Fearon and Laitin's article suggests that, while there has been a demonstrable increase in the number of inter-state conflicts, or civil wars, since the end of World War Two, the most obvious hypothetical "causes" of this upswing in inter-state wars can be statistically disproven. Cited among these specious determinants are ethnic and racial diversity which are discounted as primary contributors by the article's authors.
In fact any "particular cultural demography -- by itself" is viewed as only a partial determinant for civil war. Additionally, traditional viewpoints which regard the end of the Cold War as a primary factor re discounted and the rise if civil wars and insurgent wars are viewed by the article's authors as stemming form the post-colonial fallout after World War Two. The current level of civil war impacting one in six countries "had already been reached prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union" (Laitin, 2003, p. 75).The authors posit three primary (and a host of secondary and tertiary) determinants: low income, rough terrain, and foreign or third-party support.
The article defines "insurgency" as "a technology of military conflict characterized by small, lightly armed bands practicing guerilla warfare" and it is precisely this kind of inter-state warfare which has increased in frequency in the post World War Two world (Laitin, 2003, p. 75).Among the three primary determinants, low income can viewed as the motivator among post=colonial states in the Middle East, in Africa, and in Asia where statistical studies predicted "that the $1,000 less in income corresponds to 34% greater annual odds of outbreak"; similarly, rough terrain provides opportunity for secure and hidden strong-holds for insurgents with mountainous terrain alone "significantly related to higher rates of civil war," (Laitin, 2003, p. 83-85).The intervention or support of a third-party is also credited as being a primary determinant in regards to the predisposition toward insurgency.
This kind of intervention may prove crucial to the finalization of the creating of a "hot" insurgency in an at-risk state: "one determinant of the prospects for insurgency in the availability of a third-party support" (Laitin, 2004, p. 86). In assessing the merits of the article, the issue of statistical viability seemed to come up again and again.Even though the authors present a compelling and well-researched study, which is backed up with copious statistics, charts, and comparative data, the conclusions they reach seem somewhat out of step with the meticulous arrangement of the evidences. In other words, it is one thing to prove that the rise of insurgent warfare exists, another thing to prove that this rise is due to a post-colonial global-poltical evolution -- but still quite another thing altogether to suggest that specific reasons (and presumably exhaustive reasons) have been assigned for the increase in insurgencies.
The authors are careful to say that civil wars and insurgencies do not indicate a "failed" nation state, but rather a state which is the process of cultural and political evolution. This idea seems viable but is not actually backed up by the bulk of the article or the evidence presented in the article which often seems to suggest the opposite: that state's which employ unjust or unequal policies can be held at a higher risk of an insurgency meant, precisely, to destroy the exisitng nation-state.One question suggested, but not addressed by the article is whether or not an increase of income, infrastructure, and opportunity within high-risk states would merely quell the opportunity for insurgent warfare, or actually diminish the divisiveness within a nation and make the nation so strong it would, in turn, be more disposed toward imperialism or intervention in foreign nations.
