🧨 Why Do Civil Wars Erupt in Capital Cities? And Why Do States Keep Fueling Them Across Borders?
At The Security Nexus, we ask uncomfortable questions about strategy, sovereignty, and the strange places where war begins.
Conventional wisdom says rebellion starts in the hinterlands—far from the eyes and ears of the state. But what if the next insurgency is brewing downtown?
🧠 Rebellion Begins with Organization—Not Outrage
Recent data tells us something surprising: many of today’s rebel groups form in cities—especially capital cities—not in rural backwaters. That’s not just a footnote. It’s a direct challenge to how national security professionals think about insurgency.
Gary Uzonyi and Ore Koren’s 2023 study shows that nearly one in five rebel groups since WWII emerged from a country’s capital. Why? Because cities are where political parties, student unions, labor networks, and disillusioned elites already live, organize, and mobilize. Urban rebels don’t need jungle cover—they need a constituency and a cause.
The decision to rebel is rarely spontaneous. It’s organizational. It happens where dense networks of like-minded people can plan, build, and act. That’s not the bush—it’s often the capital.
📡 But Rebellion Doesn’t Stay Local—It Goes Regional Fast
So how do states respond? Not with containment, but with escalation.
Henning Tamm’s research on the Congo Wars reveals a brutal strategic truth: African leaders don’t just face insurgents—they fund them. When threatened, rulers don’t just crush rebellions at home. They back rebels abroad. Why? Not for ideology. Not even for profit.
They do it to survive.
In nearly every post–Cold War African civil war that crossed the 1,000-death threshold, at least one neighboring state armed the rebels. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a regional security pattern. Leaders like Kagame, Museveni, and Dos Santos formed transnational alliances to preempt coups, outmaneuver rivals, and manage internal dissent by exporting chaos.
📊 What the Evidence Shows
Tamm’s case studies show that transnational alliances are rational choices—if you assume regime survival is the goal. Whether it’s Rwanda supporting Congolese rebels or Angola flipping sides between wars, one pattern emerges: internal threats drive external entanglements.
Meanwhile, Uzonyi and Koren’s urban formation data shows that rebellion isn’t just a rural crisis waiting to be discovered—it’s often an urban movement waiting to be noticed.
Put them together, and you get a volatile mix: rebellions formed in the heart of power, met with responses that cross borders and deepen the war.
🚨 The Strategic Blind Spot
Here’s the uncomfortable part: most states aren’t equipped to understand this dynamic—let alone respond to it. Our models of rebellion are outdated. Our assumptions about where insurgency happens—and how states react—are based on myths.
We miss the signals in the city.
We miss the alliances before they form.
And by the time we do see the war, it’s already too late to stop the regional cascade.
🔍 What This Means for Practitioners
If you’re watching rebel movements, don’t just monitor borderlands—watch capital cities. If you’re assessing foreign meddling, don’t just count weapons—analyze internal politics. The next rebellion isn’t hiding in the forest. It’s tweeting, teaching, organizing, and building coalitions downtown.
And the next state sponsor of war? They may not be seeking influence.
They may just be trying to stay alive.
At The Security Nexus, we unpack the anatomy of strategic failure. Because war doesn’t just happen. It’s decided.
🔐 Stay tuned as we dig deeper into how rebel networks form, why regimes externalize internal threats, and what it takes to break the cycle—before it crosses another border.
