Past Event
In-Person
Seminar

Breaking Insurgent Economies: The Effectiveness of Indiscriminate Violence During Civil War

Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

Why does states’ use of indiscriminate violence against civilians during civil wars weaken some insurgencies but strengthen others? 

For more information, contact susan_lynch@hks.harvard.edu

 SGT Richard McConchie watches a fire he started
During Operation “Crimp” near Bien Hoa, RVN, the 28th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division found a Viet Cong village while on a search and destroy mission SGT Richard McConchie watches a fire he started, January 14, 1966. This structure was one of many found inside the village and destroyed.

Speaker: Stephen Rangazas, Research Fellow, International Security Program

Why does states’ use of indiscriminate violence against civilians during civil wars weaken some insurgencies but strengthen others? Much of the existing literature argues that state indiscriminate violence is counterproductive because it increases civilians’ willingness to support the insurgency. By mobilizing civilians to support the insurgency, indiscriminate violence risks increasing insurgent recruitment, attacks, and territorial control. However, devastation from indiscriminate violence also exhausts civilians’ ability to provide support.

To adjudicate the competing effects, this project argues that the effectiveness of indiscriminate violence depends on the logic of violence used and the zone of territorial control targeted. Indiscriminate violence strategies are characterized by either a punitive logic that aims to coercively threaten civilians into minimizing their collaboration with insurgents or an economic logic that directly denies civilians’ production of resources. The project finds that punitive indiscriminate violence is rarely effective, particularly in contested areas. In contrast, economic indiscriminate violence in insurgent-controlled areas effectively lowers insurgents’ ability to operate and maintain territorial control. States are willing to devastate their own country or an occupied country’s economy, jeopardizing long-term economic and political development, to weaken insurgent opponents.

In this seminar, the speaker will introduce the conceptual distinction between the punitive and economic logics of state violence and present a theory that explains the variation in effectiveness. In addition to discussing the theory and policy implications of the project, he will discuss empirical evidence of the effectiveness of economic indiscriminate violence used by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces against insurgent-controlled areas of the Mekong Delta during the height of the Vietnam War (1964–1970).

Leveraging archival documents, interviews, and quantitative data, evidence from the Mekong Delta demonstrates that violence exhausted rather than mobilized the population, and state economic warfare weakened the insurgency. 

Admittance is on a first come–first served basis.  Tea and Coffee Provided.

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