Download or read book Understanding African Armies written by David Chuter and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past few years, a significant and growing share of CSDP missions and operations has been devoted to training and capacity-building in fragile countries and regions in Africa, from the Horn to the Great Lakes, from the Sahel to the Gulf of Guinea. While this shift in focus and emphasis reflects the challenges that the EU and the wider international community are increasingly confronted with in Africa, it is a fact that the efforts put into such activities have produced very modest results so far. It is therefore legitimate to wonder what is going wrong, and why. African armies are very different from one another, and they are also very different from European (and more generally Western) armies. Their historical roots and traditions, the way they were shaped after independence, their domestic functions and operational roles tend to vary significantly (although they are not completely unrelated to past European experiences) and, above all, cannot be reduced to a single, normative 'developmental' model, hence the need to differentiate the approaches and calibrate the actions. This Report was planned and prepared with this in mind: to offer at the same time a bird's eye view and a qualitative analysis of what the African armies we deal with (and invest in) actually are, and what they are not; to explore what they can (and possibly should) do, and what they cannot; and to present both the regional expert and the layman, both the academic and the practitioner, with an accessible and hopefully stimulating read on a policy issue that matters a great deal for our common security in an increasingly complex, connected and contested world.
Download or read book Soldiers in Revolt written by Maggie Dwyer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soldiers in Revolt examines the understudied phenomenon of military mutinies in Africa. Through interviews with former mutineers in Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, and The Gambia, the book provides a unique and intimate perspective on those who take the risky decision to revolt. This view from the lower ranks is key to comprehending the internal struggles that can threaten a military's ability to function effectively. Maggie Dwyer's detailed accounts of specific revolts are complemented by an original dataset of West African mutinies covering more than fifty years, allowing for the identification of trends. Her book shows the complex ways mutineers often formulate and interpret their grievances against a backdrop of domestic and global politics. Just as mutineers have been influenced by the political landscape, so too have they shaped it. Mutinies have challenged political and military leaders, spurred social unrest, led to civilian casualties, threatened peacekeeping efforts and, in extreme cases, resulted in international interventions. Soldiers in Revolt offers a better understanding of West African mutinies and mutinies in general, valuable not only for military studies but for anyone interested in the complex dynamics of African states.
Download or read book African Military History and Politics written by Y. Alex-Assensoh and published by Springer. This book was released on 2002-01-11 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa's former colonial masters, including Great Britain; France, Portugal and Spain, trained members and leaders of the various colonial Armed Forces to be politically non-partisan. Yet, the modern-day Armed Forces on the continent, made up of the Army, Police, Air Force and Navy, have become so politicized that many countries in Africa are today ruled or have already been ruled by military dictators through coups d'etat, occasionally for good reasons as the book points out. This book traces the historical-cum-political evolution of these events, and what bodes for Africa, where the unending military incursions into partisan politics are concerned.
Download or read book Budgeting for the Military Sector in Africa written by Wuyi Omitoogun and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive study, 15 African experts describe and analyse the military budgetary processes and degree of parliamentary oversight and control in nine countries of Africa, spanning across all the continent's sub-regions. Each case study addresses a wide range of questions, such as the roles of the ministries of finance, budget offices, audit departments and external actors in the military budgetary processes, the extent of compliance with standard public expenditure management procedures, and how well official military expenditure figures reflect the true economic resources devoted to military activities in these countries.
Download or read book The French Army and Its African Soldiers written by Ruth Ginio and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 7 Adjusting to a New Reality: The Army and the Imminent Independence -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Download or read book Africa s Armies written by Robert B. Edgerton and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 2002-11-06 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Merging anthropology and history, describes the roots of civil-military imbalances in sub-Saharan Africa and suggests solutions for reducing poverty, crime, disease, and genocide.
Download or read book A Military History of Africa written by Timothy J. Stapleton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 1279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed and thorough chronological overview of the history of warfare and military structures in Africa, covering ancient times to the present day. A Military History of Africa achieves a daunting task: it synthesizes decades of specialized academic research and literature—including the most recent material—to offer an accessible survey of Africa's military history, from the earliest times to the present day. The first volume examines the precolonial period beginning with warfare in ancient North Africa including ancient Egypt and Carthage and continues through the cavalry-based Muslim empires of the trans-Sahara trade and the wars of the slave trade in West and East Africa. The second volume focuses on the wars of European colonial conquest and African resistance during the late 19th century, African participation in both world wars, and the early violent struggles for independence from the 1950s and early 1960s. The third volume explores warfare in postcolonial Africa, including coverage of the impact of the global Cold War, conflicts in Southern Africa from the 1960s to 1980s, the development of postcolonial African armed forces, and civil wars sparked by the discovery of precious resources, such as diamonds in Sierra Leone. Readers of this three-volume work will understand how warfare and military structures have been consistently central to the development of African societies.
Download or read book West African Soldiers in Britain s Colonial Army 1860 1960 written by Timothy Stapleton and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2022 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "West African Soldiers in Britain's Colonial Army, 1860-1960 explores the history of Britain's West African colonial army based in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and the Gambia placing it within a broader social context and emphasizing, as far as possible, the experience of the ordinary soldier. The aim is not to describe the many battles and campaigns fought by this force but to look at the development of the West African colonial army as an institution over the course of about a century. In pursuing this goal, it is sometimes useful to employ the lens of military culture defined differently by scholars but essentially meaning a set of shared ideas and behaviors that inform daily life in the military. While other locally recruited colonial militaries in Africa have attracted considerable attention from historians as they served as an essential pillar supporting European rule, this book represents the first comprehensive scholarly study of Britain's West African army which was the largest such British-led force south of the Sahara. The study is based on extensive archival research conducted in nine archives located in five countries"--
Download or read book The Child Soldiers of Africa s Red Army written by Carol Berger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-23 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the role of social process and routinised violence in the use of underaged soldiers in the country now known as South Sudan during the twenty-one-year civil war between Sudan’s northern and southern regions. Drawing on accounts of South Sudanese who as children and teenagers were part of the Red Army—the youth wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)—the book sheds light on the organised nature of the exploitation of children and youth by senior adult figures within the movement. The book also includes interviews with several of the original Red Army commanders, all of whom went on to hold senior positions within the military and government of South Sudan. The author chronicles the cultural transformation experienced by members of the Red Army and considers whether an analysis of the processes involved in what was then Africa’s longest civil war can aid our understanding of South Sudan’s more recent descent into ethnicised conflict. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, and political science with interests in ethnography, conflict, and the military exploitation of children.
Download or read book On Military Culture written by Francois Vreÿ and published by University of Cape Town Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African armed forces face many challenges with regard to military professionalism, as the latest coups in Mali and Niger, and the poor performance of the DRC's armed forces, illustrate. And military professionalism is linked to military culture, which is about the collective activities of armed forces, particularly their distinctive practices and collective understanding of shared goals and how to achieve them. A major challenge for the African Union as well as AFRICOM is to understand and reconcile its different military cultures, which are at a formative stage. But discussion of military culture largely occurs around North American and Western European armies. Nor are there many contributions from African scholars on the subject. This book offers a contemporary perspective on military culture within Africa, with contributions from scholars and practitioners from Africa as well as North America, Europe and Australia. The underlying argument is that African armed forces need to come to terms with the elements of military culture if they want to become more professional.
Download or read book The Military in African Politics written by Johns Hopkins University. School of Advanced International Studies and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1987-05-15 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concern of this book is with military rulers as political actors in contemporary Africa. Much of Africa has been under military rule during the quarter century since a majority of the countries attained their political independence. Yet studies of military rule have focused on when and how to predict the occurrence of military rule and on distinguishing between military and civilian rule. The concern of the contributors to this volume, by contrast, is the political behavior of officers once in power: how they have ruled; what has been the significance of military rule on the character of political systems in the affected countries; and how problems of regime succession have been addressed by military rulers.--Preface.
Download or read book When Soldiers Rebel written by Kristen A. Harkness and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Military coups are a constant threat in Africa and many former military leaders are now in control of 'civilian states', yet the military remains understudied, especially over the last decade. Drawing on extensive archival research, cross-national data, and four in-depth comparative case studies, When Soldiers Rebel examines the causes of military coups in post-independence Africa and looks at the relationship between ethnic armies and political instability in the region. Kristen A. Harkness argues that the processes of creating and dismantling ethnically exclusionary state institutions engenders organized and violent political resistance. Focusing on rebellions to protect rather than change the status quo, Harkness sheds light on a mechanism of ethnic violence that helps us understand both the motivations and timing of rebellion, and the rarity of group rebellion in the face of persistent political and economic inequalities along ethnic lines.
Download or read book Why Europe Intervenes in Africa written by Catherine Gegout and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gegout's book offers a sharp rebuke to those who believe that altruism is the guiding principle of Western intervention in Africa.
Download or read book African Peacekeeping written by Jonathan Fisher and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-03 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of how peacekeeping is woven into national, regional and international politics in Africa, and its consequences.
Download or read book Composite Warfare written by Eeben Barlow and published by 30 Degrees South Publishers. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Composite Warfare presents African soldiers and scholars with a true African 'Art of War'. As a continent, Africa presents her armies with a vast, dynamic and multidimensional operating environment. It has numerous complex and diverse ethnic, religious, cultural and tribal interests and loyalties, along with many multifaceted threat-drivers coupled to varied and infrastructure-poor terrain plus vast climatic variations. The continent is, furthermore, characterized by numerous half-won conflicts and wars fought by incorrectly structured, inadequately trained and ill-equipped armies. For many reasons, these forces have difficulty adapting to the complex, demanding and rapidly changing environments they do battle in. Similarly, the armies have difficulty in decisively defeating the various threats they face. Many of these problems stem from the fact that numerous modern-day African armies are merely clones of the armies established by their once-colonial masters, their Cold War allies or their new international allies. Many of the principles and tactics, techniques and procedures they were - and still are - being taught relate to fighting in Europe and not in Africa. Some of these concepts are not even relevant to Africa. This book is intended as a guide and textbook for African soldiers and scholars who wish to understand the development of hostilities, strategy, operational design, doctrine and tactics. It also illustrates the importance of nonpartisanship and the mission and role of the armed forces. Officers, NCOs and their subordinates need to, furthermore, understand their role in defending and protecting the government and the people they serve. They additionally need to know how to successfully accomplish their numerous missions with aggression, audacity, boldness, speed and surprise. The book provides the reader with valuable information relating to conventional and unconventional maneuver. It also discusses how African armies can, with structured and balanced forces, achieve strategic, operational and tactical success. It covers the role of government along with operations related to war, operations other than war and intelligence operations and how these operations, operating in a coordinated and unified manner, can secure and strengthen a government. Composite Warfare draws on the author's experiences and lessons in Central, Southern, East, West and North Africa where he has served numerous African governments as a politico-military strategist, division commander, division adviser, battalion commander and special operations commander.
Download or read book A Roadmap for Understanding African Politics written by Victor Oguejiofor Okafor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the impact of post-colonial leadership on political integration in Nigeria, offering an in-depth understanding of the historical and contemporary forces that shape Nigeria's national politics as well as African politics generally. Okafor discusses how Nigeria's pre-colonial and colonial political histories along with contemporary external forces like neo-colonialism, as well as internal social, economic and political structures and developments, have affected emerging post-independence politics in the country. The study climaxes with an Africa-centered theory of political and integrative leadership and then uses it as a prism for analyzing six Nigerian post-independence political leaderships, encompassing Nigeria's First and Second Republics, along with their military interregna. The concluding chapter includes a discussion of the implications of the study for leadership and political integration in Africa in general.
Download or read book Mercenaries written by Abdel-Fatau Musah and published by Pluto Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Second volume of Deutscher prize-winning trilogy on the future of IR, tracing the defining characteristics of 'foreign encounters' over time.
