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Clausewitz and African War: Politics and Strategy in Liberia and Somalia

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Clausewitz and African War: Politics and Strategy in Liberia and Somalia CLAUSEWITZ AND AFRICAN WAR This book shows that wars that have hitherto been mainly interpreted as driven by economic, resource, ethnic or clan interests (such as the conflicts in Liberia and Somalia in the early 1990s) do have an overriding political rationale, which revalidates Carl von Clausewitz’s nineteenth-century understanding of war. Isabelle Duyvesteyn is a lecturer at the Department of History of Inter- national Relations, Institute of History, Utrecht University, the Nether- lands. CLAUSEWITZ AND AFRICAN WAR Politics and strategy in Liberia and Somalia Isabelle Duyvesteyn First published 2005 by Frank Cass, an imprint of Taylor & Francis 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Frank Cass 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004 Frank Cass is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 Isabelle Duyvesteyn All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-31174-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-714-65724-7 (Print edition) FOR MY FAMILY CONTENTS Preface and acknowledgements ix List of abbreviations xiii 1 Clausewitz, the nature of war and African warfare 1 War 1 Non-trinitarian war 2 Trinitarian war 5 African war 7 Hypotheses and cases 9 2 Case study I: Liberia, 1989–97 21 Liberia: a short overview 21 The protagonists 25 Phase 1, 24 December 1989–29 November 1990 27 Phase 2, 15 October 1992–31 July 1993 32 Phase 3, Post-July 1993 33 Observations on the Liberian war 35 3 Case study II: Somalia, 1988–95 37 Somalia: a short overview 37 The protagonists 40 Phase 1, 27 May 1988–27 January 1991 44 Phase 2, 28 January 1991–3 March 1992 46 Phase 3, 9 December 1992–28 March 1995 49 Observations on the Somali war 51 vii CONTENTS 4 Political actors 53 Introduction 53 A political system 53 A political actor and trinitarian war 73 Concluding remarks 74 5 Political interests 75 Introduction 75 Political interests 75 Political rule 81 Concluding remarks 90 6 Political instruments and conventional war 93 Introduction 93 Centre of gravity 94 Distinction between combatants and non-combatants 99 Number of recruits 101 Conventional war 102 Concluding remarks 105 7 Politics and strategy in African wars: intervention dilemmas 107 Findings 107 Implications 110 Political dilemmas 111 Military dilemmas 118 Concluding remarks 125 Notes 126 Bibliography 161 Index 177 viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Wars in the past few years, in particular African wars but also those in the Balkans, have been interpreted as fundamentally new and distinct. Not only the actors involved but also the reasons for which they fight have been described as not having been seen before. It has been suggested that these wars no longer concern the state and that war is no longer an instru- ment of state policies. We are said to have moved beyond the age of the state, and wars are now concerned with warlords, drugs barons and other enterprising individuals and their personal interests. In particular, ethnic and resource considerations are important factors motivating individuals to take up their weapons. This study aims to contribute to this debate on the nature of war. It will argue that these wars are not so new as they might have appeared at first sight. What the new interpretations have in common is, first, that they are concerned with civil or internal wars instead of international wars. Most wars today are indeed civil conflicts. Civil conflict is generally considered to be a conflict that finds its origins within a state, as opposed to between states. Since the end of the Second World War, civil conflict has been the dominant form of war. Second, these interpretations share a focus on the explanatory factors that are responsible for the interactions between the warring parties. The already mentioned ethnic and economic factors have been prominent here. Third, the interpretations share the view that the state is no longer useful in the analysis of war. In effect, these interpre- tations fundamentally question the validity of the ideas of Carl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz, a nineteenth-century Prussian general, wrote one of the basic texts in the discipline of the study of war and peace. The validity of his writings for understanding the nature of war and warfare has been questioned before, but since the early 1990s his critics seem to have found widespread support for a final dismissal of his ideas. Clausewitz’s famous view of war as the continuation of politics with the admixture of other means is no longer the truism it once was. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the continuing validity of the insights he gained almost two ix PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS hundred years ago. By applying his concepts to two cases of state collapse, in which they are, according to the critics, most unlikely to hold, namely, Liberia and Somalia, this study aims to show that we might have been too hasty in throwing his ideas overboard. Since the completion of the manuscript the problems in Liberia have reached another climax. While this study describes the problems that occurred in the first half of the 1990s, in several respects the most recent crisis showed striking analogies to the earlier developments in the conflict. Two rebel movements built up pressure against the capital and President Charles Taylor, forcing him in August 2003 to leave the country. The perspective presented in this study of opposi- tion movements constituted of opponents of the regime mounting an armed challenge seems to have a familiar ring in the light of these recent events. This book is the end product of a PhD process that started at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. However, my interest in the topic of warfare and intervention pre-dated my arrival in London. Therefore, first and foremost a word of thanks goes to Jan Geert Siccama, my great mentor, for awakening in me a passion for my subject and for being a constant source of advice and wisdom. For the Liberian case study my thinking about the subject greatly benefited from discussions and correspondence with ‘Funmi Olonisakin, Stephen Ellis and Klaas van Walraven. For the Somali case study I consulted among others Roland Marchal and Mesfin Gebrekal. The discussion on African war and the more general political science components of the argument were formulated after extensive and fruitful exchanges with members of the departmental staff at King’s College, in particular Jan Willem Honig, my supervisor, Christopher Dandeker and Joanna Spear. Also, my examiners, Mats Berdal and John Mackinlay, were instru- mental in provoking important developments in my thinking. Jan Angstrom and all the participants of the War Studies Research Collo- quium at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London deserve a mention for their sometimes painful yet constructive criticism during our long discussions. I also benefited from comments from my present colleagues at the History of International Relations Department at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, in particular Maarten Kuiten- brouwer and Bob de Graaff. None of the individuals, however, bears any responsibility for any shortcomings in the arguments that are presented in these pages. This study aims to link discussions in the fields of political science, war studies and African studies. Part of my training, however, is as a historian. This study should therefore not be judged as treating exhaustively the debates in the aforementioned fields. Rather, it should be seen as an attempt to bridge the barriers that exist between the fields and to present a x PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS multi-disciplinary perspective on the problems of understanding the essence of war, in particular in Africa. In this respect I have also benefited from conferences and expert meet- ings where I had a chance to present my ideas: the British International Studies Association Annual Conference, London School of Economics, London (December 2002); the conference on New Directions in African Leadership, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford (June 2000); the International Studies Association Annual Convention, Los Angeles (March 2000); and the MacArthur Conference on Regional Security in a Global Context, Barnet Hill, Surrey, England (April 1998). Greatly appreciated financial assistance for the completion of the thesis was provided by the British Council, the MacArthur Foundation and the Department of War Studies at King’s College. The material for the case studies has been gathered from monographs, with an emphasis, where possible, on locally produced literature, including journalistic accounts of the events, newspaper reports and academic journals. To investigate the particularities of the wars, day-to-day reconstructions have been made of them, as summarised in the case studies. For the reconstructions, the most important sources have been newspaper reports of daily events. Even though news-gathering in ongoing wars is often difficult, a wealth of information can be obtained from newspaper sources. Many papers had journalists operating in con- flict zones in Liberia and Somalia.
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