Book Project

The Fortification Dilemma

How does border fortification shape the micro-dynamics of civil conflict? My book pioneers a border-centric approach to the transnational dimensions of civil war. It outlines several trade-offs confronting counterinsurgents who fortify borders to stem cross-border militancy, highlighting how resource constraints shape rebel tactics, how rebels and civilians adapt to the expansion of state authority in borderland communities, and how U.S. border-security assistance has inadvertently fueled border hardening.

Recent civil conflicts — from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan, Ukraine, India, and Somalia — highlight three phenomena: the U.S. increasingly funds border-control initiatives abroad to counter transnational threats; borders are hardening in response; and because rebels exploit transnational safe havens, border control has important consequences for the conduct of civil war. Drawing on new cross-national data on border-control measures and U.S. border-security aid, fine-grained microdata from Iraq and Afghanistan, restricted-access survey data, and qualitative archival evidence, the book shows that insurgent adaptations to border control generate critical trade-offs for counterinsurgents. Two related articles appear in the American Journal of Political Science, on Iraq and Afghanistan.