The Complex Insurgencies focus area examines how large, resilient armed groups emerge, adapt, and sustain themselves over time. Drawing on more than two decades of field-based research, this work analyzes insurgencies not as short-lived rebellions, but as durable political and military organizations embedded in local, regional, and transnational systems.

Research in this area focuses on the strategic, organizational, and economic factors that allow insurgent groups to survive military pressure, govern populations, and evolve in response to changing political and security environments. This includes close attention to insurgent governance, civilian interaction, financing, recruitment, and relationships with criminal networks and external actors.

By grounding analysis in long-term field engagement across conflict-affected regions, this research challenges simplified models of insurgency and counterinsurgency. The goal is to produce empirically grounded insights that improve understanding of contemporary armed conflict and inform more realistic security and policy responses to persistent insurgent threats.