The Zimbabwe people’s revolutionary army military operations in Makonde district and the attack on Salisbury’s fuel storage tanks, 1965-1979

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army operations in Mashonaland West province with particular reference to Makonde District during the country’s war of liberation. Despite the growing literature on ZAPU and ZPRA in Zimbabwe’s war of liberation there is little that has been written concerning the operations of ZPRA guerrillas in Mashonaland provinces. Guided by evidence drawn from secondary and primary sources the article further asserts that ZPRA adopted a four pronged strategy in Makonde District. This strategy in part was hinged on the politicization of the population on the one hand and annihilation of the enemy forces, attrition and manoeuvre warfare on the other. Again, the article argues that ZPRA guerrillas attempted to capture Salisbury (Harare) in order to conquer the Rhodesian Security Forces’ centre of gravity. It was hoped that the capture of the capital city would Makoni District was of strategic significance to the conduct of ZPRA operations and arguably hastened Ian Smith’s decision to attend the Lancaster House Conference negotiations that led to the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980.     

The Wretched of the Empire: Politics,Ideology and Counterinsurgency in Rhodesia, 1965–80

This article examines the vital importance of political ideology in formulating effective counterinsurgency, by examining the case of Rhodesia between 1965 and 1980. During this period, the Rhodesian Front (RF) Government of Ian Smith adopted a radical right-wing ‘world-struggle ideology’ to justify settler resistance to African decolonisation. The RF's ideology, based on settler-status anxiety, upheld a conspiratorial interpretation of modern politics that emphasised virulent forms of Anglophobia, anti-communism, anti-internationalism and anti-liberalism. The Smith Government portrayed African nationalism not as an indigenous political phenomenon, but as an external instrument of world communism and Western appeasement. After 1972, when Rhodesia faced a protracted insurgency, many of the principles of RF ideology were applied to counterinsurgency warfare with disastrous results. Because the Rhodesian Government viewed African guerrilla warfare as unrelated to domestic politics, Rhodesian counterinsurgency lacked a realistic political dimension. The dictates of settler ideology blinded the Rhodesian Government to the vital need to win ‘hearts and minds’ by applying timely principles of political pacification and reform to its counterinsurgency effort. Instead a Rhodesian counterinsurgency campaign of maximum force was pursued. Such a campaign proved counter-productive accelerating strategic deterioration and leading ultimately to the political victory of the African guerrilla cause in 1980.     

When the military become a security and political threat: Zimbabwean army generals in electoral politics

The military poses an ongoing threat to modern democratic rule in some African countries, especially in the Zimbabwean context. This paper reveals the ways in which Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) generals have played a political role in the Zimbabwean elections, an issue which is both a political threat and a security threat to the state. It is argued that the ways in which ZNA generals engage in the political process goes against Section 208(2) of the constitution of Zimbabwe, which summarily states that the military must be apolitical. In substantiating this argument, the paper presents and analyses various public speeches made by army generals. It is contended that the army generals’ support of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and President Robert Mugabe has to be understood as a ‘mutual accommodation’, i.e. the generals are offered privileges in return for the political protection of the ruling regime which negatively impacts the security of the vote.     

A drive to regime change through nonviolent economic warfare: The post-Mugabe era, 2017–2019

ABSTRACT

This article examines efforts made by the Movement for Democratic Change Alliance to bring about regime change through nonviolent economic warfare including its subsequent failure. The 30 July 2018 harmonised elections in Zimbabwe led to a victory by Emmerson Mnangagwa but it was disputed by Nelson Chamisa. Since August 2018, the political opposition led by Chamisa sought to make the country ungovernable by waging a nonviolent economic war nicknamed Kuzvidira jecha (pouring sand) against the Mnangagwa administration. This was punctuated by price hikes, fluctuation of the local currency, artificial food stuff price hikes and fuel shortages which caused serious challenges for most Zimbabweans. This was primarily intended to bring about regime change via public unrest against the Mnangagwa regime. On the contrary, the anticipated public uproar failed to foster regime change in Zimbabwe despite widespread adverse socio-economic effects. This led to the nonviolent participants resorting to violent tactics instead of adhering to nonviolence. Consequently, it was the failure to adhere to nonviolent principles by opposition advocates which forced the Mnangagwa regime to deploy its own instruments of violence in an effort to protect lives and property.     

Soldiers contra diplomats: Britain’s role in the Zimbabwe/Rhodesia ceasefire (1979–1980) reconsidered

Abstract

This article re-examines part of the literature on Britain’s role in the December 1979 to March 1980 Zimbabwe/Rhodesia ceasefire. The ceasefire ushered in an era of peace after a protracted internal war and it was an integral part of the transition from colonial white minority rule, towards black majority independence. Scholars present Britain’s success in brokering and monitoring the Zimbabwe/Rhodesia ceasefire as the result of its judicious and accordant management of the road to peace. However, this article argues that in fact deep internal divisions plagued the British managers of the ceasefire. Internal divisions centred on authority struggles between diplomats and military actors, conflicting personalities, discordant approaches to and goals in the ceasefire, and inter-institutional rivalry between the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. The article concludes that Britain only managed the ceasefire effectively because its military’s independence, political nous, and competence ultimately prevailed over the injudicious views and machinations of diplomats.     

Currency Warfare and Just War: The Ethics of Targeting Currencies in War

ABSTRACT

Is Currency Warfare defined as, the use of monetary or military force directed against an enemy’s monetary power as part of a military campaign, a just way to fight a war? This article explores the ethics of waging currency warfare against the Just War Tradition’s principles of jus in bello (just conduct in war) and its criteria of discrimination and proportionality. The central argument is that currency warfare is inherently indiscriminate but may be proportionate when policy makers consider the nature of the threat confronted and the targeted currency's level of internationalization, that is, to what degree it is used in foreign transactions or used as a foreign currency reserve. I evaluate this argument against historical cases during the Second World War (1939–1945), the Gulf War (1990–1991), subsequent operations against Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s, and the ongoing campaign against ISIS.     

United States defence contractors and the future of military operations

ABSTRACT

The United States’ global strategic outlook has shifted markedly since the end of major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the United States’ strategic posture shifts, the nature of military operations is simultaneously changing rapidly. Many analysts predict that cyber-operations, autonomous weapons systems, artificial intelligence, and clandestine special forces operations will be central features in future conflicts. Although often overlooked by scholars and policy analysts, defence contractors are integral to the development and implementation of these emerging categories of warfare. This inquiry examines the evolving nature of the American defence industry and the roles corporations play in current theatres of conflict. Surprisingly, rather than becoming less reliant on defence contractors after their much-maligned performance in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American military and intelligence agencies have become more dependent on the private sector as technology becomes increasingly central to warfare.     

Boko Haram’s increasingly sophisticated military threat

ABSTRACT

This paper evaluates Boko Haram’s military capabilities and details the process of how its standing army, driven by these capabilities, came to pose a phased threat between 2013 and 2015 in particular. This was a period when military fighting dominated the insurgency in north-east Nigeria. Whereas there is an abundance of literature on Boko Haram’s histories and the impact of its insurgency on north-east Nigeria, analysis of Boko Haram’s military campaigning is still deficient. Attempting to fill this gap, this paper uses field findings and battlefield case studies from north-east Nigeria to highlight how Boko Haram’s overt front – its standing army – came to supplant its guerrilla operations as the main security threat to the frontier area.

This pivot towards military fighting, for a group initially composed of a few ragtag combatants, on the surface might seem surprising. Yet, whereas Boko Haram may lack the popular support required for ‘people’s war’, classic insurgency theories nevertheless hold some explanatory power for this deliberate shift: away from guerrilla warfare as the expedient of the weaker side, and towards the use of a large standing army of locals to swarm, and sometimes successfully overrun, state forces.     

Reclaiming the Party’s Control of the Gun: Bringing Civilian Authority Back in China’s Civil-Military Relations

ABSTRACT

Since emerging as China’s top leader following the 18th Party Congress, Xi Jinping has moved swiftly to consolidate his formal authority as Central Military Commission chairman over the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. In redressing the civil-military imbalance wrought by Dengist economic reforms, the commander-in-chief has combined institutional mechanisms with the use of fear to impose authoritative civilian control over the military. This paper proposes that a combination of changes to the Chinese strategic environment has contributed to Xi’s utility of the anti-corruption campaign to purge the regime’s coercive forces of its previous underpinnings, and advances that the war on military malfeasance has given rise to a new set of dynamics in civil-military relations in post-Reform China.     

Counter‐punching on the Mudzi: D Company, 1st Rhodesian African Rifles,on operation ‘Mardon’ 1 November 1976

Designed to harrass and weaken Ian Smith's principal enemy, Robert Mugabe, in his safe haven of Mozambique, Operation ‘Mardon’ involved co‐ordinated incursions over the Rhodesian border on a wide front. The secondary purpose was to persuade the African nationalist insurgents to abandon their incursion routes in the north‐east and south‐east in favour of those from the east where the mountainous terrain favoured their interception. Although other Rhodesian units wreaked more physical damage, D Company, 1st Battalion, the Rhodesian African Rifles, inflicted the heaviest casualties in their classic infantry attack on Mudzi Camp.¹     

India's counter-insurgency experience: the ‘trust and nurture’ strategy

The Indian Army, a force trained primarily for conventional warfare, has been engaged in internal counter-insurgency operations since the 1950s. Despite such a long innings on a counter-insurgency mode, little attention has been accorded within military circles to doctrinal innovation for waging sub-conventional warfare in India's democratic political context. At best, the Army continues to view counter-insurgency duty as secondary to its primary duty of defending India from external conventional threats. By conceptualizing a counter-insurgency strategy of ‘trust and nurture’, this article aims to fill this critical doctrinal gap in India's military policy. The author argues that a counter-insurgency strategy of ‘trust and nurture’ based on democratic political culture, measured military methods, special counter-insurgency forces, local social and cultural awareness and an integrative nation-building approach will result in positive handling of India's internal security problems. The author utilizes India's counter-insurgency experiences in Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, Punjab, and Operation ‘Sadhbhavana’ in Jammu and Kashmir as illustrative empirical indicants in order to validate the ‘trust and nurture’ strategy.     

Xunzi on the Role of the Military in a Well-Ordered State

Chapter 15 of the Xunzi stands as the most comprehensive account of the early Confucian analysis of warfare. Unlike a range of other early, non-Confucian discussions on warfare, particular strategies and tactics are taken to be of secondary importance. Thus, Xunzi refuses to discuss practical military strategy without framing it within a much broader ethical, social, and political context. On his account, a well-ordered, flourishing state necessarily rests upon a particular set of rituals and social norms in which people can cultivate themselves morally. Such a state has nothing to fear from any enemy, no matter how tactically sophisticated or militarily skilled. To many, such a view seems overly optimistic. However, given that Xunzi is anything but Pollyannaish in other parts of the text and is quite pessimistic about human nature in general, it behooves us to dig a bit more deeply into his ideas about military affairs and examine whether they can be understood in a more plausible light. This article provides a reading of Xunzi’s views on military affairs that is internally consistent and corresponds with Xunzi’s broader ethical and political views, while also showing why someone of Xunzi’s obvious intellectual acumen might hold such a view.     

Squad leaders today,village leaders tomorrow: Muslim auxiliaries and tactical politics in Algeria, 1956–1962

From 1956 to 1960, the French Army developed a force of Muslim auxiliaries (supplétifs) as a major component of its strategy to combat the National Liberation Front (FLN) insurgency in Algeria. Aside from their military utility in hunting down the guerrillas in the mountains and forests, the supplétifs were instrumental in undermining FLN legitimacy in the countryside. The rapid growth and employment of the supplétif force dismantled FLN political control in the villages, undermined the enemy's unity, and critically weakened the revolutionaries' claim to represent all of Algeria's Muslims. The military and political activities of France's Muslim soldiers also projected an image of Muslim–European unity behind the French cause, and portrayed the French Army as the only legitimate political force in numerous villages. These political successes, however, were limited to the local, tactical level of revolutionary warfare, and the Army was never able to convert the supplétifs into a force of decisive, strategic political significance. They thus had little ultimate impact on the outcome of the conflict.     

Space,the New Domain: Space Operations and Chinese Military Reforms

ABSTRACT

The Chinese military has embarked on a series of organizational and doctrinal reforms intended to better enable it to fight modern war. Prominent among these reforms is the growing emphasis on space to enable long-range precisions strikes and on counterspace to deny space capabilities to an adversary. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has officially designated space as a new domain and established an organization to command space forces. With this increased focus on space, the PLA may begin to develop a doctrine to govern the use of space in military operations. The higher priority given to space, especially space control, by the PLA coincides with similar actions by the US military, increasing the possibility of warfare in space and the risks of escalation.     

Holmes’ front: constructing a new face of battle for America’s Civil War

ABSTRACT

In his seminal study of the changing nature of warfare between Agincourt and the Somme, military historian John Keegan proposed that future historians might consider combatants’ emotions in their assessments of the impact and nature of conflict. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of the history of emotions as an analytical approach, but rarely, if ever, is this directed toward the study of military history, far less the history of insurgencies and counter-insurgencies. This paper examines America’s civil war (1861–1865) as a case study of the ways in which an emotional history approach might illuminate not the physical experiences of but rather the immediate and longer-term reactions to counter-insurgency conflict through a focus on one specific individual, the future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. It proposes that Holmes, whilst not a man of the ranks, nevertheless can reveal the wider ramifications of civil war and its emotional impact, both individually and culturally. As a relatively limited internecine war, one not fought by professional armies but by volunteer forces, America’s civil war highlights the ways in which the soldier’s response points us toward the kind of emotional revolution that has, to date, mainly been located within the European nations.     

Reluctant guerrillas in early nineteenth century China: the White Lotus insurgents and their suppressors

ABSTRACT

At the turn of the nineteenth century, China’s Qing dynasty (1644–1912) was hit by a sectarian rebellion. Commonly considered a breakpoint marking the end of the dynasty’s golden age spanning most of the eighteenth century, the war to suppress the rebels, referred to as the White Lotus War (1796–1804) in this article (‘White Lotus’ was the umbrella name used by both the authorities and some sectarians for their teaching), exposed many structural drawbacks of the Qing political and military systems and depleted the dynasty’s financial resources, which had never been recovered. Reluctant in embracing guerrilla warfare in the beginning, the insurgents quickly turned themselves into master guerrillas. Shuttling in two massive mountain ranges in central China, they managed to prolong their rebellion and fought some successful battles against their suppressors. Superior in manpower, weaponry, and logistical support, the government forces had to adapt to guerrilla warfare, albeit passively and ineptly. This article gives a brief introduction to this little-known episode of guerrilla war at the turn of the nineteenth century in Qing China, expounds the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, and sheds light on the roots of the war’s long duration and the grim consequences to the Qing state.     

The People’s Liberation Army and China’s Smart Power Quandary in Southeast Asia

Abstract

China has a strong interest in pursuing a smart power strategy towards Southeast Asia and has worked laboriously to engage with regional countries economically, socially, and politically. But China has been only partially successful in achieving its goals in the region. This paper argues that China’s security policy towards Southeast Asia significantly contradicts many other objectives that Beijing wishes to accomplish. Given the deep-seated, narrowly-defined national interests of the Chinese military in the South China Sea disputes, it is likely that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will continue to pose the main obstacle to the effective implementation of a Chinese smart strategy in Southeast Asia.     

The strategy of the organisation of Ukrainian nationalists in its quest for a sovereign state, 1939–1950

ABSTRACT

The armed resistance offered by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) to the Soviet state was the toughest internal political challenge that the Soviet regime faced from World War II to the 1980s. However, OUN’s grand strategy was based on self-delusion and was, therefore, always irrational. It resulted in misinterpretation of the sentiments of Ukrainians and the international situation, collaboration with Nazi Germany despite incompatible goals, counterproductive ethnic violence and sweeping terror against alleged Soviet collaborators. Local civilians rather than the representatives of the Soviet regime were OUN’s primary target; this alienated most residents of Western Ukraine.     

Fighting a Just War in the Midst of an Unreasonable International Strife: World War I and the Collapse of the Central European System of the Triple Imperial Dominion

ABSTRACT

This article constitutes an attempt to demonstrate the complexity of factors affecting the legitimate acquisition and reasonable exercise by a political community of the right to war as specified in the just war criteria of jus ad bellum. To achieve this purpose, a brief analysis is presented of the intentional participation in World War I of thousands of Polish volunteers forming military units deployed by the Central Powers on the Austrian-Russian front. Considered in light of the standard principles of just war, the military enterprise of the Polish Legions, as they were called, turns out to be a paradoxical instance of warfare which, while being part of a state-to-state aggression, must be deemed compliant with all the principles in question. As a means of explaining this paradox, a modification of the concept of justified intervention is proposed, embracing military efforts aimed at the ultimate defeat of all the (unjustly) warring parties operating within a given territory. In consonance with the classic just war approach, it is also argued that the justification for such an intervention is essentially dependent on its being initiated by, or attributable to, an unquestionable state agent acting in defence of the state’s basic prerogatives.     

Defence industry in Iran – between needs and real capabilities

ABSTRACT

The paper’s goal is to analyses the potential of the Iranian defence industry, including both research-and-development and production capabilities. It is argued that, despite official statements about the great power and sophistication of the Iranian defence industry, in reality its capabilities are very limited and cannot meet the operational needs of the Iranian armed forces. At the same time, it is argued that many official releases, which are abundantly available in the Iranian press and often unthinkingly repeated by the Western media, do not present the real and value of military products, but are rather a tool for deception and propaganda.