The Global to the Local: International Change and Military Aid to Civil Wars

• In Event: The Influence of Global Dynamics on Local Wars

Abstract

Scholars and analysts have identified various conflict axes that are purported to have driven external involvement in civil wars over time, from superpower rivalry under bipolarity during the Cold War, to the prominence of ethnonationalism in the 1990s, to the more recent proliferation of transnational jihadism. But to what extent are these conflict axes reflected in empirical data on external aid—in who supports whom, and how? And how sensitive are external support dynamics to shifts in the international landscape? This chapter answers these questions by examining the impact of changes in the international system on the characteristics of external support in civil wars. Leveraging descriptive data drawn from the conflict literature, it assesses the significance of structural, sponsor-side, and rebel-side changes for global trends in assistance to civil war combatants. In doing so, it assesses whether dynamics of support mirror changes in the international system or are instead resilient to systemic shocks. Our findings shed new light on the complex interplay between global tensions and local wars, providing fresh insights on the prevalence of state competition in foreign conflicts, temporal changes in the configuration of aid flows, and the evolving landscape of international involvement in contemporary warfare.

Authors

• Noel Anderson, University of Toronto

• Arthur Stein, Université de Montréal