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Southern Somalia has attracted substantial military aid and assistance for decades. As the state disintegrated in the late 1980s, clan dynamics became more critical, warlords emerged, and power bas...

This article focuses on innovative conceptual definitions to capture the various terms and ideas that abound concerning the delivery of military assistance, aid, and training in fragile states, oft...

For decades, military assistance in southern Somalia focused on building up a central state army. This reflects standard patterns of Western assistance worldwide. Yet the nature of Somali society a...

The logic of the American approach to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Syria – both in policy and practice – bears striking resemblance to the U.S. approach to Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite policies of restraint, it has proven difficult to stop the inertia of war, be it against Communism or terrorism. As this inertia grows, so too does illogical entanglement. Such deepening involvement, whether in Vietnam or the Global War on Terror, often results in combat forces undertaking nation- and state-building missions that they are not designed for, yet have been doing for almost two decades.

In many African states, the military is one of very few technically capable large institutions. Based on interviews with pan-Africanist intellectuals and security experts, this article shows how a “Peace Engineering Corps” concept could be operationalized by putting suitably trained professional military units to good use for civil-military cooperation and domestic development work. Such PECs would harness the military’s logistical, technical, and administrative capabilities in support of the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), providing environmental remediation, civil infrastructure expansion, and natural disaster response services. Western militaries could empower African partner forces in this regard by tailoring security assistance missions towards establishing and developing PEC capabilities, thereby supporting development, peacebuilding, and regional security efforts. We also note the potential for a pan-African civilian uniformed Peace and Development Corps, distinct from military PECs, in peace-building and economic development.

Security force assistance (SFA) is increasingly emphasised as a way of supporting local partners on the front lines. In this article, Emily Knowles and Jahara Matisek suggest that traditional appro...

Senegal is viewed as one of the most stable countries in Africa. Many have hypothesized that this is a product of Senegalese culture, Sufi Islam, and/or French trusteeship. This article contends th...

The United States has provided substantial amounts of military assistance and aid since the end of World War Two. During the Cold War, it proved vital in protecting numerous regimes from communist ...

This article surveys the way in which political scientists and non-traditional scholars have analysed insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. We contend that insurgent recruitment is different in ‘ne...

This article addresses the concept of ‘gray wars’ as it relates to contemporary conflicts and the limits of American conventional deterrence and compellence. It more clearly defines the concept of gray wars for the current era and contrasts Cold War versus post-Cold War gray zone conflicts exposing the limits of current approaches. Finally, the article advocates for a new concept – “gray deterrence” – identifying strategies that can be used by the US to confront ‘gray’ actors in a way that adheres to international laws and norms, but seeks to shape and influence the cost-benefit analysis of ‘gray’ actor behavior.