level Interim outcome 1 Conflict onset Medium Small insurgency 2 Support increases High Strong rebel advance 3 Support decreases Medium Rebel inactivity 4 Support increases again High Strong rebel advance 5 Support decreases again Low Peace agreement Table 22. Overview of Nicaraguan Contra War phases including interim outcome.

To assess the strength of the inference made above it is useful to ask whether the fluctuations in rebel progress would also have occurred had state support been constantly present or absent. In fairness, it is likely that the insurgency would also have grown had the US not increased their assistance in 1981. Insurgencies require time to form, and it is reasonable to assume that many peasants first wanted to see how the Sandinista policies would affect their lives before taking up arms. The available sources, however, indicate that the availability of weapons played a major factor in people’s decision to sign up. Without extra US assistance the insurgency would therefore have likely grown, but not nearly as much as it did with Washington’s aid. Continuing the counter-factual logic, it appears unlikely that the rebel offensive would have collapsed in late 1984 and then resumed in 1986 had the US offered consistent support. The slump was clearly caused by a lack of food, (air-)transport, and SALWs (particularly high-quality surface-to-air missiles). Each of these factors is directly related to the withdrawal of US aid. It is also unlikely that the rebels would have signed a ceasefire in February 1988 had Congress not cut off military assistance. After all, only a few months earlier the rebels had waged their largest offensive ever and showed no signs of slowing down. Some might challenge this chapter’s findings by asking why, despite receiving strong state support between early 1982 and late 1984 as well as between late 1986 and early 1988, the Contras never gained much strength in Nicaragua’s urban areas (i.e. Managua, Masaya, León, and Chinandega). This was for three reasons. First, the bulk of the Contras were peasants, who wanted to gain control over their own communities before moving into the cities. Second, Nicaragua’s urban areas were geographically distant from the Contras’ bases in Honduras. They would therefore only have been attacked in rebel campaign’s final stage. Third, by the time the Contras did get close to Nicaragua’s urban

187 areas, as they did in late 1984 and late 1987, they were already forced to retreat again because of an impending aid reduction.

Hypotheses As with the Angolan case, the Nicaraguan conflict lends partial but not full support for each of the three views articulated in Chapter 2. Starting with the positive view (H1), this correctly predicts that, operationally, state support had a major positive effect on the insurgent campaign. Within two years of strong US assistance, the rebels had wreaked so much havoc that it had brought the Nicaraguan government to its knees. The Nicaraguan case therefore provides considerable evidence in favour of the purported causal mechanism. It does not, however, indicate that the effect of state support was strong (and consistent) enough for the rebels to obtain a direct military victory.

This chapter also found only partial support for the neutral view (H2), which holds that governments frequently choose an unsuitable client to sponsor (adverse selection). This leads aid to get squandered (agency loss) through lack of rebel will (agency slack) and rebels redirecting goods for private gain (agency slippage). This creates substantial state-rebel friction, which undermines the efficacy of rebel sponsorship. These issues are evaluated here in turn. Starting with adverse selection, this was not a major problem in Nicaragua since the US already knew the ex-National Guard Contra leadership, particularly Contra Chief of Staff Enrique Bermúdez, due to strong US ties to the ousted Somoza government. Washington therefore had some inclination of their suitability for what the rebels were trying to achieve. Of course, the US had never seen the Contras fight, which meant that adverse selection could not ex-ante be ruled out completely. This chapter found that once strong aid started, the Contras turned out to be reasonably capable fighters. Between 1982 and 1984 in particular, the insurgents managed to make excellent headway. Later, the Washington did encounter some rebel organisational issues (i.e. a lack of leadership), but this did not greatly undermine the effectiveness of the support programme. As for agency loss, the US did not encounter much agency slack. The rebels did spend a lot of time sitting in their camps, but careful analysis indicates that Contra inactivity was not caused by a lack of motivation. On the contrary, most Contra rebels (particularly the peasant fighters) appear to have been highly motivated to wage war on the Sandinistas. Instead, low Contra activity was largely the result of reductions in US support for which the rebels could not be blamed. Admittedly, the US ran into some

188 suspected agency slippage, such as the wasted European trips and suspected corruption, but little of this was ever proven. Neither was this very consequential for the rebel campaign as a whole. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, while there was indeed some state-rebel friction, this was not the cause of US support reduction. Some US government officials complained of persistent Contra violence against non-combatants, particularly by ex- National Guard members (more on which below). But to Washington, these and other issues were only relatively minor points of friction that should not stand in the way of the programme’s continuation. Throughout his time in office, US President Ronald Reagan in particular was an ardent and public supporter of the Nicaraguan insurgents. Instead, the first aid cut-off was caused by members of US Congress, which passed the Boland Amendments (I and II) because of Congressional opposition to White House policy more broadly. The second (1988) cut-off was the consequence of the Iran-Contra scandal, for which the rebels arguably could not be blamed.

Turning to the negative view (H3), which holds that state support has a detrimental effect on conflict outcome because it attracts violent and opportunistic recruits, this chapter found evidence to believe that the onset of strong US assistance in 1982 is indeed related to an increase in recruitment. For these new rebels it is likely that Washington’s support convinced them of the viability of an insurgency against the Sandinistas. Yet contrary to the negative view’s expectation, this chapter found that recruits from the early 1980s, which largely consisted of peasants, were not the Contras’ worst but the best fighters: they were highly motivated, had excellent knowledge of the terrain, and were used to living in difficult circumstances. This strongly contradicts Weinstein’s (2005, 2007) theory that state support attracts opportunistic and poorly motivated recruits. Some Contras did engage in substantial counterproductive citizen-directed violence, but this does not appear to have exceeded the level of incumbent government atrocities (see, for instance, Staines 1989). Importantly, much of this appears to have been committed by former members of Somoza’s National Guard, most of whom had signed up with the insurgents before the onset of meaningful US assistance in 1982. This could, in other words, not have been caused by state support attracting violent recruits. Furthermore, contrary to the negative view’s expectation, the level of US assistance did not correlate with variation in the level of citizen-directed violence. Instead, this remained constant throughout the war. Finally, although Contra abuses undermined domestic public support, this was not the main reason why they failed to achieve a direct military

189 victory. Instead, this was related to shifts in the military balance power caused by strong fluctuation in US support. As theorised by Salehyan, Siroky and Wood (2014), the Nicaraguan case found some evidence to suggest that there is indeed variation in how democratic and non-democratic supporters deal with rebel violence. Democratic sponsor Washington repeatedly tried to reduce rebel abuses in Nicaragua. In 1986, the US even went as far as allocating $3m of its $100m aid package to improve the rebels’ record on the matter, although this did not appear to be very effective as rebel atrocities continued until the war’s end. By contrast, the authoritarian government of Honduras did not exert much pressure on the rebels to improve their behaviour. Tegucigalpa did complain whenever the rebels had committed an act of violence on its soil but then did not appear to take further action. It was only in the late 1980s that the Honduran government started to consider closing the Contra sanctuary, but this did not have any meaningful impact on the war.

Types of support Turning to the effect of different forms of aid, over the course of the war the Contras received eight out of the nine types of support categorised in Chapter 1. The only form of aid the group did not receive was troop assistance. In 1983 and 1984 CIA-hired UCLAs did carry out several waterborne attacks and assisted a small group called ARDE (not covered here) with a minor air raid on Managua airport, but this did not involve US combat personnel. For the remaining eight types of support, this chapter found insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion on two types of support: intelligence assistance and political support. This section therefore only describes the effect of the remaining six types, all of which were operationally highly useful to the Contras. The first is transport & logistical aid, which was provided extensively by the US and Honduras, and proved extremely valuable. Throughout the war the rebels were based in the Honduran border area, the terrain of which was rugged and inhospitable. US logistical support (from Miami) was instrumental to get weapons and basic combat equipment to the rebel camps. They were also important to resupply rebels when they were out on a mission on Nicaraguan soil. Turning to weapons supplies, this played an important role in increasing rebel recruitment and was necessary for the insurgency to be operationally viable. Training also appears to have been useful. Most of the Contras were peasants who did not have prior combat experience and therefore had much to gain from the Argentine and later US-

190 assisted training. Still, at least some of the training (e.g. the frogmen) was not effective in increasing their capability to wage a guerrilla war, although this did not appear to have hurt the group either. As for sanctuary, the Honduran save haven was crucial to allow the rebels to plan attacks, prepare for them, and return to them afterwards. When the US cut off aid the rebels were able to return to their sanctuary and simply wait for the international conditions to change. It is therefore reasonable to conclude, as one observer has done, that ‘without their sanctuaries across Nicaragua’s borders, the Contras could not have persisted for as long as they did’ (Salehyan 2009, 132). The benefit of sanctuary, however, was not unlimited. The EPS’ cross-border attacks meant that from time to time the rebel safe haven was not actually safe. Furthermore, toward the end of the war the Honduran government wanted to close the Contras’ sanctuary and started using it as a bargaining chip in international negotiations for a regional peace treaty, thus risking a patron sell- out. Basic needs assistance proved highly valuable and was sorely missed by the Contras following the first Contra aid ban in late 1984. Financial assistance was welcome but appears to have been slightly less useful than the aforementioned forms of support. This was particularly evident during 1985 and much of 1986, when the rebels received financial assistance from Saudi Arabia and via The Enterprise but struggled to convert this into the resources they so desperately needed (transport, SALWs). There were also widespread intra-rebel allegations of corruption but there is insufficient data to confirm this or even that this was caused by financial assistance. Overall, therefore, the effect of financial support does not appear to greatly differ from that of the other aid forms. To recap, the Nicaraguan case, like the quantitative analysis and the Angolan case, do not support the ideas taken from Byman et al. (2001) and Sawyer et al. (2017) that some forms of aid are substantially more effective than others. In reporting this finding, this chapter strongly contradicts the negative effect found in the quantitative analysis on the presence of a foreign sanctuary. This is discussed further in Chapter 7.

Conclusion This chapter showed that foreign government assistance initially had a major and positive effect on the Contras’ ability to challenge the Nicaraguan government. It did so by increasing rebel capacity and (in the case of the Honduran sanctuary) by protecting them from setbacks. Yet in striking similarity to the Angolan case, the US twice sharply reduced

191 its official aid to the Contras. This appears to have largely been due to domestic opposition in the shape of high Congressional opposition to the Reagan administration’s foreign policy. Support reduction left the rebels without the necessary means to fight, which twice caused a shift in the military balance of power and the subsequent collapse of the rebel campaign. In the end, state support therefore did not lead to a rebel military victory. The rebels were instead forced to end the war, which claimed an estimated 30,000 lives (Seligson and McElhinny 1996, 226), through a negotiated settlement. Having completed the quantitative analysis (Chapter 4) and both case studies (Chapter 5 and 6), this study has completed the empirical sections and now turns to a broader discussion of the results.

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Chapter 7: Discussion

The previous three chapters (4-6) used large-n and small-n analysis to explore the relationship between state support and conflict outcome. Using quantitative methods, Chapter 4 found that foreign government assistance does not help but hurt a rebel group’s chances of success: insurgent organisations that receive state support win less often and are defeated more often than rebel groups who do not receive such aid. This finding challenges conventional wisdom on the efficacy of state support, which holds that it should have the opposite effect. Since not all correlations also constitute a causal relationship, this thesis then investigated the causal mechanism of Chapter 4’s negative association in a qualitative analysis of the Angolan War (1975 – 1991, in Chapter 5) and the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979 – 1990, in Chapter 6). The case studies found some support for each of the three views developed and articulated in Chapter 2, but strong support for none. Starting with the positive view (H1), this holds that state support should operationally help rebel groups by increasing the level of resources they have at their disposal, which allows them to wage larger and more frequent attacks on the incumbent government. The cases found that, in the short term, this mechanism is indeed at play. But contrary to the claims made by scholars such as Record (2006, 2009) and O’Neil (2005), it found that the operational effect of state aid is rarely strong enough to propel insurgents straight to a rebel military victory.

Moving to the neutral view (H2), this holds that state support should have no meaningful effect on conflict outcome because its operational benefits are cancelled out by the inefficiency generated by patron-client friction. The case studies found some evidence to support this idea: as theorised by principal-agent (P-A) theorists (e.g. Salehyan 2010; Byman and Kreps 2010), (perceived) issues of adverse selection and agency loss does indeed generate some state-rebel friction. These issues, however, are only relatively minor and are not the main reason why rebels so frequently fail to win. Instead, this is related to domestic and international opposition concerning the rebel support programme, which causes sponsors to reduce or even withdraw their aid (more on which below). Principal-agent theory therefore does not adequately explain how state support affects conflict outcome.

As for the negative view (H3), this holds that the presence of state support reduces a rebel group’s ability to defeat their opponent because foreign government assistance attracts opportunistic and violent recruits. The cases show that, as expected, state support

193 can indeed increase recruitment. The Contras, for instance, experienced a considerable uptick in rebel recruitment following the arrival of strong US assistance in 1982. Yet contrary to this study’s logical extension of Weinstein’s (2005, 2007) theory to the topic of conflict outcome, the qualitative analysis found that these new members were not less motivated and more violent towards non-combatants than earlier recruits. As for the slight variation of the negative view that democratic sponsors restrain their clients more than authoritarian states, the qualitative analysis found mixed results: the US did indeed (unsuccessfully) attempt to restrain the Contras but it did not do likewise with UNITA. Because this study only found partial support for each of the three views, none of the three hypotheses can be wholeheartedly rejected or retained. Making use of inductive reasoning, this chapter therefore builds on the insights gained from the empirical analysis and merges ideas from each of the three views to articulate a new and improved understanding of how state support affects conflict outcome. This understanding draws on concepts that have so far been little discussed in the literature, such as the military balance of power, support opposition, support reduction, and rebel campaign collapse. This chapter is structured as follows. It first discusses the main finding using the aggregated measure of state support. It then offers some thoughts on why support reduction has such a dramatic negative effect on rebel campaigns. Following this, the chapter evaluates the operational effect of each the nine different types of support categorised in Chapter 1.

The main finding The results from the quantitative and qualitative analysis indicate that the effect of state support on conflict outcome is best understood as following seven steps. This is schematically expressed in Figure 7 below. The process starts when a rebel group has managed to obtain some form of foreign government assistance (step 1). This may come in the shape of a single type of support, such as the Honduran government’s sanctuary for the Contras, or when a state provides several of the types of assistance categorised in Chapter 1, as was the case for South African aid to UNITA in the early 1980s. As suggested by the positive view (particularly O'Neill 2005, 139), the provision of troops, transport, weapons, or any other form of assistance greatly increases a rebel group’s operational capability. This allows the insurgents to wage larger and more frequent attacks on its enemy (step 2). UNITA, for instance, was able to conduct far more powerful operations against the MPLA government after receiving strong South African

194 support than before it. Chapter 6 similarly showed that the Contras operated on a far larger scale after the arrival of abundant US-supplied weapons in 1982 than in the preceding three years. Supporting part of an argument advanced by Lockyer (2011), the cases show that in helping a rebel group wage war, state support shifts the military balance of power toward the insurgents. This increases pressure on the incumbent government and brings the rebels closer to victory (step 3). In Angola, the arrival of strong South African support in 1978 prompted a major rebel advance, which brought the rebels all the way from Angola’s south-eastern border region to Northern Angola (see Map 1). In Nicaragua, just two years of strong US assistance to the Contras (from 1982 until 1984) was enough for the Nicaraguan government to sue for peace.

Main finding

(1) State support

(2) Larger and more frequent rebel attacks (4) Domestic/international

opposition to sponsoring state (3) Increased pressure on

incumbent governme nt

(5) State support is reduced or terminated

(6) Rebel war campaign collapses

(7) Negative effect on conflict outcome

Figure 7. Schematic diagram of the main finding. Arrow indicates positive causal relationship.

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The above might raise the question why high levels of state support was neither for UNITA nor for the Contras sufficient to achieve a direct military victory. After all, the Angolan rebels received six and then four years of strong state sponsorship (between 1978 and 1984 and between 1985 and 1989), and the Nicaraguan insurgents twice received two years of abundant official US assistance (from 1982 until 1984 and from 1986 until 1988). The reason is simple: overthrowing a determined and strongly internationally assisted government is extremely difficult and, in any case, takes considerable time. Although the rebels in each phase of strong foreign government assistance made significant headway against their opponent, these war phases were simply too short to bring about a rebel victory. Many more years of fighting were necessary for the incumbent government to sufficiently wither for it to lose its foreign support. It is only then that the rebels would have been in a position to take the capital. Furthermore, it needs to be stressed here that strong state support is not a sufficient ingredient for victory (rebels can still lose with it) or, for that matter, even a necessary one (rebels can also win without it). Instead, the operational effect of (strong) state support is merely that it is advantageous to the recipient party. The cases reveal that, as already mentioned in Chapter 1, rebel assistance programmes frequently generate substantial domestic and international opposition to the sponsoring government (step 4). In the Angolan War, increased South African military involvement on the side of UNITA contributed to international opposition to the Apartheid government, which faced a real threat of devastating economic sanctions in December 1983. Similarly, in Nicaragua in 1984, strong US support for the Contras prompted widespread critique among previously misinformed members of Congress.26 Domestic and international opposition to the rebel support programme puts pressure on the supporting state to justify its operation by obtaining rapid (military) results. Yet this is problematic for supporting states, since civil wars are not characterised by their ability to deliver speedy results but rather by their protracted nature. As also identified in Chapter 1, and reflecting the widely recognised fickle nature of state support (Salehyan 2010, 507-508; Byman 2007, 19; Giraldo and Trinkunas 2007, 12), strong domestic or international opposition to the continuation of the rebel aid programme frequently leads the sponsoring state to reduce the level of aid it provides the rebel group, or even terminates it altogether (step 5). Support reduction is defined here

26 CIA director Casey’s misinformation was most likely a deliberate ploy to obtain Congressional support. Still, it cannot entirely be ruled out the White House was divided on what the rebels should be doing or that it was simply the result of a miscommunication between Reagan and Casey. 196 as a substantial and conscious lowering of one or more forms of aid to the recipient party, with support termination referring to the complete cessation of all forms of official government assistance. The reason why states are able to reduce their support to a foreign rebel group is because to them aiding an insurgency is merely a means to an end. Whenever the cost of supporting an insurgent organisation starts to outweigh its benefit, the sponsor can simply reduce its involvement, or even walk away from the group entirely. This stands in stark contrast to the role of the rebels themselves, whose involvement in the war is a defining feature of the insurgent organisation.27 The cases illustrate this dynamic well. In Angola in 1983-1984, Pretoria succeeded in temporarily decreasing international opposition to the Apartheid regime by striking a peace agreement with Luanda in which South Africa agreed to withdraw the SADF from Cunene province, although its (secret) assistance programme in Cuando Cubango province continued as usual. The SADF also continued to conduct minor attacks on the Angolan government disguised as UNITA rebels. Similarly, in Nicaragua in 1984, the Reagan administration gave in to domestic (Congressional) opposition by accepting the Boland II amendment, which banned Contra aid. Reagan could, of course, simply have vetoed the federal budget for the 1985/1986 fiscal year. Yet by doing so, the President would have risked a federal government shutdown (Kagan 1996, 338), which would have greatly undermined his administration’s ability to achieve many of its other policy objectives. Given the high political costs of attempting to continue the official Contra aid programme, the White House therefore appears to have decided to simply give in to Congressional demand, while attempting to mitigate its negative effect on the Contras by setting up a secret, unofficial aid programme led by NSC staff member Oliver North. Importantly, neither in Angola nor in Nicaragua was the (official) support reduction due to sponsor dissatisfaction with rebel performance. As has been shown at length in Chapter 5 and 6, both the South African and US (executive) government were highly satisfied with UNITA and the Contras, respectively, and wanted the rebel support programme to continue. Unfortunately, and as will be discussed further in the Conclusion, issues with annualised coding quality prevented this study from using quantitative methods to assess exactly how often states reduce their support. Still, several examples show that this is by

27 Were a rebel group to renounce the use of violence, for instance, it would cease to be a rebel group (see Chapter 1). 197 no means unique to the two cases studied here. In 1961, shortly after the invasion of the Cuban Bay of Pigs, the US aborted its support for the Cuban dissidents called Brigade 2506 (Jones 2008). In the midst of the Mozambican Civil War (1977 – 1992), the Renamo rebels also lost their foreign backing (Minter 1994). During the Ogaden War (1977 – 1978), Somalia similarly withdrew its troop assistance to the Western Somali Liberation Front (Lockyer 2018, 193). During the 1980s Soviet-Afghan Civil War (1979 – 1989), strong US assistance to the Mujahedeen was terminated prematurely after Soviet troops left the country (Crile 2003). In 1999, the governments of Sudan and Uganda signed the Nairobi Agreement, which eventually led to the termination of official support to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), respectively (Neu 2002). Finally, in the Syrian Civil War (2011 – current), the US initially gave the Free Syrian Army limited support, then increased it in 2013, then reduced it again in 2015, before finally terminating its assistance programme altogether in 2017 (The New York Times 2014, 2017). In each of these cases the sponsor withdrew or greatly reduced its assistance for the insurgents while the rebel campaign was still ongoing. Corroborating arguments advanced by Day (2011, 451) and Lockyer (2011), the qualitative analysis indicates that support reduction (or even termination) has an immediate negative effect on rebel groups. Without strong and continued assistance, formerly state-supported insurgent organisations simply cannot continue to operate as before. This is because war campaigns—whether they are waged by a state or a rebel group—require a constant flow of supplies (Van Creveld 1999; Erbel and Kinsey 2018). When supporting troops leave, ammunition runs out, and food stocks dwindle, rebel groups are unable to continue to fight as they did before the aid reduction. Ergo, when support is reduced the military balance of power shifts to the side of the incumbent government and causes the rebel campaign to collapse (step 6). Importantly, and as theorised in Chapter 2, once support has been reduced it has little to no residual benefit to the rebels. Without supporting troops and supplies, insurgents simply cannot hold on to their previously captured territory. And while military training is highly useful to help insurgents fight, these skills are of little use when the rebels lack the weapons they need to carry out the intended attacks. The immediate negative consequence of support reduction is clearly observed in the two case studies. In Angola, Pretoria’s troop withdrawal in early 1984 severely disrupted UNITA operations and effectively meant that the insurgents were unable to advance to Luanda. In 1985 the loss of South African assistance in Central and Northern Angola

198 even forced the rebels to retreat to Cuando Cubango province in Southern Angola (see Map 1). Similar dynamics unfolded in Nicaragua. After the US terminated its official support for the Contras in late 1984, the rebels were forced to flee to their Honduran sanctuary, where they largely sat idle until the resumption of official support in late 1986. This negative effect can also be observed elsewhere. During the Greek Civil War (1946 – 1949), for instance, the November 1948 termination of Yugoslav support to the Greek Communist Party (KKE) not only stopped flow of resources from Belgrade, it also made it very costly and difficult to get supplies from other East European countries (such as Czechoslovakia) to the front line (Marantzidis 2013, 51). Having far fewer material and non-material resources at its disposal, the rebel campaign subsequently collapsed, and the insurgents were eventually militarily defeated in August 1949 (Iatrides 2005; Woodhouse 1976). Similarly, in the Cambodian Civil War (1970 – 1975), the Khmer Rouge made enormous gains in the early years of the war. But following the termination of North Vietnamese assistance to the Khmer Rouge, the rebel advance suddenly halted during the 1973 dry season (Etcheson 1984, 119). The rebels’ fortunes did not improve until a US Congressional ban on the bombing of Cambodian territory led to the wholesale withdrawal of Washington’s support for the incumbent Khmer government (Chandler 1991, 225). Furthermore, in 1974 Hanoi resumed support to the forces of Pol Pot, and although this fell far short of the level of assistance it had awarded previously (Mosyakov 2000, 62-63), this allowed the rebels to advance again, and finally led to a rare rebel military victory on 17 April 1975. Returning to the case studies contained in this thesis, both in Angola and Nicaragua the key sponsoring state did eventually resume strong levels of support. This effectively brought these conflicts back to step 1 (the arrow on the far left in Figure 7 above). Supporting this study’s main finding, in both cases foreign government assistance once again greatly helped the rebels advance (step 2). In Angola, the return of large numbers of South African troops in mid-1985 enabled the UNITA/SADF alliance to re-engage in major hostilities against FAPLA/FAR forces, and in Nicaragua Reagan’s $100m aid injection in late 1986 allowed the Contras to retake the initiative. This substantially increased pressure on the incumbent government in the two respective states (step 3). Yet once again strong state support caused substantial domestic and international opposition to the sponsoring government (step 4). In Angola, the resumption of strong support to UNITA led to intense fighting during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1987

199 and 1988, which in turn raised substantial domestic pressure on the South African government to bring the SADF troops home. In Nicaragua, soon after the passing of the $100m Contra aid package the Iran-Contra scandal was exposed, which led to even greater domestic (Congressional) opposition to the Reagan administration. In both cases—and once more supporting the main finding—state support was subsequently severely reduced (step 5). In December 1988 Pretoria responded to increasing domestic calls for the Border War to be terminated by signing the New York Accords, which terminated troop assistance for UNITA. Two months later, Congress voted against renewed lethal aid for the Contras, which the Reagan government now fully accepted, resulting in the complete termination of military support. Understandably, the repeated reductions of state support left the insurgents in both Angola and Nicaragua highly frustrated. Although the highly diplomatic UNITA leader Savimbi never openly criticised his organisation’s sponsors, one former SADF member is of the opinion that ‘if only South Africa committed [itself] more [consistently], UNITA could have won’ (Interview 25 2018). Contra leader Bermúdez is similarly forthright. Writing shortly after the termination of US aid in early 1988, Bermúdez says that, ‘[h]ad the United States consistently supported our movement since the beginning, I have little doubt that Nicaragua would be free today’ (1988, 59). Predictably, following the second loss of strong state support, rebel offensives in both countries subsequently quickly ground to a halt (step 6). In 1989, without South African troops fighting by its side, UNITA was unable to replicate its successes from the early 1980s, although it did manage to hold on to its Jamba stronghold in the country’s far south-eastern corner. In Nicaragua, after losing US assistance in early 1988, the Contras did not even bother attempting another major offensive. This finding corroborates research by Collins (2004), who argues that terrorist groups formerly supported by Libya also stopped carrying out attacks after Tripoli terminated its support for them in 1992. Moving to the final step in Figure 7 above, when a rebel group’s campaign has collapsed, and the insurgents have little hope of regaining strong foreign government assistance in the near future, the probability that the conflict will be terminated in a way that is favourable to the rebels is greatly reduced (step 7). Again, the reason is simple: a rebel campaign’s collapse shifts the military balance of power to the incumbent government, who can then use its improved position vis-à-vis the insurgents to prevent

200 a rebel victory and either force the rebels to sign a peace agreement or—if the rebels were already weak—defeat the insurgents militarily. The effect of these problems is so large that the quantitative analysis found that, all other things being equal, rebel groups who received state support obtain significantly less favourable conflict outcomes than their non-state supported counterparts. Chapter 4 showed that these differences are not only statistically reliable, but also substantively large: when holding all other variables at their most common value, conflict dyads in which the rebel group has received state support have a fifteen percentage point higher probability of being terminated through a rebel defeat and a sixteen percentage point lower likelihood of ending in a rebel victory, when compared to conflict dyads in which the rebels did not receive such assistance.28 As these figures indicate, this relationship is probabilistic, not deterministic. This means that if external factors change in favour of the rebel group, (formerly) supported insurgents can still win. Yet all other things being equal, state support hurts rather than helps a rebel group’s chances of success. In the case studies examined here, the second loss of (strong) foreign government assistance effectively gave the insurgents two options: either directly settle the conflict through a negotiated settlement or continue to fight in the hope something else changes in the rebels’ favour. The Contras went for the former and within weeks of the US withdrawal signed the Sapoá agreement with the Sandinistas. UNITA, which could still count on considerable non-troop US assistance, chose the latter but could not advance much and, in 1991, also struck a deal with the incumbent government. It is worth repeating here that the implication of this study’s finding is that, on average, rebel groups are better off without foreign government assistance. War phases with strong state support may yield insurgents many important battlefield gains (as shown in Angola and Nicaragua), but following a reduction or termination of support, this does not leave the insurgents with a residual benefit compared to their peers without such assistance. This finding is perhaps slightly counterintuitive, but its logic becomes clear when considering the campaigns of non-state supported rebel groups. Such organisations typically rely on assistance from the local population (such as ETA in Spain and France), diaspora groups (e.g. the LTTE in Sri Lanka), natural resource extraction (the FARC in Colombia, for instance), or a combination thereof. The absolute level of resources (e.g. money, weapons, training, basic needs) that these insurgent organisations receive may

28 The chances of the in-between category of a negotiated settlement remain unchanged. 201 very well be lower than what rebel groups with a foreign state sponsor receive (as discussed in Chapter 1), but the flow of these resources is likely to be more stable. This is important, since it often takes as long as a decade (or even longer) of sustained fighting to bring a rebel campaign to success (see also Byman 2007).29

Causes of support reduction impact This study’s finding that it is support reduction that is the main reason why, despite its otherwise positive operational effect on rebel groups, state support ultimately has a major negative impact on a rebel group’s ability to defeat the incumbent government is interesting and worthy of further discussion. This thesis found evidence to suggest that this negative effect is largely caused by the fact that support reduction and termination reduces the total level of material and non-material resources a rebel group has at its disposal, which greatly reduces the number and size of the attacks the insurgents are able to wage against the incumbent government. Still, the qualitative analysis gives reason to suggest that three other factors may also impact the severity of the impact of support reduction and termination: material dependency, the sudden nature of support reduction, and morale. They are discussed here in turn. Starting with material dependency, the case studies suggest that, as rebel groups receive strong support they quickly become highly dependent on its continuation (see also Hazen 2013, 179). Soon after receiving strong South African support, UNITA heavily relied on the SADF to train its forces, provide it with weaponry, and to conduct joint attacks. With extensive assistance from Pretoria, UNITA even built an entire town in southern Angola (Jamba, see Map 1). This was strategically located just north of the SWA Caprivi Strip, which was the optimal location for South Africa to assist UNITA. But as a consequence of this geographical orientation, UNITA’s future became closely tied to South Africa’s continued willingness to assist Savimbi’s forces. Much the same can be said of the Contras. Receiving sanctuary from Tegucigalpa in 1979, the rebels stationed themselves in southern Honduras, where they would base themselves for the next decade. When US support increased in 1982, the Contra organisation strongly oriented itself towards its superpower patron, which would remain

29 The average conflict dyad length included in this study’s quantitative analysis is 3.46 years, but this also includes 206 minor conflicts that ended within a single calendar year. Once a conflict dyad has survived its first year, it continues for an average of just over six years. A quarter of conflict dyads in this study’s data set experience ten or more fighting calendar years.

202 the case for the duration of the war. Chapter 6 showed that, from the moment the insurgents received extensive foreign aid, the Contras’ fortunes in Nicaragua became closely tied to the continuation of support from Washington and Tegucigalpa.30 Although concrete evidence is thin, two factors appear to prevent state-supported rebel groups from diversifying their resource streams. First, once a rebel group receives abundant foreign government assistance, it seems to spend much of its time making the most of it. Chapter 5 showed that, following the arrival of strong SADF assistance, UNITA began a major northbound campaign toward the capital Luanda. Similarly, Chapter 6 found that, when abundant US-supplies started arriving in 1982, the Nicaraguan Contras likewise embarked on a large-scale effort to advance southwards towards Managua. This shows that, when a rebel group receives strong support, their focus is on arranging training, learning to work with new weapons, devising new combat plans, etcetera. As a consequence, the rebel groups appear to devote only little attention during this time to contingency planning should they lose their support. Second, it is likely that, even if a rebel group was to attempt to diversify its income streams, this may be discouraged by their patron. As discussed in Chapter 1, states have specific motives for backing a foreign rebel group, such as a desire to weaken a rival state or to extract concessions from the target government (Byman 2005, 36-41; Mumford 2013, 32-34; Maoz and San-Akca 2012). To achieve this objective, the supporting state must retain substantial influence on the sponsored party (Byman and Kreps 2010; Salehyan, Gleditsch, and Cunningham 2011; Salehyan, Siroky, and Wood 2014; Brown 2016). This was certainly borne out in the Nicaraguan case, in which the US government went to great lengths to retain its influence over the Contras, even during periods of low official government support.31 Insurgent resource diversification would have undermined the patron’s leverage and is therefore likely to have been met with substantial patron resistance. In the two cases studied here, only once did the rebels attempt sponsor diversification. In 1986, UNITA managed to resume receiving assistance from the US, which had already assisted the group in 1975 during the Second Angolan War of Independence (Stockwell 1978). Yet this was not opposed by South Africa, possibly because Pretoria at the time was also seeking closer cooperation with Washington, and

30 The impact of Argentine training was far less severe because that state quickly reduced and ultimately terminated its training assistance following the outbreak of the Falklands War in April 1982. 31 For instance, the Reagan administration solicited support for the Contras from other governments, but made sure financial donations were paid into a bank account that was managed by North and his associates (Inouye and Hamilton 1987b, 63). 203

US aid for UNITA would give the two states something in common. Later, UNITA also greatly extended its involvement in the diamond extraction business (see Dietrich and Cilliers 2000), which is another form of income diversification, but this mostly occurred during the subsequent Angolan Civil War (1992 – 2002), which falls outside the scope of this study (for that see, for instance, Weigert 2011). The Nicaraguan rebels never made any serious attempts to diversify their resource base. The second reason why state support reduction has such a large impact on rebel groups concerns its sudden nature. Both in Angola and Nicaragua the rebels had little more than a month to prepare themselves for the loss of support. Had the insurgents been given more notice they might have been able to take preparatory measures such as stockpiling weapons or soliciting (additional) support from other governments. Yet the nature of state support indicates such a timely notice of withdrawal is likely to be rare; once a government has decided to reduce or cease its aid for a rebel group it usually has little reason to postpone this. The third and final mechanism has to do with morale. During periods of strong state support, having the backing of a foreign government might lift rebel morale, which encourages initiative. This can help rebels to obtain battleground gains. In 1982, for instance, the Contras were remarkably upbeat, which may go some way to explaining their advance. A similar dynamic appears to have occurred during the Ogaden War (1977 – 1978) in Ethiopia, when Somali troop support to the Western Somali Liberation Front ‘gave the guerrillas the confidence to adopt conventional tactics and reconfigure its military formations into regular units’ (Lockyer 2018, 195). Inversely, a sudden loss of state support might reduce rebel morale and make them think their efforts are futile. This discourages initiative and thereby creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. This appears to have been the case in Nicaragua in 1988, when the FDN did not even bother attempting to fight the Sandinistas without US lethal assistance. The impact of morale might be exacerbated if state support has a similar and opposite effect among the incumbent government’s troops: if support reduction decreases rebel morale it might also increase the morale of the government’s military, making its impact on the battlefield effect even greater. It is worth noting that non-state supported rebel groups do not suffer from any of these problems. Without a foreign sponsor, a rebel group cannot develop a material dependency on another state’s support. Groups that rely on popular support or natural resource extraction are also far less likely to face an overnight reduction of termination

204 of assistance. In turn, with a less volatile flow of incoming resources, such groups are less likely to experience sudden fluctuations in rebel (and incumbent government) morale. A good example of this is the Chinese Civil War (1945 – 1949), in which Mao Tse-tung’s Communist Party of China (CPC) was able to defeat the incumbent Kuomintang government led by Chiang Kai-shek largely using domestic resources obtained from the local population and from enemy forces (Westad 2003). Still, the case studies contained in this thesis only provide a preliminary answer to the question why the impact of support reduction has such a dramatic effect on rebel groups. Material dependency, the sudden nature of support reduction, and morale all appear to play a role, but to give a conclusive answer to the question which of these matters most (and why) would require further research.

Types of support In addition to examining the effect of state support as a whole, this thesis also examines whether there is variation in the effect of different types of support. Chapter 2 suggested three ways in which different types of support may affect conflict outcome. First, there may be no variation between support types, with all forms of assistance conforming to either the positive, neutral, or negative view. Alternatively, following Byman et al. (2001), it may be that troops, sanctuary, financial assistance, and political support have a strong positive effect on rebel groups, weapons and training have a moderate positive effect, and intelligence assistance only has a small positive effect. Finally, a third theory advanced by Sawyer, Cunningham, and Reed (2017) holds that non-fungible forms of support— meaning forms of support that cannot be redirected for other purposes—have a small and positive effect, while fungible forms of aid have a small and negative effect. Chapter

2 articulated the latter two hypotheses as a slight variation of the positive view (H1) and the neutral view (H2), respectively. The quantitative analysis in Chapter 4 showed that the only form of support that has a statistically significant effect is sanctuary, which was found to reduce a rebel group’s probability of a negotiated settlement compared to defeat. The results on the other forms of support were not significantly (i.e. reliably) different from zero. The quantitative findings were then followed up in the qualitative analysis. This section discusses these results by summarising how each type of support operationally affected the rebel campaign when it was given. The results are as follows.

205

Starting with troop support, which was only given in the case of Angola, Chapter 5 found that this was a major boost to UNITA. There is little doubt that the deployment of a moderate level of South African troops between 1978 and 1984 greatly helped the rebels to intensify their campaign. The introduction of large numbers of South African troops in 1986 and 1987 similarly helped UNITA increase pressure on the MPLA government. As for transport and logistical assistance, in both the Angolan and Nicaraguan conflict this was highly effective: the South African offer to UNITA in 1985 to helicopter its fighters from a divisionary FAPLA attack in Moxico province to the main battlefield in Cuando Cubango proved instrumental in stopping a major FAPLA offensive. In Nicaragua, US-assisted airdrops were also essential to increase the time that Contra fighters could stay in theatre before having to return to recuperate in their Honduran sanctuary. Weapons supplies were highly beneficial to the insurgents in both conflicts. UNITA profited immensely from the Soviet weaponry the SADF had captured from FAPLA, SWAPO, and FAR, and had subsequently donated to the insurgents. In Nicaragua, US/Honduran-supplied FAL rifles strongly appear to have increased rebel recruitment. Throughout the war, the Contras also used US-supplied explosives to great operational effect. In both conflicts, the delivery of US surface-to-air missiles was also highly advantageous: in Angola the delivery of FIM-92 Stinger missiles forced FAPLA and the FAR to fly much higher—thus greatly reducing the accuracy of their joint bombing campaign—and in Nicaragua the delivery of older FIM-43 Redeye missiles allowed the rebels to decimate the Cuban/Nicaraguan helicopter threat. The effect of training is also positive. South African veterans widely cited this form of assistance as having had the greatest (positive) influence on UNITA’s campaign, as just a few weeks of (basic) training had a major impact on rebel battlefield performance. Reports from Nicaragua are more mixed—with some citing issues with the Argentine training, the frogmen, and the controversy over the US instruction manual—but on the whole it seems the Contras greatly benefited from training assistance. This was particularly the case for the many peasant recruits, who—unlike the ex-National Guardsmen—had no prior military skills. As for sanctuary, this was not used by UNITA, whose leader Savimbi believed a rebel group could not defeat its opponent if it remained outside the target country’s borders. Still, the sparsely populated area of Cuando Cubango in Southern Angola somewhat

206 functioned as a foreign sanctuary due to its low FAPLA presence. This was particularly the case during the early 1980s, when the main UNITA base at Jamba (as well as its immediate surroundings) enjoyed robust air protection from SADF forces based in the nearby SWA Caprivi strip (see Map 1). Having a (domestic) safe haven in Southern Angola proved highly valuable to UNITA as it provided the insurgents with a permanent base to recruit and train rebels, as well as prepare operations. It also functioned as an excellent public relations hub, with Savimbi regularly inviting foreign journalists to Jamba to show them what UNITA envisioned for all of Angola (e.g. The New York Times 1987h; Bridgland 1988). In Nicaragua, the Honduran sanctuary was invaluable to the Contras, as it provided them with an excellent staging base for operations in the mountainous region of Northern Nicaragua, although this was admittedly quite far removed from the Nicaraguan capital Managua (see Map 2). The value of the Honduran sanctuary became particularly clear in 1985, when it provided the rebels with a safe haven to avoid a major Sandinista (air) offensive. This being said, the safe haven was not always entirely safe: on multiple occasions the EPS followed the Contras across the border into Honduras. The category of basic needs support, which has so far been overlooked in the literature, proved to be a surprisingly important form of assistance. Chapter 5 found that South African rations provided to UNITA allowed the rebels to conduct attacks all over Angola. In Nicaragua, US-supplied basic needs, which included food, tents, clothing, and medicine, was essential in helping the Contras survive in what were often extremely difficult environmental circumstances. Admittedly, Chapter 6 found that it took some time for the US to get basic needs supplies right. Early supplies of yellow boots and blue uniforms were, for instance, completely inappropriate for the task at hand. These issues were soon fixed, however, after which basic needs aid had its intended operational effect. Unfortunately, the impact of financial support was impossible to detect in the Angolan conflict, where the rebels did not have much use for it. Savimbi did use part of the money he received from international sponsors (state and otherwise) to hire a prominent Washington public relations firm called Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly to boost his image. Although it is difficult to measure the effect of this particular expenditure, in the mid-1980s Savimbi succeeded in obtaining renewed US government assistance. His PR-offensive may also have increased private donations from US citizens, but this study was unable to find reliable figures on this topic.

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In Nicaragua, US monetary donations given during the Contra aid ban between 1984 and 1986 proved to be useful but less effective than earlier and subsequent support given in kind by the CIA. Despite Oliver North’s extensive efforts, the assistance arranged by North and his associates did not match that of the professional work done by the CIA. As for the final two forms of aid—intelligence assistance and political support—the effect is difficult to gauge. South African intelligence assistance to UNITA appears to have been useful, particularly its Electronic Warfare (EW) programme, which allowed the South Africans to listen in on Angolan military radio. Interestingly, SADF intelligence assistance was based on reciprocity, meaning that UNITA had to supply its own intelligence in return. As discussed in Chapter 5, this mechanism was not always successful since UNITA intelligence proved on multiple occasions to be erroneous. In Nicaragua, US-provided intelligence on Nicaraguan army positions appears to have helped the rebels, but the amount of information on the effectiveness of intelligence is scarce. As a result, the impact of this form of assistance remains largely unknown. Finally, political support from Apartheid South Africa may not have done many favours among the (black) Angolan population, but UNITA leader Savimbi did appear to have greatly valued Washington’s political support. In Nicaragua, US political support was a similar double-edged sword. To some Nicaraguans it signalled Contra strength, but to others it appears to have indicated a continuation of Somoza-era US dependency. In the end, however, the qualitative analysis was unable to identify sufficient information to make an informed judgement on the effect of this aid form. These results are summarised in Table 23 below. Since the sole significant quantitative finding on one of the comparisons relating to the presence of sanctuary (negotiated settlement versus defeat) strongly contradicts the finding of the Nicaraguan case study as well as the Angolan domestic safe haven, the verdict here is that the effect of this form of aid is no different from the others. Instead, and supporting Salehyan (2007, 2009), it appears that sanctuary helps insurgents wage war, but with the caveat that this is only the case for as long as this type of support is not rescinded. Although neither of the two case studies featured sanctuary withdrawal, the evidence from the effect of the other forms of support make it safe to conclude that sanctuary withdrawal would have a highly detrimental effect on a rebel group’s ability to defeat its opponent. This argument dovetails with the conclusion drawn by Carter (2012), who says that the presence of a foreign sanctuary ultimately does not help but hurt rebel groups (see Chapter 2).

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As for the effect of troops, transport & logistics, weapons, training, basic needs, and financial support, this study concludes that, when given, each has a positive operational effect on a rebel groups’ ability to wage war. Yet each of them ultimately has a negative effect on conflict outcome (that is, rebel groups are better off without it) because state support is often reduced or withdrawn. Due to a lack of (reliable) data, the effect of intelligence assistance and political support remains unknown. On a final note, just as there is insufficient grounds to conclude there is variation in how different types of support help rebel groups win, there does not appear to be variation in how different types of support hurt rebel groups when they are reduced or withdrawn. For instance, South Africa’s withdrawal of troop support in 1984 had a major negative impact on UNITA’s campaign, but this effect was no different to that year’s US withdrawal of weapons supplies and training for the Contras.

Quantitative Angolan Nicaraguan Verdict analysis War Contra War (operational effect) Troops +/- + n/a + Transport & Logistics* +/- + + + Weapons +/- + + + Training +/- + + + Sanctuary - n/a + + Basic Needs n/m + + + Financial assistance +/- u. + + Intelligence n/m + u. u. Political support n/m u. u. u. Table 23. Comparison of operational effects of different types of state support. By method of enquiry. + positive effect, +/- no effect, - negative effect, n/a not applicable, u unknown, n/m not measured. * Logistical support included in weapons category for quantitative analysis.

Conclusion This chapter has shown that, on its own, none of the three views articulated in Chapter 2 is able to fully explain how foreign state support affects conflict outcome. Making use of insights gained from the empirical chapters (4-6), it then used inductive reasoning to

209 develop a new and improved understanding of this relationship. This holds that state support helps insurgent organisations intensify their campaign but ultimately negatively affects conflict outcome because sponsoring states, due to domestic and international opposition associated with supporting a foreign rebel group, frequently reduce the level of support they award a rebel group, which leaves the insurgents without the necessary means to continue their campaign. This chapter argued that several mechanisms may explain the severe impact of the loss of state support, including material dependency, the sudden timing of the reduction, and its impact on belligerent morale, but further research is necessary to provide a definitive answer on this sub-mechanism. Additionally, this chapter concluded that this study’s finding on the overall effect of state support on conflict outcome does not appear to be affected by the type of support received.

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Conclusion

States have long supported foreign rebel groups; already during World War I did the British Army send T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) to the Middle East to lend his assistance to the Arab Revolt fighting the Ottoman Empire (Lawrence 1920). This thesis asks how effective such aid generally is. More specifically, it seeks to understand whether (1) foreign state support for rebel groups affects the likely outcome of intrastate armed conflicts, (2) whether there is effect variation between support types, and (3) how the causal mechanism operates (see Chapter 1). Initially adopting a deductive approach, it used the literature to develop three rival hypotheses: state support might help rebel groups (H1), may have no discernible effect on conflict outcome (H2) or may hurt a rebel’s campaign

(H3, all in Chapter 2). The statistical analysis (Chapter 4) showed that state support is not effective in helping rebel groups win. Quite the opposite, in fact: insurgent organisations who receive foreign sponsorship are defeated more often, and are victorious less often, than rebel groups who do not receive such assistance. This association is statistically significant, substantively large, and is not affected by the type of support received. It is also surprising, since it challenges the most popular belief on this topic, which is that state support should be effective in helping rebels win (H1). To find out why state support does not ‘work’, this thesis closely examined two major armed conflicts that features foreign government assistance awarded to the insurgent side: the Angolan War (1975 – 1991, Chapter 5) and the Nicaraguan Contra War (1979 – 1990, Chapter 6). This yielded some support for the causal mechanism behind each of the three hypotheses, but strong support for none. Contrary to the positive view, the operational effect of state support is generally not strong enough to propel insurgents straight to victory. Challenging the neutral view and this thesis’ extension of principal-agent theory, the effect of state support is also not greatly undermined by high levels of state-rebel friction. Admittedly, the cases show such friction does indeed often exist, but this is limited in scope and does not have a strong detrimental effect on the operational effect of state support. Finally, contrary to the negative view, the qualitative analysis shows state support does not attract large numbers of extrinsically motivated and violent recruits. Having rejected the three hypotheses, this thesis then adopted an inductive approach to formulate the fullest possible answer to the research questions stated at the start of this thesis (and at the beginning of this Conclusion). The result is discussed in Chapter 7,

211 which argues that the reason why state support ultimately negatively affects conflict outcome is because sponsoring states, because of the domestic and international opposition associated with rebel support programmes, frequently reduce the level of support they award a rebel group or even terminate it altogether. This suddenly leaves the insurgents without the necessary means to continue their struggle, which leads to the collapse of the rebel campaign, and ultimately results in a conflict outcome that typically falls well short of a rebel victory. This brief Conclusion reflects on these findings and does so as follows. First, it highlights this study’s contributions to knowledge. These concern (1) the main finding, and (2) the contributions from the three empirical chapters. Following this, this Conclusion shows how this study’s findings may guide future research on this topic and how it can help policymakers craft more effective foreign policy.

Contribution to theory This thesis improves our understanding of civil war by challenging the conventional distinction between interstate and intrastate conflict. Scholars of war commonly distinguish between intrastate (within-country) and interstate (between-countries) war (see, for instance, Dupuy and Rustad 2018; Salehyan 2009, 170). Yet when a government decides to sponsor a foreign rebel group, the question rises whether the conflict should still be regarded as a domestic conflict or whether it should be treated as a conventional, international war. While this may be an easy question to answer in cases with a minimal or an abundant level of foreign government assistance, the situation becomes more difficult in the many cases that fall between these extremes, as well as conflicts in which the aid level fluctuates. How this question is answered is important, because this has a major consequence for how the war is analysed. Interstate wars are commonly explained using theories from the international plane, such as balance of power theory and alliance theory (e.g. Waltz 1979; Walt 1987). Intrastate conflicts, on the other hand, are normally analysed using theories developed from domestic politics, and include (counter)insurgency strategy and domestic conflict resolution (e.g. Mackinlay and Al- Baddawy 2008; Walter 2002). The solution, this study finds, is that it is best to employ both. Balance of power theory can tell us much about who is likely to sue for peace and who is likely to want to press on, and alliance theory can help us understand why governments get involved in foreign wars (and why they might leave again). Similarly, insurgency theory can illuminate

212 why rebels decide to fight a conventional or irregular war and ideas about conflict resolution help explain why externally-induced peace agreements, for instance, may or may not hold. Students of wars featuring external assistance should therefore not strictly analyse war within the interstate or intrastate parameters, as this will unnecessarily limit them to the instruments developed in these conflict categories. Instead, an optimal understanding of all forms of conflict emerges when the analyst makes use of the full range of analytical tools available. A second key contribution to knowledge this thesis makes relates to its main finding. When it comes to foreign state support for rebel groups, caricatures are easily made. Depending on whose side the observer is on, having the backing of a foreign power is commonly either interpreted as a major sign of rebel strength or it is perceived as evidence that the rebel group in question is nothing but a puppet of another state. This study has moved away from such stereotypes and shown that the role of state support on armed conflict is, in fact, far more complex. This can be summarised in three key take-aways, which together illustrate how this thesis changes what we know about the efficacy of state support. First, this study shows that, from an operational point of view, state support has a major positive effect on rebel groups. Following the awarding of such assistance, recipient rebel groups can expect to see a major boost in their campaign vis-à-vis the incumbent government. Other studies have shown how individual types of foreign sponsorship can impact civil war (e.g. sanctuary in Salehyan 2009), but this study does so for (almost) the complete range of types of support awarded to rebel groups. Using the cases of Angola and Nicaragua, this study also shows that such aid causally helps rebel groups by increasing the material and non-material resources they have at their disposal. This enables the insurgents to wage larger and more frequent attacks against the incumbent government, thus shifting the military balance of power towards the rebels. Second, this thesis increases our understanding of this topic by emphasizing that states frequently reduce or terminate their support. Although this has been previously noted in the literature (e.g. Jones 2017b, 157), existing studies provide little insight into how this affects civil war dynamics. This study shows that support reduction has a major detrimental impact on a rebel group’s likely success because it greatly reduces the resources the rebels have at their disposal to continue their campaign. This finding dovetails with a minor note made by Hazen, who states that ‘turning off the taps that feed

213 the war machines of fighting factions plays an important role in limiting the prospects for war’ (2013, 175). Third and arguably most importantly, this thesis shows that, as a consequence of reductions of support, state support ultimately does not increase but decrease a rebel group’s likelihood of victory. This finding is important, because scholars currently tend to design statistical models by blanketly assuming that foreign government assistance helps insurgent organisations. Future studies (using both quantitative and qualitative research designs) should therefore award a greater and more nuanced consideration to how such aid affects civil war dynamics. This thesis’ contributions to theory are important in understanding who might win— as has been the focus here—but is also important for scholars examining other aspects of civil war, including its duration, intensity, and identifying windows of opportunities for third party interventions, such as mediation attempts. Still, this implication should not be stretched too far. As stated in the Introduction, this study only investigates how one factor affects war outcome. The regression diagnostics in Chapter 4 show that scholars looking for general explanations of rebel failure and success should still consider other factors as well, such as the type of incompatibility (i.e. whether the rebel group is secessionist), conflict duration, and whether the incumbent government receives foreign assistance (see also Mack 1975; Merom 2003; Arreguín-Toft 2005).

Empirical contribution Another important contribution to knowledge this thesis makes concerns the three empirical chapters. Chapter 4 is the first study that comprehensively assesses how state support for rebel groups affects conflict outcome using quantitative research methods. Although others have included measurements of state support, this was either done using survey data, included assistance from non-state actors, was only as a control variable when exploring another topic, or only covered a limited scope of support types (see Chapter 2). Furthermore, an important contribution is that this study did not only explore whether state support is effective when measured as a single variable, but also investigated whether there is variation between the full range of support types awarded to insurgent organisations. The empirical contribution also extends to the qualitative analysis. Chapter 5 investigated the effect of UNITA’s foreign assistance. Most studies of the Angolan War focus on one of the participating states, (e.g. Cuba in George 2005; the Soviet Union in

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Shubin 2008; and South Africa in Bridgland 1990), or on the Cold War context in which it was fought (e.g. Gleijeses 2013; Pearce 2017). Very little attention has been spent analysing how foreign government assistance affected UNITA’s role in this major regional conflict. Chapter 5 filled this gap and increased our understanding of this conflict by showing that an important part of the war’s trajectory can be explained through the ebbs and flows of the level of support awarded to UNITA. The same applies to Chapter 6. Most of the writing on the Nicaraguan Contra War stems from the mid to late 1980s, when US Contra aid was a highly salient topic among both war scholars and the general public. Since then, the conflict has largely been forgotten outside of the Central American region in which it was fought. Using the benefit of three decades of hindsight, Chapter 6 returned to the Contra War, and contributed to knowledge by offering a more nuanced understanding of how US, Honduran, Argentine, and other states’ assistance affected the rebel campaign. Contrary to many of the polemical pieces written in the 1980s, the analysis in this thesis shows that US assistance programme was neither a silver bullet nor a complete disaster. Instead, when US support was strong the Contras were able to improve their battlefield situation, but the rebels quickly lost these gains again during times of reduced official US assistance.

Future work This study gives rise to three avenues for further research. First, scholars could explore further why governments frequently reduce or even completely withdraw their support to a rebel group. The conceptualisation (Chapter 1), case studies (Chapter 5 and 6), and the Discussion (Chapter 7) observed that states often rescind their assistance. This thesis, particularly in Chapter 7, argues that this appears to be related to the substantial domestic and international opposition that such aid programmes often generate. Yet as the focus here is on civil war dynamics within the conflict-affected country, it fell outside of the scope of this study to extensively analyse the internal (ministerial) dynamics of the sponsoring governments that preceded these support reductions. Future research may explore this further since the topic of support withdrawal, with the important exception of Karlén (2019), has so far been largely overlooked in the literature. A second and related point for further research is to explore how rebel groups deal with (potential) loss of state support. Both UNITA and the Contras were ill-prepared for this eventuality, which is surprising given the fact that, with adequate preparation, they might have (partly) been able to see this coming, particularly in the latter stages of the

215 two wars. One possible explanation for this is that rebel groups may be so involved in the war they are fighting that they spend little attention on domestic politics in their sponsors’ country. This certainly appears to have been the case for UNITA. Another explanation may be that rebel groups do pay extensive attention to this and do try to take pre-emptive action but are simply unable to find suitable alternative sources of support. This seems plausible for the Contras. Additional research may be able to reveal which of these mechanisms is more common and why. Third and finally, future work may focus on improving the quality of large-n data sets on state support. This study’s quantitative analysis makes use of the state-Nonstate Armed Group Cooperation (NAGs) data set created by the Dangerous Companions Project (DCP) (San-Akca 2016). This data set is highly useful for the purposes here, which is to explore the effect of state support on the conflict’s final outcome. But as discussed in Chapter 3, this data set’s annualised coding is insufficiently reliable to carry out any meaningful survival analysis using annualised data (rather than conflict-level data). It is therefore not possible to find out whether the onset of state support (or a particular form of support) in a given year is associated with a change in the probability of the conflict reaching a particular outcome in the following year. More reliable annualised data, which could be obtained by carefully (re-)examining state sponsorship involved in each conflict dyad included in the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) Conflict Termination Data set (Kreutz 2010), would allow for such a test. It could also explore whether the termination of aid in a given year is associated with the mode of conflict termination (on this, see also Karlén 2019, which uses a more limited data set).

Implications for policymakers This study’s results are not only of interest to scholars of civil war but are also relevant to those who attempt to craft effective foreign policy. As shown by the two Presidential quotes at the start of this thesis, a key question in the decision-making process on whether to support a foreign rebel group is whether this affects the conflict’s likely outcome (an incumbent government victory, a negotiated settlement, or a rebel victory). This study’s results suggest that a state wishing to help a foreign rebel group to victory is best advised only to do so if it is willing and able to provide the rebels with strong and—most importantly—consistent support.

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Given that many civil wars are protracted conflicts, to achieve the intended result the supporting state may need to sustain this for as long as a decade.32 As this thesis shows that sponsoring a foreign rebel group is likely to lead to substantial domestic and international opposition, governments are likely to struggle to sustain the assistance programme for a sufficiently long period of time.33 This may be particularly the case for Western democracies because such governments typically have a general election every four to five years, which means that a successful rebel support project is likely to need to span multiple administrations.34 Should support be reduced or even terminated, it is highly unlikely (though not entirely impossible) that the assistance programme will lead to a positive outcome for the sponsored party. As for those governments who are currently fighting rebel groups at home or abroad (e.g. the UK, US, and Ukraine), this study’s results indicate that policy makers should pay close attention to the volume of support a state offers a rebel group and, perhaps even more importantly, changes therein. When a rebel group receives increased assistance, the war is likely going to intensify in favour of the insurgents. During this time, the rebels are unlikely to be willing to discuss a negotiated settlement. But when support gets reduced, the position of the rebels is likely to substantially weaken, which may create an opportunity for the incumbent government to initiate peace talks or, should the rebels already be weak, to attempt to defeat the insurgents militarily. Apart from passively monitoring fluctuations in the level of state support awarded to the rebels, incumbent governments may also take a more proactive role. They can do so by trying to reduce or terminate foreign government assistance given to the rebel side, as this increases the defending state’s power vis-à-vis the insurgents. One way of doing so is to raise the political, economic, and military costs associated with rebel sponsorship. This be done, for instance, by placing unilateral, multilateral or even United Nations Security Council sanctions on the supporting state. Doing so may very well be effective, as this study finds that states that face strong opposition (domestically, internationally, or both) regularly reduce or terminate their support programmes, which has far-reaching consequences for the sponsored party.

32 Excluding rebels that won in their first year of conflict (most of which did not face much resistance), the average number of war-fighting years of a conflict dyad ending in a rebel victory in the data set used for this thesis is 7 years and 3 months. 33 Sponsoring governments might be able to sustain a modest level of sponsorship for longer, but this is offset by the fact that, in this scenario, the positive impact of the aid programme on the rebel campaign is also likely to be lower. 34 Furthermore, in recent decades Western governments appear to have become increasingly hesitant to fight long wars (Shaw 2005). 217

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Appendix: List of Interviews

Interview 1. 2017. With Paul Jackson (Academic), 18 October. Birmingham. Interview 2. 2017. With Stephen Hurst (Academic), 25 October. Manchester. Interview 3. 2017. With Leopold Scholtz (Author and Retired Journalist), 18 December. Delft. Interview 4. 2018. With Vladimir Rauta (Academic), 15 January. Stoke-on-Trent. Interview 5. 2018. With Carlos Alonso Silva (Angolan Citizen), 1 February. London. Interview 6. 2018. With Ian van der Waag (Academic and SADF veteran), 26 February. Saldanha. Interview 7. 2018. With Abel Esterhuyse (Academic and SADF veteran), 26 February. Saldanha. Interview 8. 2018. With Johan Van den Berg (SADF veteran), 1 March. Cape Town. Interview 9. 2018. With Cloete Breytenbach (Retired Journalist), 1 March. Cape Town. Interview 10. 2018. With Members of the Memorable Order of Tin Hats Battledress (SADF veterans association), 1 March. Cape Town. Interview 11. 2018. With Willem Steenkamp (Journalist and Author), 2 March. Cape Town. Interview 12. 2018. With Arnè Söderlund (SADF veteran and Author), 2 March. Vishoek. Interview 13. 2018. With Fred Oelschig (SADF veteran), 5 March. Plettenberg Bay. Interview 14. 2018. With an anonymous SADF veteran, via telephone, 6 March. Interview 15. 2018. With Gerhard Louw (SADF veteran), via email, 7 March. Interview 16. 2018. With Members of the Memorable Order of Tin Hats Casa Mia (SADF veterans association), 11 March. Pretoria. Interview 17. 2018. With Kobus Smit (SADF veteran), 12 March. Pretoria. Interview 18. 2018. With Willem van der Waals (Author and SADF veteran), via e-mail, 12 March. Interview 19. 2018. With Ashley Bannister (SADF veteran), 13 March. Pretoria. Interview 20. 2018. With Walter Volker (Author and SADF Veteran), 14 March. Pretoria. Interview 21. 2018. With Marta Pasos de Sacasa (Contra Veteran), 17 April. Managua. Interview 22. 2018. With Irene Agudelo (Academic), 17 April. Managua. Interview 23. 2018. With Armando Castillo (Contra veteran), 19 April. Managua. Interview 24. 2018. With 'Pappa Whiskey' (SADF veteran), via telephone, 24 December. Interview 25. 2018. With Dawie Muller (SADF veteran), via telephone, 27 December.

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Interview 26. 2018. With Jan Duvenage (SADF veteran), via email, 27 December. Interview 27. 2018. With Jonathan Mortimer (SADF veteran), via telephone, 28 December.

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