Unleashing the Dogs of War: Examining the Impact of the Privatization of

Force on the Success of State Military Interventions in Civil Wars

Haley S. Lain

Midwestern State University

Scope & Methods of Political Science

Fall 2009

Research Question

• What effect has the modern privatization of force had on war?

Prior Research-Paradigm shifts– Liberalism- WW1

• Locke: tabula rasa, social contract theory

• Kant: state of perpetual peace. These pacifistic ideals form the basis of the democratic peace theory

• Idealism- post-ww1– Angell & Shotwell placed emphasis on ideals and

institutions, such as the League of Nations and the Kellogg-Briand Pact

– Realism- (WW2 & Cold War) • Thucydides- History of the Peloponnesian War

• Niccolo Machiavelli- war is inevitable and cannot be avoided or eliminated

Prior Research: New Wars Debate• The peaceful end of a near-nuclear war brought renewed interest in

the study of war.• New War theorists v. Old War theorists

– New war theorists:• Largely derived from liberalism• Argue that war had not just undergone a shift in its character and context,

but actually fundamental changes in its very nature.• Kaldor 2004; Holsti 1996; Mueller 1989, 2004

– Old war theorists: • largely derived from realism • Argue that it is not necessary to generate new categories of war because

the very nature of war cannot change .• Instead of fundamental changes in the nature of war, the end of the Cold

War saw a shift in the character of war and international relations.• Henderson and Singer 2002; Hensel 2002; Gray 2005

Prior Research: Privatization of Force• New war theorists argument- rise in non-state actors

• Old war theorists argument- non-state actors have been prevalent throughout the history of war.

• However, the non-state actors discussed by new war theorists are typically insurgent groups, and little research has examined the privatization of force and its impact on the evolution of warfare.

• Private military forces are increasingly characterizing modern conflict, and the privatization of force is an element which could provide additional support for the new wars argument.

• Modern Privatization began at the end of the Cold war and has culminated in the Iraq war with Private Security Contractors.

Theory • This project seeks to compare the validity of new war

theorists’ arguments against those of old war theorists concerning the effects of the privatization of force on state military interventions in civil wars.

• The method of focus will be military intervention because it is “the most visible form of intervention into civil conflicts.”

• Using the Iraq as an example, it becomes apparent that the success of an intervention bears not just upon the actual intervention but the characteristics of the state and the ongoing civil conflict.

Hypotheses• H1: Privatization increases the likelihood of

successful military interventions in civil wars.– U.S. used PSC’s because they thought it would help

them successfully fight the counterinsurgency.

• H2: The impact of the privatization of war is consistent across time periods. – If consistent, then validity established for old war

theorists.

– If inconsistent and more prevalent in modern periods, then validity established for new war theorists.

Research Design

• Unit of analysis- state military interventions in civil wars.

• Dataset- Correlates of War (1816-1997)– Intrastate Wars

– Intrastate War Participants-primary

• Sampling frame- 278 participants

• Sample size- 64 participants – only those that intervened on side of state or

opposition

Research Design• Variables

– Dependent-• win- dichotomous- on winning side=1, on losing side=0; COW Intrastate Wars & Intrastate War

Participants

– Independent-• Characteristics of state in civil war

– top-interval measured in thousands of people; COW NMDC• Actual intervention

– stdeaths- interval measured in thousands of people; Global Policy Intrastate Wars data– mindur-interval measured in days; COW Intrastate War Participants– major-dichotomous: Major=1, non-major=0; COW Intrastate War Participants– gov- dichotomous: on side of gov=1, on side of opp.=0; COW Intrastate War Participants– priv-dichotomous: used private forces=1, no use=0; COW Intrastate Wars & Clodfelter

• Time Period– mod-dichotomous: 1946-present=1, pre-1946=0; COW Intrastate War Participants– cldwar-dichotomous: 1949-1991=1, all others=0; COW Intrastate War Participants– pstcw89- dichotomous: after 1989=1, 1989 and before=0; COW Intrastate War

Participants– pstcw 91- dichotomous: after 1991=1; 1991 and before=0; COW Intrastate War

Participants

• Method• Logistics Regression

Analysis

Logit(win)=A+B1tpop+B2stdeaths+B3major+B4mindur+B5gov+B6priv+e

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6

tpop -.000018** -.000016** -.000018** .180*** -.000017** -.00002**

(7.18e-06) (7.50e-06) (7.40e-06) (7.40e-06) (7.20e-06) (7.21e-06)

stdeaths 1.69e-06 1.19e-06 1.75e-06 2.15e-06 1.69e-06 1.73e-06**

(1.63e-06) (1.78e-06) (1.69e-06) (1.85e-06) (1.65e-06) (1.66e-06)

major .402 .064 .383 .273 .383 .396

(.960) (1.004) (.967) (.977) (.963) (.966)

mindur -.00044** -.00042** -.00046* -.00060** -.00047 -.00048

(.00021) (.00021) (.00024) (.00031) (.00022) (.00023)

gov 1.034* 1.138* 1.056* 1.069* .950 .941

(.631) (.641) (.648) (.644) (.661) (.652)

priv .322 .402 .342 .291 .228 .198

(.749) (.766) (.759) (.752) (.779) (.775)

mod ------ ------ .109 ------ ------ ------

(.688)

cldwar ------ ------ ------ .648 ------ ------

(.827)

pstcw89 ------ ------ ------ ------ -.360 ------

(.819)

Pstcw91 ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -.548

(.852)

N 64 62 64 64 64 64

pseudo-R2 .179 .169 .180 .186 .181 .184

Note: standard errors are in parenthesis under coefficients.

Asterisks denote significance in a two-tailed hypothesis test.

***p>.01;**p>.05;* p>.10

Analysis

Success of Military Interventions in Civil Wars: Logistic Regression

Analysis: Post-estimation tests

Success of Military Interventions in Civil Wars (vif results)

Variable VIF 1/VIFmajor 1.18 0.846tpop 1.16 0.860gov 1.16 0.865priv 1.08 0.929stdeaths 1.07 0.932mindur 1.06 0.947Mean VIF 1.12

Analysis: Post-estimation tests

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Figure 1: Scatter of Studentized Residuals

Analysis: Post-estimation tests

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Figure 2: Scatter of Leverage on the Model

Analysis: Cross-tabulation

Cross-tabulation of priv and win

win Non-privatized Privatized TotalDefeat 27 5 32

52.94 38.64 50.00Victory 24 8 32

47.06 61.54 50.00Total 51 13 64

100.00 100.00 100.00

*There is not a statistically significant relationship between priv and win. This is consistent with the findings reported in the logistic regression.

Analysis: Cross-tabulation

Cross-tabulation of mod and priv

priv Pre-modern Modern Total

Non-privatized 16 35 51

66.67 87.50 79.69

Privatized 8 5 13

33.33 12.50 20.31

Total 24 40 64

100.00 100.00 100.00

*Privatization is more prevalent in the pre-modern era which challenges the new war theorists.

Analysis: Predicted Probabilities

Predicted Probabilities: Success of Intervention and Simulated Iraq Scenario Models (Logistic Regression)

tpop stdeaths major mindur gov priv mod Iraq: Iraq: mindur stdeaths

Min./0 .56 .27 .32 .42 .32 .32 .32 .14 .09Max./1 .01 .73 .41 .09 .55 .40 .41 .03 .50Diff. -.55 .46 .09 -.33 .23 .08 .09 -.11 .41

• Beginning with a baseline model in which the continuous variables were set to their means and the categorical variables were set to zero, the impact of changes in each of these independent variables were examined.

Conclusions & Implications

• H1: privatization was not found to be statistically related to victory of civil war interventions

• H2: this lack of impact was relatively consistent across time periods which is evidence that privatized military interventions are not a new phenomenon of the modern era.

• States will likely continue to use private forces because they provide short-term benefits for the state.

• Weakness: small sample size– Enlarge time period

– Extra-systemic & MIDs