Archaeology and the Armed Forces in Spain from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century

This chapter analyses how AMISOM tried to cooperate and coordinate with the existing Somali security forces in order to fight an effective war against al-Shabaab and simultaneously help build a new set of ‘national’ security forces that could make the AU mission redundant. After explaining the key challenges involved in security sector reform, it starts with a brief overview of how Somalia’s armed forces evolved since independence, focusing on the period since 2008 when the basis of today’s Somali National Army (SNA) was formed. Throughout the twenty-first century, the Somali armed forces remained fragmented and their institutions and structures largely dysfunctional. The second section then examines seven major challenges that made AMISOM’s mandate to enhance the SNA particularly difficult. The final section reflects on some of the principal lessons that can be identified from AMISOM’s experience.

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Between Autonomy and Independence. The Democratisation of the Armed Forces in Latin America in the Twenty-First Century

International Studies Interdisciplinary Political and Cultural Journal ◽

10.18778/1641-4233.25.03 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 29-47

Author(s):

Michał Stelmach

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Latin American ◽

Armed Forces ◽

First Century ◽

Political Systems ◽

Civil Military Relations ◽

Democratic Control ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

Military Relations

The aim of this article is to analyse the new forms of militarism as well as the position and the role of the armed forces in Latin American political systems in the twenty-first century. The first part analyses two selected forms of military participation in politics: the participation of former servicemembers in presidential elections and their performance as presidents, and the militarisation of political parties. The second part of the article focuses on the issue of contemporary civil-military relations in Latin America, discussing the problems associated with the establishment of democratic control over the armed forces, the reform of the Ministries of Defense and the redefinition of the functions of the army.

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‘The most beautiful of wars’: Carl von Clausewitz and small wars

European Journal of International Security ◽

10.1017/eis.2016.16 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 47-63 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Sibylle Scheipers

Keyword(s):

Armed Forces ◽

First Century ◽

Small Wars ◽

Core Concepts ◽

Small War ◽

Regulative Ideal ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

The Government ◽

Strategic Context

AbstractCarl von Clausewitz was both an avid analyst of small wars and people’s war and, during the wars of liberation, a practitioner of small war. While Clausewitz scholars have increasingly recognised the centrality of small wars for Clausewitz’s thought, the sources and inspirations of his writings on small wars have remained understudied. This article contextualises Clausewitz’s thought on small wars and people’s war in the tradition of German philosophical and aesthetic discourses around 1800. It shows how Clausewitz developed core concepts such as the integration of passion and reason and the idea of war in its ‘absolute perfection’ as a regulative ideal in the framework of his works on small wars and people’s war. Contextualising Clausewitz inevitably distances him from the twenty-first-century strategic context, but, as this article shows, it can help us to ask pertinent questions about the configuration of society, the armed forces and the government in today’s Western states.

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