The American way of war in Africa: the case of Niger

ABSTRACT

Increasing attention paid to US casualties in far-flung places such as Tongo Tongo, Niger, and headlines claiming ‘secret wars’ have fueled discussion about American military’s involvement in Africa. Though the continent has been a part of the American way of war since the beginnings of the US – consider the early combat actions of US Marines in Tripoli –, current African conflicts are challenging our understanding of war and approaches to winning it. This article examines the ways America seeks to achieve its ends in Africa with a particular focus upon the last 10 years of US counter-terrorism and stability operations in Niger and the Sahel Region. The author proposes unifying American, Allied, and partner efforts through a strategy of Active Containment.     

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.     

Anarchy’s anatomy: Two-tiered security systems and Libya’s civil wars

ABSTRACT

No issue deserves more scrutiny than the mechanisms whereby popular unrest unleashes civil wars. We argue that one institution – two-tiered security systems – is particularly pernicious in terms of the accompanying civil war risk. These systems’ defining characteristic is the juxtaposition of small communally stacked units that protect regimes from internal adversaries with larger regular armed forces that deter external opponents. These systems aggravate civil war risks because stacked security units lack the size to repress widespread dissent, but inhibit rapid regime change through coup d’état. Regular militaries, meanwhile, fracture when ordered to employ force against populations from which they were recruited.