Hamas’ October 7 attack, the recent Syrian offensive, and the 2021 resurgence of the Myanmar civil war are all contexts in which armed groups launch major attacks after periods of seeming quiescence or ceasefires. These escalations have caught many by surprise, and are related to the broader question of why armed groups might decide not to lay down arms even when it seems as though they have lost or that there is a bargain to be had if only they come to the table – why keep fighting when it seems like the balance of power has turned against you?
Whether ISIS, Maoists in the Philippines and India, or various separatist forces across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, we see armed groups waging war despite seemingly long odds of success. Sometimes they are on long-term ceasefires (some of which endure like with the UWSA, while others collapse), sometimes long-running, low-level wars. In this post, I want to think through some of the reasons armed groups stay armed, and especially focus on what future expectations/hopes they have that can keep them fighting or at least mobilized (perhaps in a ceasefire) even if the objective situation at present seems bleak.
Why Armed Groups Don’t Demobilize
Political scientists have offered a number of answers to this question. In some cases, there is a commitment problem: the groups simply do not trust the state to deliver on any deal, and so it is better to keep fighting (even if victory seems unlikely) than to demobilize and then be “suckered” by the state. This is the Hobbesian problematique applied to civil conflict. In others, there is a spoiler problem: internal divisions within groups or movements that prevent deals from going through, even if there is desire among at least some contestants for a bargain – ideological and factional disagreements can contribute to ongoing conflict. In yet others, there is an information problem: actors disagree about relative power and resolve, even after years of fighting. There might also be indivisibility problems in which something being bargained over would be enormously difficult to divide (i.e. a religious site).
States and armed groups can also arrive at some kind of deal or tacit cooperation that does not require demobilization, providing mutual benefits, even if this dynamic is potentially very unstable (this is my interpretation of Netanyahu and Hamas prior to October 7). This has been a focus of my work (among others, in Perspectives on Politics 2012, my 2021 Cornell University Press book (15% off on Amazon. . .), and International Security 2024): I find these kinds of bargains and stalemates incredibly fascinating because they break down hard conceptual boundaries between war and peace. But they are weakly-institutionalized and can quickly break down into surprise attacks or spirals of escalation. I’ve spent more time on how these orders get constructed than on how they collapse, so some of this is thinking out loud about that side of things.
What are armed groups waiting for?
The extent to which any of these apply in a particular case is highly contextual, and can change over the course of a war; massive literatures exist on each that go into far greater detail (which also involves various arguments about each of the above clusters of explanation). Here I just wanted to focus on in a timely sub-question – what could an armed group hope will happen if only it can hold out longer?
I discuss three dynamics here; there are certainly others, and they are not at all mutually exclusive. They put expectations about politics and military capabilities front and center, making this very much a realm of perception and (often wildly divergent) guesses about what the future holds. These hopes and expectations often turn out to be misguided, but can give us insight into why wars persist even after seeming to hit a stalemate or opportunity for resolution. I think we are probably too quick to dismiss the possibility of major future changes when trying to understand armed group persistence – the world is an unpredictable and dynamic place, and sometimes it’s worth waiting to see what will happen.
1. Building new capabilities. This is an area in which I think political scientists need to do a lot more work. Armed groups (and states) can use a period of relative quiet to innovate, build new organizations, extract new forms of revenue and manpower, find new strategic concepts, and wait for moments in which their adversary is weak or distracted. Going quiet to get ready to try something new seems especially valuable for armed actors that are comparatively institutionalized and sophisticated – the menu of options for innovation and change is quite substantial and the ability to distract or conceal at scale may be similarly greater.
Hamas’ October 7 attacks intentionally were preceded by years of signaling restraint while secretly (-ish – it seems the Israelis had warning but didn’t realize it) building new capabilities; the Syrian opposition similarly as been reshaping itself prior to the recent offensive that captured much of Aleppo. On the government side, the Sri Lankan security apparatus came out of the 2002-2005/6 ceasefire period with a new theory of victory and accompanying military capabilities that would prove devastatingly effective. This mix of political strategy with the creation of “hard” military and organizational capabilities is very similar to militaries trying to figure out the right strategic concept and balance of forces for the next war. As with militaries, it can go horribly awry when one guesses wrong.
2. Waiting for/pursuing regime change. Groups may also be waiting to see if their opponent suddenly loses power or political resolve. This can be the result of a dramatic shock – if you think the regime is rotten to the core, then it makes sense to try to wait it out and seize an opportunity once it inevitably falters. Staying alive to be ready for the inevitable becomes a perfectly reasonable strategy. The ideological belief that your cause will carry the day may turn out to be horribly wrong, but every so often a long-time dissident/rebel movement ends up winning after decades of seeming marginalization (i.e. Lenin, Mao, Khomeini, Timor-Leste), making it at least thinkable for others. There are also plenty of cases of groups getting a deal (GAM in Aceh) or arrangement (Kurdish armed parties in northern Iraq) that gives them some of what they want. Better to wait and see if Saddam or Suharto fall than to take a bad deal now. Certainly it was far wiser for armed groups in Myanmar to hold onto their weapons than become vulnerable to the military during the 2010s.
Regime change can also be much less dramatic, simply referring to a shift in the coalition underlying the government or a reduction in its willingness to bear costs. A group can also try to actively influence these dynamics by keeping up low-level attacks that might cumulatively impose sufficient costs to trigger a rethinking of political priorities in the center.
That said, trying wait out the regime can lead to long, doomed twilight struggles that eventually peter out when that opportunity never comes. I have studied India quite a lot, where separatist movements basically always end up being waited out; similarly, Communist insurgents in Malaya and Thailand hung around for quite awhile but nothing moved in their direction and they just ended. Most armed groups fail to achieve their goals, and many spend decades failing. Others, like the Tamil Tigers, achieve some success that then engenders over-confidence about the future. But it can help us understand why groups keep their options open just in case the levee breaks (or at least springs some useful leaks that shift bargaining power and political space in their direction).
3. International reconfigurations. Finally, armed groups may be anticipating a shift in international conditions that can open new space for attacking or putting pressure on the state, and possibly new opportunities to gain external backing. Regional and even global conditions can be quite dynamic, whether in central Africa (the DRC conflicts have had a major international component), the rise and fall of the Cold War across many internal conflicts globally, or shifts in the nature of humanitarian intervention.
Over the years, I’ve had a number of conversations with people in Kashmir and the Northeast who have wondered about what consequences for them might arise from a major India-China war, for instance. It’s also interesting to consider how China’s rise might impact internal security issues in its neighbors, countries with BRI projects, etc. In the Middle East, the violent shifts in the balance of power between various actors over the last 2 decades have radically changed, for better and worse, the opportunities available to a wide variety of non-state actors. Waiting to see if something breaks right internationally can be a plausible strategy in environments where you might have reason to expect some real churn.
All of this points toward more research on armed group expectations (linked, sometimes, to perceptions and ideologies) and capability-building and strategy formation during periods of relative “quiet.” Political life is full of surprises, and we need to better understand where they come from.
Paul Staniland 