James Q. Wilson observed that “war is the greatest test of a bureaucratic organization.” The fact that poorly paid men, recruited by a government and sent to some distant land to fight against an unknown foe, manage to hold their positions, stay in their units, and march on toward battle is a testament to the power of organization. In exploring the organization of insurgency, it is necessary to ask why rebels stay and fight – or, more to the point, how rebel leaders resolve problems of management and organizational control.

Troops in the National Resistance Army risked serious punishment for any acts that contravened the formal code of conduct adopted by its High Command, but they had tremendous autonomy when it came to the organization of operations. Renamo's rebels, on the other hand, were part of a highly centralized military structure but faced few sanctions from the leadership for indiscipline. Militants fighting on behalf of the Shining Path found their actions in and out of battle dissected and analyzed by their local comrades in public sessions, the results of which were then relayed to the movement's senior leadership. But combatants in the Upper Huallaga Valley, although they operated under the same rules, experienced only arbitrary and uneven punishment for misdeeds that would have brought about expulsion in other regions of Peru.