Deterrence with Proxies
Principal Investigator: Eli Berman, University of California, San Diego
Co-Investigators: Stephen Biddle, Columbia University; Joseph Felter, Stanford University; Esteban Klor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; David Laitin, Stanford University; David Lake, University of California, San Diego; Gerard Padro i Miguel, Yale University; Jacob Shapiro, Princeton University; Oliver Vanden Eynde, Paris School of Economics; Pierre Yared, Columbia University
Years of Award: 2014-2019
Supporting Service Agency: Office of Naval Research
Project Description
The objective of the Deterrence with Proxies project is to develop and test a parsimonious game theoretic model of sub-state threat suppression through proxies. We have created and tested a model that can describe the strategic challenge of managing proxies in providing international security, specifically in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. In year one, it became clear that US military practitioners had a competing doctrine in mind, in which the proxy fails to suppress threats because it lacks capacity, so that the principal should build proxy capacity to achieve success. This is easily refuted by evidence of proxies diverting capacity to uses other than threat suppression. Ongoing research is expanding the model and testing proxy capacity building among actions a principal can take.
Project Website
Owl in the Olive Tree posts
Select Publications
- Berman, Eli, and David Lake, eds. 2019. Proxy Wars: Suppressing Violence through Local Agents. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Berman, Eli, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro, with Vestal McIntyre. 2018. Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Biddle, Stephen, Julia Macdonald, and Ryan Baker. 2018. Small Footprint, Small Payoff: The Military Utility of Security Force Assistance. Journal of Strategic Studies. 41(1-2): 89-142.
- Biddle, Stephen, Julia Macdonald, and Ryan Baker. 2017. The Trump Administration Wants to Send More Military Advisers to Afghanistan. Good Luck with That. Washington Post. May 15.
- Biddle, Stephen. 2017. Trump's Appetite for Risk Spells Trouble for US National Security. Fortune. April 7.
- Biddle, Stephen, and Jacob Shapiro. 2016. The Problem with Vows to 'Defeat' the Islamic State. Atlantic Monthly. August 21.
- Biddle, Stephen. 2016. Afghanistan Needs a Settlement, Not Another Troop-Withdrawal Deadline. Defense One. June 7.
- Biddle, Stephen. 2017. Building Security Forces and Stabilizing Nations: The Problem of Agency. Daedalus. 146(4): 126-138.
- Felter, Joseph, and Jacob N. Shapiro. 2017. Limiting Civilian Casualties as Part of a Winning Strategy: The Case of Courageous Restraint. Daedalus. 146(1): 44-58.
- Lake, David A. 2016. The Statebuilder's Dilemma: On the Limits of Foreign Intervention. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
- Lake, David A. 2018. International Legitimacy Lost? Rule and Resistance When America Is First. Perspectives on Politics. 16(1): 6-12.
- Lake, David A. 2017. Domination, Authority, and the Forms of Chinese Power. Chinese Journal of International Politics. 10(4): 357-382.
- Lake, David A. 2018. Modes of Governance: Hierarchy and Coercion. In The Oxford Handbook of Governance and Limited Statehood, edited by Thomas Risse, Tanja A. Borzel, and Anke Draude. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 293-311.
- Shapiro, Jacob N 2016. A Predictable Failure: The Political Economy of the Decline of the Islamic State. CTC Sentinel. 9(9): 28-32.
- Shapiro, Jacob N. 2017. How We Can Kill Terrorism with Kindness. Time. January 5.
- Shapiro, Jacob N. 2017. The Flawed Logic of Trump's Executive Order: How Not to Fight Terrorism. Foreign Affairs.
- Shapiro, Jacob N., and Caitlin Tulloch. 2016. A Military Guide to Accessing Research on Fragile States. War on the Rocks. June 22.
- Vanden Eynde, Oliver. 2018. The Targets of Violence: Evidence from India's Naxalite Conflict. Economic Journal. 128(609): 887-916.
- Ghatak, Maitreesh, and Oliver Vanden Eynde. 2017. Economic Determinants of the Maoist Conflict in India. Economic and Political Weekly. 52(39): 69-76.
- Lehne, Jonathan, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Oliver Vanden Eynde. 2018. Building Connections: Political Corruption and Road Construction in India. Journal of Development Economics. 131: 62-78.