It was reported that a CIA commission found that arming rebels in civil wars is ineffective. That might not strike many who remember the 1980s as a shocker, but do its findings stand up empirically? After all, the Reagan administration funneled arms to Afghan mujahedeen fighters, a move often held up as an example of blowback and a reason not to arm rebels in Syria. But we largely accomplished our immediate goals of pushing the Soviets out of Afghanistan (we just botched the postwar plan after they left). I wonder if the CIA analysts eyeballed any of the countless scholarly articles on the subject. If they did, they would find a mixed bag, though one on balance in favor of their findings. On one hand, insurgents are winning a larger percentage of wars than they were in the pre-Cold War era, a function, at least partially, of outsider actors meddling. On the other hand, we all know the litany of Bay of Pigs-style botched covert operations.

Since World War II, nearly three out of five civil wars saw some kind of third-party intervention. The bulk of these have entailed the supply of arms, aid, and bases, not putting boots on the ground. Of the conflicts with no third-party intervention, the average length of conflict was 1.5 years. By contrast, those with outside intervention saw an average length of seven years. The longest of these wars typically were framed as part of a larger (and often nonexistent) Cold War narrative (not all were – Lebanon, Ethiopia, to name just a few). Scholars disagree on the precise mechanisms behind the role of aiding rebels. Some point to a greater number of veto players inhibiting peace settlements, while others point out that such outside support tends to be just enough to keep the conflict festering but not enough to provide a decisive outcome (For more on divisions within the scholarly literature on interventions, see my recent Washington Post Monkey Cage piece).

The CIA study is often mentioned as being in line with a 2011 article by Salehyan, Gleditsch and Cunningham. But these authors’ analysis focuses primarily on the role of transnational constituencies – ethnic diaspora communities and such – and their support for ethnic-kin rebels (Even in their appendix, they confirm that in over 80 percent of their cases, the third-party interveners were those with either transnational constituencies or rivals present). These authors’ main takeaway is not that arming rebel groups exacerbates civil wars but rather that transnational linkages can influence which group intervenes on which side (Though they give a pretty thin discussion behind the mechanisms of their findings, an oversight that prompted a whole book of essays from qualitative scholars criticizing their approach).

When the CIA comes out and, in effect says, “Arming rebels is bad – remember Nicaragua?”, we should be very skeptical.

Farmers and Doctors

In the case of Syria, what do we mean by supporting the rebels? In the early days, a no-fly zone or safe haven would have been required to truly affect the balance of power internally, not just supplying the opposition with non-lethal MREs. Contrary to previous calls by some that such a zone was “irrelevant” to Syria because of the regime’s non-use of fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters earlier on, soon Assads forces began carrying out brutal massacre after brutal massacre from just such aircraft, using crude barrel bombs throughout 2013. Indeed, from what we know about past civil conflicts, when regime forces are stretched thin and loya