Armed-Group Proliferation: Origins and Consequences

last eight years than in the previous eight decades.1 During this period the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has attracted inordinate global concern, diverting attention from a trend that will define conflict in the coming decade: the proliferation of armed groups. These groups are built around highly adaptive alliances of smaller-scale units with diffuse leadership and authority. They act more like disruptive start-ups than standard corporations. By contrast, ISIS was organised like the centralised Marxist insurgencies of the late twentieth century, such as FARC in Colombia, Maoist groups in Nepal and India and the New People’s Army in the Philippines. The territorial defeat of ISIS, which functioned as a quasi-state, illustrates a shortcoming of its more formal organisational model. By contrast, armed insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq persist despite years of direct combat with US forces. Similarly in the Sahel, French forces aligned with Malian, Chadian and other local militaries continue to combat what often appears to be a nebulous constellation of jihadi forces. The loss of its caliphate may prompt ISIS to abandon its vertical structure in favour of a more horizontal one. Decentralised authority can be an advantage during times of insurgency and active combat – yet it can become a liability in peace negotiations, when the multiplicity of groups can impede dialogue and progress, or in peacetime, when groups’ common cause may give way to competition for dominance or hinder state reassertion. Shifting alliances of armed groups require peacemakers to develop new methods of engaging and including local commanders in peace talks.