My research examines the conduct and consequences of proxy warfare,
relationships between armed and security-sector organizations,
civil-military relations, wartime alliances, military operations, and civil wars--
with special attention to the human cost of war.
relationships between armed and security-sector organizations,
civil-military relations, wartime alliances, military operations, and civil wars--
with special attention to the human cost of war.
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Dissertation Project:
Cooperative Coercion: Explaining (Un)Reliability of Proxy Armed Groups Under what conditions can states control their proxies in foreign civil wars? What strategies do they use and how effective are these strategies at achieving control?
I offer a typology of the full menu of strategies that state sponsors of non-state armed groups use and demonstrate that states do indeed use these tools and believe in their logics. The dissertation tests whether the strategies that state sponsors believe they can leverage to shape the behavior of their proxies actually work through in-depth case studies of key proxy sponsors in the Syrian civil war: the United States, Turkey, Iran, and Gulf states. These case studies draw on interviews with American civilian policymakers, military commanders, and Special Operators; text analysis of English-language news out of Syria; and original datasets of armed groups supported by each major external state sponsor in the war. |
Coalition forces conduct mortar training for Syrian Democratic Forces, SOJTF-OIR Facebook, posted September 18, 2018.
Basic training for US-supported Maghawir a-Thawra group, September 22, 2019. https://twitter.com/SOJTFOIR/status/1189563609677828096
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Black Hawk helicopter over National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California (photo taken by Sara Plana)
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Selected Working Papers: "Loyalty Can’t Be Bought: Explaining Military Defection during Civilian Uprisings”
“Anatomy of a Safe Area: The Military Requirements of Humanitarian Protection During Civil Wars” "Proxies and the Public: Public Support for Military Aid to States and Militias" (work in progress) “Sustain, Change, or Terminate: Explaining Shifts in External Support in Civil Wars,” with Meg Guliford. (work in progress) "How Proxy Wars End" |
Selected Policy Publications:Seven Bad Options to Counter State Sponsorship of Proxies, in Lawfare Blog, September 13, 2020
Why Proxy Wars Endure and End, in Proxy Wars Initiative, a Carnegie Corporation-funded project, May 8, 2020. Proxy War: The 'Least Bad Option' or the 'Second-to-Last-Resort'? as part of “Book Review Roundtable: Understanding Proxy Warfare,” Texas National Security Review, March 17, 2020. Trump wants a safe zone in Syria. Is that even possible?, in MonkeyCage blog, the Washington Post, January 24, 2019. War Isn’t (Quite) the Right Metaphor for COVID-19, with Sanne Verschuren in Political Violence at a Glance, May 20, 2020. Civil-military relations under President Trump, for précis, a student newsletter for MIT’s Center for International Studies, December 19, 2017. |
Sign warning beachgoers of loose explosives and munitions in Vieques, Puerto Rico, site of military exercises and chemical testing by the US Navy (photo taken by Sara Plana)
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