How do military tactics shape civilian support for foreign intervention? Critics contend that invasive tactics undermine popular support by alienating the civilian population. Counterexamples suggest that civilians will support invasive tactics when foreign counterinsurgents are willing and able to mitigate a proximate threat. I reconcile these divergent findings by arguing that civilian support is a function of threat perception based on three interacting heuristics: social identity, combatant targeting, and territorial control. To evaluate my theory, I enumerate a survey among Iraqi residents in Baghdad during the anti-ISIS campaign. Respondents preferred more invasive tactics when foreign counterinsurgents assisted the most effective local members of the anti-ISIS coalition. Across sectarian divides, however, respondents uniformly opposed the deployment of foreign troops. These findings suggest that in regime-controlled communities, civilians will support counterinsurgents who are invasive enough to mitigate insurgent threats, but not too invasive as to undermine local autonomy.

军事战术如何塑造民间对外国干预的支持？批评者认为，侵入性策略通过疏远平民来破坏民众的支持。反例表明，当外国反叛乱分子愿意并能够减轻直接威胁时，平民将支持入侵战术。我通过论证平民支持是基于三个相互作用的启发式的威胁感知的函数来调和这些不同的发现：社会身份、战斗人员目标和领土控制。为了评估我的理论，我列举了在反伊斯兰国运动期间对巴格达的伊拉克居民进行的一项调查。当外国反叛乱分子协助反伊斯兰国联盟中最有效的当地成员时，受访者更喜欢更具侵略性的策略。然而，跨越宗派分歧，受访者一致反对部署外国军队。这些调查结果表明，在政权控制的社区中，平民将支持具有足够侵略性以减轻叛乱威胁的反叛乱分子，但又不会因为侵入性太大而破坏地方自治。