Unholy alignment and boomerang civil conflicts: Examining how conflicts beget conflicts through external states support for rebels

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on external state support for rebel movements by developing an analytical tool to explain how external support for rebels leads to civil conflict onset and intensification in the target state and how conflict reverses to the sponsoring state, engendering conflict diffusion and continuation. I present a two-fold argument that a cooperative relationship between external states and rebels triggers the remote causes of civil conflict, translating latent grievances into manifest conflict in the target state. Further, the resulting conflict has a boomerang effect. It has the potential to reverse to the sponsoring state. I do this by using a case studies method – cooperative relationships of governments of Sudan and Chad with each other’s rebels vis-à-vis Sudan Civil War (2000–2005) and Chad Civil War (2005–2010) – to provide a detailed explanation of the framework and its hypotheses. The explanations I offer here may help us understand some African conflict dynamics for us to take some recent developments, for example, in the Great Lakes, more seriously.