Removing the Crutch: External Support and the Dynamics of Armed Conflict

Empirical analysis of civil wars wherein rebels receive support from outside states or actors confirms the expectation that such external support is correlated with conflicts that, on average, are longer than civil wars without external support. When this assistance is lost, the empirical results are at odds with the expectation that these wars should end more rapidly. Instead, wars in which there is a break in external support are more likely to continue into the next calendar year than even those wars with continued external support. This counterintuitive finding suggests a re-evaluation of theoretical foundations of external support to rebel groups.