 Team production on the battlefield: Evidence from NATO in AfghanistanThiemo Fetzer,
Oliver Vanden Eynde and
Austin Wright
PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL Abstract: Managing military operations across and between teams of partner nations remains a first-order challenge to security and development during conflict. NATO, under the umbrella of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), brought together troops from 28 countries to help enhance security provision in Afghanistan. ISAF units were given responsibility for specific operational units. The assignment of responsibilities to different national armed forces could lead to coordination problems. We explore whether the provision of security is affected by horizontal frictions (when different countries are responsible for different sides of borders) or vertical frictions (when different countries control different levels of the operational hierarchy). We find that both horizontal frictions and vertical frictions are also associated with higher levels of insurgent violence. They also reduce military support activities, including aid projects and patrol activity. These findings indicate that misalignment between units within military organizations can undermine the effectiveness of security and development interventions during war. Date: 2026-01 Published in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2026, 241, ⟨10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107385⟩ There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-05661393 DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107385 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL |
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