Hit where it hurts: City vulnerability during wartime

Abstract Success in center-seeking rebellions requires rebels to oust the incumbent government. Yet not all center-seeking rebels attack the capital and those that do often take a circuitous route. We build from existing literature to integrate theories of rebel strength with a broader understanding of both the strategic and symbolic value of territory. Building a new dataset of location value and employing novel empirical techniques, we demonstrate that as a location’s value increases relative to the capital city for a group, the rebels become less likely to move against the capital as they can build offensive strength, fortify their defensive position, and appease local constituents in their current geographic domain. Relative strength conditions these strategies, as stronger groups tend to take a more straight-line approach to the capital, middling groups advance in zigzag patterns, and the weakest groups move in spiral formations to maximize their defensive and symbolic positions. We find that these patterns hold across a wide range of population thresholds. Several case studies help illustrate the mechanisms central to these dynamics. By combining considerations of both rebel strength and territorial value, this article brings several strands of literature on civil war geography into the conversation and broadens our understanding of the conflict process.