Glimpse into an army at its peak: notes on the Somali National Army in the 1960–80s

ABSTRACT

Bagayoko, Hutchful, and Luckham correctly argue that the structures, characteristics, and operating methods of official security institutions in Africa have been somewhat neglected, with a lack of much recent research. The Somali National Army (SNA) sits among these lacunae. Its formal structures can be used as a skeletal starting point and springboard to start to draw the network diagrams that chart informal linkages. This is why recent declassification decisions by U.S. intelligence bodies, coupled with period documents released to the UK National Archives, hold significance in helping us understand early hierarchical SNA arrangements. They show the steady build-up in size of the force, to 1987, to about the time the civil war began to fragment the state.