Quagmire in Civil War: A Conversation with Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl (S. 9, Ep. 7)

Jonah Schulhofer-Wohl talks about his latest book, Quagmire in Civil War, with Marc Lynch on this week’s podcast. His book explains he explains how quagmire can emerge from domestic-international interactions and strategic choices and draws upon field research on Lebanon's sixteen-year civil war, structured comparisons with civil wars in Chad and Yemen, and rigorous statistical analyses of all civil wars worldwide fought between 1944 and 2006. Schulhofer-Wohl explains, “I was very interested in digging into an idea of how it was that the groups that are fighting in civil wars can become trapped in a war…There are some wars in which it looks like for whatever reason the armed groups that are fighting in them are unable to win the war. They're unable to negotiate to make a settlement and the war just drags on. But there's something about that that's different from just a war that lasts for a very long time.” He goes on to say, “The book makes the point that we kind of have a default view of entrapment and civil war that it's based on underlying characteristics of a country or a war. So the Obama administration, for example, had a view that current conflicts in the Middle East are just incredibly complicated…And these are conflicts the United States shouldn't get involved in because they're going to be overly complicated and then they're going to be something that will entrap everyone. And by taking this strategic decision making perspective, the book actually outlines an argument that's the opposite of that, which is to say it's based on the choices that are being made by the foreign states, by the armed groups fighting the war. And it's these choices that lead to quagmire—not anything particular about the nature of the country or the kind of war that's being fought.” “I'm also trying to outline an argument for quagmire that's different from what you might hear normally about foreign interference and civil wars, which is that a country is trapped in conflict because that's what the foreign backers want. You'll