EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Insurgent Learning

Francesco Trebbi, Eric Weese, Austin L. Wright and Andrew Shaver

Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy, 2020, vol. 1, issue 3, 417-448

Abstract: Over the past decade the United States has invested substantial economic resources in protecting its troops against improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Yet we know little about the impact of these investments on combat tactics and soldier safety. We introduce a model of insurgent learning where combatants adapt during an asymmetric war using defensive and offensive technological innovation. We test comparative statics of the model using declassified military records on individual IED explosions in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2014. Consistent with insurgent learning, we show that detonation and casualty rates did not decline during this period. This microlevel evidence is also consistent with the qualitative historical record from other substate conflicts. We conclude by decomposing variable input costs for defensive and offensive innovation presented in military documents.

Keywords: Insurgency; civil war; combat tactics; dynamic learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/112.00000013 (application/xml)

Related works:
Working Paper: Insurgent Learning (2017) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jnlpip:113.00000013

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy from now publishers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucy Wiseman ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:now:jnlpip:113.00000013