1) The document examines the impact of privatizing force on the success of state military interventions in civil wars. 2) It analyzes 64 state interventions using logistic regression and finds that privatization was not statistically related to victory and this lack of impact was consistent across time periods. 3) This provides evidence against new war theorists' arguments that privatized interventions are a new phenomenon, supporting old war theorists' view that privatized forces have long been used in war.

1. Unleashing the Dogs of War: Examining the Impact of the Privatization of
Force on the Success of State Military Interventions in Civil Wars
Haley S. Lain
Midwestern State University
Scope & Methods of Political Science
Fall 2009

2. Research Question
• What effect has the modern privatization of
force had on war?

3. Prior Research-Paradigm shifts
– Liberalism- WW1
• Locke: tabula rasa, social contract theory
• Kant: state of perpetual peace. These pacifistic ideals
form the basis of the democratic peace theory
• Idealism- post-ww1
– Angell & Shotwell placed emphasis on ideals and
institutions, such as the League of Nations and the
Kellogg-Briand Pact
– Realism- (WW2 & Cold War)
• Thucydides- History of the Peloponnesian War
• Niccolo Machiavelli- war is inevitable and cannot be
avoided or eliminated

4. Prior Research: New Wars Debate
• The peaceful end of a near-nuclear war brought renewed interest in
the study of war.
• New War theorists v. Old War theorists
– New war theorists:
• Largely derived from liberalism
• Argue that war had not just undergone a shift in its character and context,
but actually fundamental changes in its very nature.
• Kaldor 2004; Holsti 1996; Mueller 1989, 2004
– Old war theorists:
• largely derived from realism
• Argue that it is not necessary to generate new categories of war because
the very nature of war cannot change .
• Instead of fundamental changes in the nature of war, the end of the Cold
War saw a shift in the character of war and international relations.
• Henderson and Singer 2002; Hensel 2002; Gray 2005

5. Prior Research: Privatization of Force
• New war theorists argument- rise in non-state actors
• Old war theorists argument- non-state actors have been prevalent
throughout the history of war.
• However, the non-state actors discussed by new war theorists are
typically insurgent groups, and little research has examined the
privatization of force and its impact on the evolution of warfare.
• Private military forces are increasingly characterizing modern
conflict, and the privatization of force is an element which could
provide additional support for the new wars argument.
• Modern Privatization began at the end of the Cold war and has
culminated in the Iraq war with Private Security Contractors.

6. Theory
• This project seeks to compare the validity of new war
theorists’ arguments against those of old war theorists
concerning the effects of the privatization of force on
state military interventions in civil wars.
• The method of focus will be military intervention
because it is “the most visible form of intervention into
civil conflicts.”
• Using the Iraq as an example, it becomes apparent that
the success of an intervention bears not just upon the
actual intervention but the characteristics of the state
and the ongoing civil conflict.

7. Hypotheses
• H1: Privatization increases the likelihood of
successful military interventions in civil wars.
– U.S. used PSC’s because they thought it would help
them successfully fight the counterinsurgency.
• H2: The impact of the privatization of war is
consistent across time periods.
– If consistent, then validity established for old war
theorists.
– If inconsistent and more prevalent in modern periods,
then validity established for new war theorists.

8. Research Design
• Unit of analysis- state military interventions in
civil wars.
• Dataset- Correlates of War (1816-1997)
– Intrastate Wars
– Intrastate War Participants-primary
• Sampling frame- 278 participants
• Sample size- 64 participants
– only those that intervened on side of state or
opposition

9. Research Design
• Variables
– Dependent-
• win- dichotomous- on winning side=1, on losing side=0; COW Intrastate Wars & Intrastate War
Participants
– Independent-
• Characteristics of state in civil war
– top-interval measured in thousands of people; COW NMDC
• Actual intervention
– stdeaths- interval measured in thousands of people; Global Policy Intrastate Wars data
– mindur-interval measured in days; COW Intrastate War Participants
– major-dichotomous: Major=1, non-major=0; COW Intrastate War Participants
– gov- dichotomous: on side of gov=1, on side of opp.=0; COW Intrastate War Participants
– priv-dichotomous: used private forces=1, no use=0; COW Intrastate Wars & Clodfelter
• Time Period
– mod-dichotomous: 1946-present=1, pre-1946=0; COW Intrastate War Participants
– cldwar-dichotomous: 1949-1991=1, all others=0; COW Intrastate War Participants
– pstcw89- dichotomous: after 1989=1, 1989 and before=0; COW Intrastate War
Participants
– pstcw 91- dichotomous: after 1991=1; 1991 and before=0; COW Intrastate War
Participants
• Method
• Logistics Regression

10. Analysis
Logit(win)=A+B1tpop+B2stdeaths+B3major+B4mindur+B5gov+B6priv+e

11. Success of Military Interventions in Civil Wars: Logistic Regression
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6
tpop -.000018** -.000016** -.000018** .180*** -.000017** -.00002**
(7.18e-06) (7.50e-06) (7.40e-06) (7.40e-06) (7.20e-06) (7.21e-06)
stdeaths 1.69e-06 1.19e-06 1.75e-06 2.15e-06 1.69e-06 1.73e-06**
(1.63e-06) (1.78e-06) (1.69e-06) (1.85e-06) (1.65e-06) (1.66e-06)
major .402 .064 .383 .273 .383 .396
A (.960) (1.004) (.967) (.977) (.963) (.966)
n mindur -.00044**
(.00021)
-.00042**
(.00021)
-.00046*
(.00024)
-.00060**
(.00031)
-.00047
(.00022)
-.00048
(.00023)
a gov 1.034*
(.631)
1.138*
(.641)
1.056*
(.648)
1.069*
(.644)
.950
(.661)
.941
(.652)
l priv .322
(.749)
.402
(.766)
.342
(.759)
.291
(.752)
.228
(.779)
.198
(.775)
y mod ------ ------ .109
(.688)
------ ------ ------
s cldwar ------ ------ ------ .648
(.827)
------ ------
i pstcw89 ------ ------ ------ ------ -.360
(.819)
------
s Pstcw91 ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -.548
(.852)
N 64 62 64 64 64 64
pseudo-R2 .179 .169 .180 .186 .181 .184
Note: standard errors are in parenthesis under coefficients.
Asterisks denote significance in a two-tailed hypothesis test.
***p>.01;**p>.05;* p>.10

12. Analysis: Post-estimation tests
Success of Military Interventions in Civil Wars (vif results)
Variable VIF 1/VIF
major 1.18 0.846
tpop 1.16 0.860
gov 1.16 0.865
priv 1.08 0.929
stdeaths 1.07 0.932
mindur 1.06 0.947
Mean VIF 1.12

13. Analysis: Post-estimation tests
Figure 1: Scatter of Studentized Residuals
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
691
665
2
650
727
662
675
705 509509 757660 629
629
757 760 704
757
694
704 593590 515515
669 630
507 629
503515
519
655540
0
715713 662 675 693
698 600 591 702689 694
713
654 530 691
720600 600 742
600
693 713 737705 677
690
713 600 612 675
738 501
-2
-4
0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1
Pr(windum)

14. Analysis: Post-estimation tests
Figure 2: Scatter of Leverage on the Model
629
.3
698
629
693 669
654 713
.2
629
leverage
591 705
689
720 612
650 600 690
665 742
693 691 630 655
662
691 590
507
675 515
515
.1
702
540
713 704
727 593
600 662 694 704
694 738 501
503
519
713 705
530 713 675 515
660
677
757 600
675 509509 757
737 760
757
600 600
0
715
0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1
Pr(windum)

15. Analysis: Cross-tabulation
Cross-tabulation of priv and win
win Non-privatized Privatized Total
Defeat 27 5 32
52.94 38.64 50.00
Victory 24 8 32
47.06 61.54 50.00
Total 51 13 64
100.00 100.00 100.00
*There is not a statistically significant relationship between priv and
win. This is consistent with the findings reported in the logistic
regression.

16. Analysis: Cross-tabulation
Cross-tabulation of mod and priv
priv Pre-modern Modern Total
Non-privatized 16 35 51
66.67 87.50 79.69
Privatized 8 5 13
33.33 12.50 20.31
Total 24 40 64
100.00 100.00 100.00
*Privatization is more prevalent in the pre-modern era which
challenges the new war theorists.

17. Analysis: Predicted Probabilities
Predicted Probabilities: Success of Intervention and Simulated
Iraq Scenario Models (Logistic Regression)
tpop stdeaths major mindur gov priv mod Iraq: Iraq:
mindur stdeaths
Min./0 .56 .27 .32 .42 .32 .32 .32 .14 .09
Max./1 .01 .73 .41 .09 .55 .40 .41 .03 .50
Diff. -.55 .46 .09 -.33 .23 .08 .09 -.11 .41
• Beginning with a baseline model in which the continuous
variables were set to their means and the categorical
variables were set to zero, the impact of changes in each of
these independent variables were examined.

18. Conclusions & Implications
• H1: privatization was not found to be statistically
related to victory of civil war interventions
• H2: this lack of impact was relatively consistent across
time periods which is evidence that privatized military
interventions are not a new phenomenon of the
modern era.
• States will likely continue to use private forces because
they provide short-term benefits for the state.
• Weakness: small sample size
– Enlarge time period
– Extra-systemic & MIDs