The Geography of Civil War
| Author | SCOTT GATES,HALVARD BUHAUG |
| Published date | 01 July 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343302039004003 |
| Date | 01 July 2002 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
417
When I took a decision, or adopted an alterna-
tive, it was after studying every relevant . . .
factor. Geography, tribal structure, religion,
social customs, language, appetites, standards –
all were at my finger-ends.
T. E. Lawrence, Letter to B. H. Liddell Hart,
June 1933 (Collins, 1998: 3)
Introduction
Lawrence of Arabia’s observation is as true
today as it was in his time. In recent years,
our theoretical and empirical understanding
of the factors identified by Lawrence as
related to the onset and duration of civil war
© 2002 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 39, no. 4, 2002, pp. 417–433
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks,
CA and New Delhi)
[0022-3433(200207)39:4; 417–433; 025821]
The Geography of Civil War*
HALVARD BUHAUG
Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of
Science & Technology (NTNU) & International Peace Research Institute,
Oslo (PRIO)
SCOTT GATES
Department of Political Science, Michigan State University & International
Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO)
Geographical factors play a critical role in determining how a civil war is fought and who will prevail.
Drawing on the PRIO/Uppsala Armed Conflict dataset covering the period 1946–2000, the authors
have determined the location of all battle-zones for all civil wars in this time period, thereby identify-
ing the geographic extent and the center point of each conflict. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) and
three-stage least squares (3SLS) estimation techniques, factors are analyzed that determine the scope of
the conflict (area of the conflict zone) and the location of the conflict relative to the capital. It is found
that in addition to geographical factors such as the total land area of the country, scope is strongly
shaped by such factors as the adjacencies of a border of a neighboring country, the incidence of natural
resources in the conflict zone, and the duration of the conflict. The distance of the conflict zone from
the capital is influenced by the scope of the conflict, the size of the country, whether or not the objec-
tive of the rebels is to secede, and whether or not the rebel group has a religious or ethnic identity. Also,
evidence is found of an endogenous relationship between scope and location.
* An earlier version of this article was presented at the
annual North American meeting of the Peace Science
Society (International), Atlanta, GA, 26–28 October
2001. We thank the Research Council of Norway, the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
(NTNU), and the World Bank for funding various parts
of the data collection. The work on locating the conflicts
was conducted as part of a cross-disciplinary project at
NTNU on geographic diffusion of conflict, where Haakon
Lein and Jan Ketil Rød have made essential contributions.
Furthermore, we are grateful to the Department of Peace
and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, for collabor-
ation on the conflict data, Anke Hoeffler for providing
data on mountainous terrain, and Nils Petter Gleditsch,
Mansoob Murshed, and five anonymous referees for
insightful comments on an earlier draft. The data on
which the article is based will be posted at http:
//www.prio.no/cwp/datasets.asp.
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has progressed tremendously.1Yet, despite
important insights gained from this research,
we have very little systematic knowledge
about the actual fighting of civil wars. Ironi-
cally, one reason for the general lack of
understanding in this regard is that there is
little or no actual fighting or war in these
models of war onset or duration. There are
no battles, no deaths, no weapons, no guer-
rilla tactics, and no counter-insurgency
activities. Territory and resources are never
lost or gained. There are no victories and
there are no defeats. Yet, motivations regard-
ing peace and war are clearly linked to the
prospects of winning or losing a civil war. In
addition to securing wealth through the
capture of resources, civil wars are often
fought over a political objective – control
over the apparatus of the state or the creation
of a new sovereign state. Clearly, different
objectives will alter the way a civil war is
fought. A war over control of the state will
fundamentally differ from a war of secession.
Military historians and strategists have long
understood how geographical factors play a
critical role in influencing how a civil war is
fought and who will prevail. Taking military
history as a departure point, this paper exam-
ines how strategic objectives and geographi-
cal factors affect the location, relative to the
capital, and scope (measured conflict area) of
armed civil conflict.
Geographic Factors and Armed Civil
Conflict
Physical Geographical Factors
The earliest military strategists understood
the role of geography and conflict. In his
Discoursi, Machiavelli (1517/1988: 52–53)
wrote that a soldier must become ‘familiar
with the terrain: how mountains rise, how
the valleys open out and plains spread out,
as well as with the characteristics of rivers
and swamps’. Keegan (1993) in his History
of Warfare features the role of geographic
variables and distinguishes between ‘perma-
nently operating’ and ‘contingent’ factors.
Permanent factors include terrain and
climate. These factors have long been the
focus of military tacticians and military
historians.2And presumably because such
stories are more interesting, the majority of
such studies have featured the catastrophic
blunders caused by commanders ignoring
geography, including the likes of Major
General George McClellan at Antietem
(1862), General Baron Levin Bennigsen at
Friedland (1807), General Ludwig Benedek
at Könnigratz (1866), and Lieutenant
General Mark Clark at Rapido in the Battle
for Italy (1944). In contrast, gifted generals,
of course, consistently have taken such
factors into account and, where possible,
have used them to their advantage.
Keegan’s second concept, contingent
geographic factors, relates to the constraints
on logistics and intelligence. To ignore these
factors is to ignore Clausewitz’s admonition,
‘the end for which a soldier is recruited,
clothed, armed and trained, the whole
object of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and
marching is simply that he should fight at the
right place and the right time’ (Murray, 1999:
210). Geography is not just important on
the battlefield, but at the operational level
as well. With ruinous results, such
renowned military minds as Napoleon and
the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) of
Nazi Germany neglected these factors in
their attempts to conquer Russia and the
Soviet Union respectively. It seems that
social scientists too, in their analyses of civil
war, also have tended to ignore the role of
journal of PEACE RESEARCH volume 39 / number 4 / july 2002
418
1The other articles included in the special issue serve as
testimony to the tremendous strides we have made in
understanding the onset and nature of civil war in recent
years. See Sambanis (2002) and Gates (2001) for reviews
of the literature.
2In addition to Keegan (1993), see Collins (1998) and
Murray (1999) for discussions regarding the role of geog-
raphy in warfare.
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