Over the previous decade, operations associated with irregular warfare have placed large demands on U.S. ground forces and have led to development of new Army and Joint doctrine. This report helps analysts identify and assess key factors that create and perpetuate environments susceptible to insurgency, terrorism, and other extremist violence and instability to inform military decisions on allocation of analytic and security assistance resources. The report focuses in particular on sources of understanding about these environments from the fields of sociology and cultural anthropology. RAND researchers surveyed existing sociological and anthropological theories and schools of thought and identified 12 key factors that give rise to and sustain unstable environments. The research found a relatively high degree of consensus among experts regarding the salience of these factors. The factors are interrelated and mutually dependent in complex ways. The report proposes a series of qualitative and quantitative metrics for each of the 12 factors and uses them in an analytic construct for assessing countries and regions based on their susceptibility to unstable environments.

"Prepared for the United States Army"--T.p.

Introduction. Sociology and anthropology in DoD's irregular warfare context -- Research approach and road map to this report / Gaining insights into unstable, conflict-prone environments through social science lenses. Introduction -- Sociological theories -- Anthropological theories -- Other social science theories and unstable environments -- Concluding remarks / Factors associated with environments vulnerable to conflict. Introduction -- Methodology for validating the list of factors and their characteristics -- Key factors and their attributes -- Concluding remarks / Relationships among factors: Peru and Nepal case studies. The Shining Path in Peru, 1980-1992 -- The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal, 1997-2006 -- Concluding remarks / Utilizing the factors for analysis. Metrics for detecting and assessing factors -- Applying the factors in analysis -- Concluding remarks / Conclusion. Key findings -- Recommendations -- Concluding remarks / Appendix A: factors from Joint and Army Doctrine -- Appendix B: factor matrix -- Appendix C: cross-matching 12 factors with RAND case studies on 30 counterinsurgencies.