How Insurgencies End

Insurgencies have dominated the focus of the U.S. military for the past seven years, but they have a much longer history than that and are likely to figure prominently in future U.S. military operations. Thus, the general characteristics of insurgencies and, more important, how they end are of great interest to U.S. policy makers. This study constitutes the unclassified portion of a two-part study that examines insurgencies in great detail. The methodological approach had two components. One was a review of insurgency and counterinsurgency COIN literature. The second was a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 89 insurgency case studies. The quantitative research revealed some useful insights into the relative success or failure of various methods employed by each side as they apply to insurgency endings. Among the key findings are the following Modern insurgencies last approximately 10 years, and the governments chances of winning may increase slightly over time Withdrawal of state sponsorship cripples an insurgency and typically leads to its defeat Inconsistent or impartial support to either side generally presages defeat and Anocracies pseudodemocracies do not often succeed against insurgencies and are rarely successful in fully democratizing. Other findings are as follows Insurgencies with more than two clear parties involved have longer, more-violent, and more-complex endings Over the long run, governments tend to win more often than not Governments benefit from direct support but tend to lose more frequently when provided indirect support Unified hierarchies do better at insurgency than do fragmented networks Insurgencies rarely succeed in middle-income and urbanized countries Those insurgent groups that were able to restrict their use of terrorism by minimizing civilian casualties were more likely to win than those that did not Weak insurgents can win and Sanctuary is vital to insurgencies.