Insurgency matrix/database

[Entropy]

Hey all,

I'm looking for a relatively simple tabulated list (like excel) or database of insurgencies over the last 100 years or so for a pet project. Ideally this list would have just the basic facts: name of the insurgency, who participated, what the outcome was, dates, etc.

[Tom Odom]

Start with the USMC Small Wars Center of Excellence. Look at their past and current small wars lists

[aborgu]

There's also a list of 89 insurgencies with assessments of outcomes and endings in a recent RAND report, "War by Other Means: Building Complete and Balanced Capabilities for Counterinsurgency". It's in Appendix A to the report and was authored by Martin C Libicki.

Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG595.2/

[JeffWolf]

Entropy:

Two guesses that might be profitable:

1) I'd take a look at the Political Instability Task Force website (http://globalpolicy.gmu.edu/pitf/).

2) I'd also look at Barbara Harff and Ted Robert Gurr's websites: Minorities at Risk (http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/bio.asp?id=2) and Polity IV (http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm).

Two more likely successes:

3) David Laitin and James Fearon have a compilation at the end of their article in the February 2003 issue of the American Political Science Review, "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War." It won't be tabulated since it's in text, but it should be easy enough to input the data (<1 hour).

4) Last, a compilation of asymmetric wars (although not necessarily insurgencies) can be found, I think, in Ivan Arreguin-Toft's "How the Weak Win Wars." The same disclaimer about tabulation applies.

Thanks
Jeff

[Entropy]

Thanks everyone - I appreciate the help!

[JeffWolf]

Check out pages 7 - 10

http://www.stanford.edu/~jfearon/papers/addtabs.pdf

[Dan M.]

To expand on Entropy's earlier request, does anyone know of a civil war/insurgency database or list that includes coding for incumbent regime's COIN doctrine?

(Preferably not only by conflict, but also by year of conflict. E.g. many argue OIF strategy changed in 2007 by adopting classic COIN doctrine, affecting duration and intensity of the conflict).

Originally Posted by Entropy

Hey all,

I'm looking for a relatively simple tabulated list (like excel) or database of insurgencies over the last 100 years or so for a pet project. Ideally this list would have just the basic facts: name of the insurgency, who participated, what the outcome was, dates, etc.

[selil]

Question. Is this something that is needed as a web application? A database that has conflicts, years, generals other topics as searchable? Type of conflict? More than a wiki?

[Cavguy]

Has anyone come across or generated this dataset?

I found a good one in the appendix of the recent RAND study of how terrorists end - anyone have a correlates of war type dataset?

[CaptCav_CoVan]

I recommend Robert B. Asprey's two-volume set "War in the Shadows" from which you could outline the insurgencies (fair amount of work and it is current as of 1991). There are also good refrernces for some of the lesser-know insurgencies.