Scholars of civil war and insurgency have long posited that insurgent organizations and their state enemies incur costs for the collateral damage they cause. We provide the first direct quantitative evidence that wartime informing to counterinsurgent forces is affected by civilian victimization. Using newly declassified data on tip flow to Coalition forces in Iraq we find that information flow goes down after government forces inadvertently kill civilians and it goes up when insurgents do so. These results confirm a relationship long posited in the theoretical literature on insurgency but never directly observed, have strong policy implications, and are consistent with a broad range of circumstantial evidence on the topic.
American Forces Press Service. 2006b. Marines Unearth Weapons Caches; Tipsters Lead Troops to more Caches. Washington, DC: Armed Forces Press Service.
3.
AlkhuzaiAmir H.AhmadIhsan J.HweelMohammed J.IsmailThakir W.HasanHanan H.Rahman YounisA.ShawaniOsman. 2008. “Violence-related Mortality in Iraq from 2002 to 2006.” The New England Journal of Medicine3580 (5): 484–93.
BermanEliShapiroJacob N.FelterJoseph H.. 2011. “Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq.” Journal of Political Economy1190 (4): 766–819.
8.
BermanEliFelterJoseph H.ShapiroJacob N.. 2018. Small Wars, Big Data: How the Empirical Revolution Can Help Fight and Win Today’s Wars. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
9.
BermanEliCallenMichaelFelterJoseph H.ShapiroJacob N.. 2011. “Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines.” Journal of Conflict Resolution55 (4): 496–528.
10.
BiddleStephenFriedmanJeffrey A.ShapiroJacob N.. 2012. “Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?” International Security370 (1): 7–40.
11.
BoyleMichael J.2009. “Bargaining, Fear, and Denial: Explaining Violence against Civilians in Iraq 2004–2007.” Terrorism and Political Violence210 (2): 261–87.
12.
CameronA. ColinGelbachJonah B.MillerDouglas L.. 2008. “Bootstrap-based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors.” The Review of Economics and Statistics900 (3): 414–27.
13.
CarlsmithKevin M.DarleyJohn M.RobinsonPaul H.. 2002. “Why Do We Punish? Deterrence and Just Deserts as Motives for Punishment.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology830 (2): 284.
14.
CastroDaniel A.2007. Do Psychological Operations Benefit from the Use of Host Nation Media?Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School.
15.
ClutterbuckRichard L.1966. The Long, Long War: Counterinsurgency in Malaya and Vietnam. Praeger.
16.
CondraLuke N.FelterJoseph H.IyengarRadha K.ShapiroJacob N.. 2010. The Effect of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq (Technical report). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
17.
CondraLuke N.ShapiroJacob N.. 2012. “Who Takes the Blame? The Strategic Effects of Collateral Damage.” American Journal of Political Science560 (1): 167–87.
18.
CrombagHansRassinEricHorselenbergRobert. 2003. “On Vengeance.” Psychology, Crime and Law90 (4): 333–44.
GreenstoneMichaelHannaRema. 2014. “Environmental Regulations, Air and Water Pollution, and Infant Mortality in India.” American Economic Review1040 (10): 3038–72.
HicksMadelyn Hsiao-ReiDardaganHamitBagnallPeter M.SpagatMichaelSlobodaJohn A.. 2011. “Casualties in Civilians and Coalition Soldiers from Suicide Bombings in Iraq, 2003–10: A Descriptive Study.” The Lancet3780 (9794): 906–14.
28.
HicksMadelyn Hsiao-ReiDardaganHamitSerdánGabriela GuerreroBagnallPeter M.SlobodaJohn A.SpagatMichael. 2009. “The Weapons that Kill Civilians–Deaths of Children and Noncombatants in Iraq, 2003–2008.” New England Journal of Medicine3600 (16): 1585–88.
29.
HicksMadelyn Hsiao-ReiDardaganHamitSerdánGabriela GuerreroBagnallPeter M.SlobodaJohn A.SpagatMichael. 2011. “Violent Deaths of Iraqi Civilians, 2003-2008: Analysis by Perpetrator, Weapon, Time, and Location.” PLoS Medicine80 (2): e1000415.
30.
HollenbachFlorian M.PierskallaJan H.. 2015. “A Re-Assessment of Reporting Bias in Event-Bsed Violence Data with Respect to Cell Phone Coverage.” Research & Politics4 (3). doi: 10.1177/2053168017730687.
Irish Republican Army. 1985. Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army: Notes on Guerrilla Warfare. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press.
33.
KalyvasStathis N.2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press.
34.
KalyvasStathis N.LangePeterBatesRobert H.ComissoEllenHallPeterMigdalJoelMilnerHelen. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. New York: Cambridge University Press.
35.
KitsonFrank. 1971. Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peace-keeping. London: Faber and Faber.
36.
LeeCarrie. 2012. “Holding Hearts and Minds: The Effect of Boots on the Ground in Iraq.” Stanford University.
37.
LewisErikMohlerGeorgeJeffrey BrantinghamP.BertozziAndrea L.. 2012. “Self-exciting Point Process Models of Civilian Deaths in Iraq.” Security Journal250 (3): 244–64.
38.
LyallJason. 2009. “Does Indiscriminate Violence Incite Insurgent Attacks? Evidence from Chechnya.” Journal of Conflict Resolution53 (3): 331–62.
39.
LyallJasonBlairGraemeImaiKosuke. 2013. “Explaining Support for Combatants during Wartime: A Survey Experiment in Afghanistan.” American Political Science Review1070 (04): 679–705.
40.
LyallJasonImaiKosukeShiraitoYuki. 2013. “Coethnic Bias and Wartime Informing.” The Journal of Politics77 (3): 833–48.
MilesDonna. 2007. “Iraqi Tips Lead to Bomb Factory Discovery.” Armed Forces Press Service.
43.
Multi-National Corps—Iraq. 2007a. Point Paper. US Central Command, US Department of Defense.
44.
Multi-National Corps—Iraq. 2007b. Measuring Tips. Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Central Command, US Department of Defense.
45.
Multi-National Corps—Iraq. 2008. MNC-I Tips Report. Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Central Command, US Department of Defense.
46.
Multi-National Forces—Iraq. 2007. MNF-I Statistics Seminar. Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Central Command, US Department of Defense.
47.
NaglJohn A.2009. Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
48.
O’ConnorKieranAdamsGabrielle S.. 2013. “Affective Antecedents of Revenge.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences360 (01): 29–30.
49.
PriceMeganBallPatrick. 2014. “Big Data, Selection Bias, and the Statistical Patterns of Mortality in Conflict.” SAIS Review of International Affairs340 (1): 9–20.
50.
SchumannKarinaRossMichael. 2010. “The Benefits, Costs, and Paradox of Revenge.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass40 (12): 1193–205.
51.
SempleKirk. 2006. “U.S. Backs Hot Line in Iraq to Solicit Tips about Trouble.” New York Times.
ShapiroJacob N.WeidmannNils. 2015. “Is the Phone Mightier than the Sword? Cell Phones and Insurgent Violence in Iraq.” International Organization690 (2): 247–74.
54.
ShaverAndrew. Forthcoming. “Wartime Informing and Insurgent Violence.” International Studies Quarterly.
55.
SolonGaryHaiderSteven J.WooldridgeJeffrey. 2013. What Are We Weighting For? (Technical report). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
56.
TaberR.1965. War of the Flea: A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory and Practice. New York: The Citadel Press.
57.
TataAnthony. 2007. “IEDs: Combating Roadside Bombs.” Washington Post.
58.
ThompsonSir Robert. 1966. Defeating Communist Insurgency. London: Chatto & Windus.
59.
TrinquierR.2006. Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency. Greenwood Publishing Group.
60.
TrofimovYaroslav. 2010. “Cell Carriers Bow to Taliban Threat.” Wall Street Journal.
61.
Tse-TungMao. 1961. On Guerrilla Warfare. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
62.
US Central Command, U.S. Department of Defense. 2007. Point Paper. Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Central Command, US Department of Defense.
63.
US Department of Defense. 2007. Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq – September 2007. Washington, DC: Department of Defense.
64.
WeidmannNils B.2016. “A Closer Look at Reporting Bias in Conflict Event Data.” American Journal of Political Science60 (1): 206–18.
65.
World Food Programme, UN. 2008. Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis. Ghana: World Food Programme, UN.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
