An army is the mirror of a state. Look at how she recruits her soldiers, how she treats her men and how she chooses her officers. This article examines this idea by comparing seventeen countries with very different histories: the United States, Russia, Ukraine, China, France, Turkey, Iran, Morocco, Algeria, Venezuela, Brazil, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, Liberia and Sierra Leone. It starts from the Vietnam War and reaches today’s drones. It shows how armies can drift from their role, and what conditions really allow them to be reformed.
Positioning in the literature
Since the 1950s, two major researchers have structured the debate on armies and states.
Samuel Huntington, in The Soldier and the State (1957)1defends a simple idea: a professional army, which does its military work well without getting involved in politics, is the best. The army obeys civilians.
Morris Janowitz, in The Professional Soldier (1960)2says something else: an army is all the more stable and loyal if it resembles the society it defends.
These two ideas have long dominated research on armies – from Finer (1962) to Barany (2012) and Bruneau and Trinkunas (2008).
This article starts from there. Huntington and Janowitz both assume that there is a solid state to begin with. It is this assumption that is called into question here.
In many African or post-Soviet countries, the state is not strong. It is weak, corrupt, or captured by private interests.
In these cases, even strong civilian control of the military does not produce a professional army. It produces an army in the service of a regime – which is very different from an army in the service of a state.
It is this central idea that this article seeks to demonstrate: it is not the state which explains the army, it is the army which reveals what the state is worth.
The article also draws on Mary Kaldor (1999)3 to understand today’s wars, on Barak and Sheffer (2010)4 to analyze armies which play a role halfway between the military and the political, and on Ball and Fayemi (2004)5 for lessons from military reform programs — pointing out that these programs often fail because they treat reform as a technical problem, when it is primarily a political problem.
Introduction
In 1975, the United States lost in Vietnam. Not for lack of soldiers, not for lack of planes or money. They lose because no one really knew what winning meant. Neither in Washington, nor on the ground.6
In February 2022, Russia invades Ukraine. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a world reference in military spending, the Russian defense budget amounts to 86.4 billion dollars in 2022. However, from the first weeks, columns of armored vehicles stop for lack of fuel, Communications are intercepted, soldiers receive expired food.7 It’s not a lack of money. It is the result of two decades of corruption: maintenance contracts signed but never executed, promotions awarded according to relationships and not according to merit.
Faced with them, Ukraine resists. Not because she is richer or better equipped. Because his soldiers know what they are fighting for. When the mission is understood and accepted, soldiers fight differently – better.8
These three cases say the same thing: an army reveals what the state is worth. She amplifies her strengths. She exposes her weaknesses. It cannot be better than the state which produced it.
For what ? Because the performance of an army depends on three things. First, soldiers must understand and accept their mission. Second, internal rules – promotions, salaries, sanctions – must reward work well done and punish deception. Third, there must be real trust between the army and the society it is supposed to defend.
A state that recruits by favoritism, that promotes by personal loyalty and that diverts money from defense mechanically produces an ineffective army.
In this article, the state is defined as the set of institutions which exercise recognized authority over a territory, levy taxes and redistribute resources (Weber, 1919; Mann, 1988; Migdal, 1988). This definition is based on three pillars: the capacity to govern, legitimacy in the eyes of citizens, and the internal coherence of institutions.
The article is divided into five parts. The first looks at what the great wars since 1945 teach us about States. The second examines an army’s missions and what happens when it exceeds them. The third analyzes how democracies control their army. The fourth traces the evolution of conflicts since 1990. The fifth identifies the conditions for a military reform that really holds.
Note méthodologique
This article compares seventeen countries chosen precisely because they are very different. It is a well-established method in social sciences: testing an idea in contrasting contexts reinforces its validity (Eisenhardt, 1989; Ragin, 1987).9
The countries were selected according to three criteria. First, the diversity of political regimes: solid democracies (France, Germany, Brazil, South Korea), intermediate regimes (Turkey, Morocco, Algeria), authoritarian regimes (Iran, Venezuela), and fragile states (Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia). Then, the diversity of military trajectories: some countries have been stable for decades (Germany), others have experienced political crises linked to their army (Ivory Coast, Mali), and finally others have rebuilt their army after a civil war (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Brazil). Finally, geographic diversity: Europe, Latin America, Middle East, East Asia and Africa.
The case documentation is based on three types of sources: secondary academic literature for in-depth analyses, institutional reports (SIPRI, UCDP, Fund for Peace, Freedom House) for comparable data, and monographic studies for regional cases. The best documented cases – United States, Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany – benefit from a more developed analysis. The African cases rely mainly on the available specialist literature, which calls for caution on certain details.
Two honest limitations should be noted. Some countries are better documented than others, and comparison on a large scale does not allow us to go as far in detail as a study devoted to a single case. These limits do not call into question the central idea, but invite caution in the less well-known cases.
I. What the great wars teach us about States
1.1. Why the great powers no longer wage war directly
Since 1945, the United States, Russia, China and other major powers have never directly attacked each other. Two reasons explain this.
The first is practical: nuclear weapons make direct war between great powers suicidal for everyone.10 The second is cultural: after the horrors of the two world wars, Western societies rejected the very idea of war between states.11
But that doesn’t mean that the great powers have stopped waging war. They simply stopped fighting directly. Instead, they finance, arm and support opposing sides in wars waged by others – what the strategic literature refers to as “proxy wars”.12
1.2. Vietnam
The Vietnam War is one of the most instructive cases in recent military history. The United States had everything: planes, trained soldiers, a considerable budget, and total technical superiority. They still lost.
The reason is not military. She is political. No one — neither in Washington nor on the ground — clearly knew what winning meant. What was the end goal? How would we know if we succeeded?13
On the other hand, the Viet Cong fighters had a simple answer: defend their country against a foreign power. This clarity gives a strength that money and missiles cannot buy.
This lesson was formalized in what is called the “Powell doctrine”: we only send an army into combat if the objectives are clear, the means sufficient, and we have planned how to get out.14
Afghanistan (2001–2021) repeated the same mistake. More than 130,000 soldiers deployed. And in August 2021, the government collapsed in eleven days.15 The Afghan army rebuilt over twenty years was not the army of a state that the Afghans recognized as theirs. Without this legitimacy, no equipment or training can stand.
1.3. Iraq 2003
In May 2003, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, American administrator Paul Bremer made a decision with serious consequences: he dissolved the Iraqi army. Overnight, several hundred thousand soldiers found themselves unemployed, without pay, but still armed and well trained.16
Some of these men joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq, then the Islamic State organization.
The lesson is clear: when you destroy an organization – an army, an administration, a police force – without foreseeing what the people who were part of it will do, you create a problem often more serious than the one you wanted to solve.
1.4. Russia and Ukraine since 2022: money does not replace institutions
The Russian offensive in Ukraine surprised many observers. Not because Russia was strong, but because it proved so flawed. Columns of armored vehicles immobilized for lack of fuel. Poorly secure communications, easily intercepted. Undersupplied soldiers.17 How is this possible with a defense budget of $86.4 billion per year?18 The answer: this money has largely been stolen or wasted. Maintenance contracts signed but not executed. Falsified inventories. Promotions given to friends, not to competent people. This is not a military problem. It is the reflection of a state where corruption is systemic.
Ukraine illustrates the opposite. Its soldiers knew exactly what they were fighting for: to defend their country, their families, their existence. When the mission is understood and accepted, soldiers do things that military manuals do not predict.19
These two trajectories form the most readable test of the central idea of this article.
1.5. Drones: new technology, the same old questions
In the Ukrainian conflict, simple, cheaply manufactured drones destroyed tanks and ammunition trucks worth millions of euros.20 This technological evolution is changing battles. It does not change the fundamentals.
To fly drones, you need trained operators. To support them, we need logisticians. To guide them, you need information. The state must recruit these people, pay them properly, and give them clear rules. Technology makes state failures even more visible. She doesn’t repair them.
II. What is an army for – and when it goes wrong
2.1. The three missions of an army
An army has three basic missions.
The first: defend the national territory against external threats. France, for example, abolished compulsory military service in 1996 to equip itself with an army of professionals, capable of quickly intervening anywhere in the world.21 Result: a more efficient army. But also an army further removed from civil society, which Janowitz considered a real risk for democracy.
The second: participate in peacekeeping operations abroad. Senegal is one of the largest African contributors to UN missions – in Lebanon, Haiti, DRC, Ivory Coast.22 These missions train soldiers in discipline and international rules of engagement. They strengthen the professionalism of the army. But they also have limits: too narrow mandates which prohibit intervention when civilians are threatened, fatigue of the contingents which the contributing States struggle to compensate for, and a risk of disconnection between soldiers accustomed to external theaters and the reality of national defense. Minusma in Mali illustrated this: ten years of presence, and insecurity has not diminished.
2.2. The third mission: internal crises
The third mission is the most delicate: intervening in the event of a crisis inside the country. This is where the risk is greatest.
In France, since the attacks of January 2015, Operation Sentinel has deployed soldiers in the streets and in front of public places.23 It is a response to a real danger. But this creates tension: the army is in civilian space. This line is hard to draw and easy to cross.
In Venezuela, the line has completely disappeared. The army no longer defends the territory: it manages food distribution, runs public companies, controls customs borders.24 It has become the substitute for a civil state which no longer functions.
2.3. What real missions reveal about a state
There is often a gap between what an army is supposed to do and what it actually does. This gap is revealing.
An army that defends its borders and participates in international security without ever interfering in political life: this is the sign of civil institutions that function well.
An army which does the work of administration, which distributes subsidies, which imposes itself in political affairs: this is the sign that civil institutions are failing or non-existent. The army fills a void. This void is the basic problem.
III. How democracies control their military
3.1. The five pillars of democratic control
In a democracy, the army depends on elected civilians. Not because we distrust soldiers. But because deciding to go to war is a decision that involves the entire country. It must therefore be taken by people whom citizens can sanction in elections.25
This control is based on five pillars.
First pillar: the head of state commands the army.
Second pillar: Parliament votes on the defense budget and authorizes military operations abroad.
Third pillar: the courts can judge illegal behavior by the army, including that of officers.
Fourth pillar: the press is free to cover military affairs. A journalist who can investigate an army is one of the best defenses against abuse.
Fifth pillar: the training itself. In Germany, the concept ofInner leadership – which can be translated as “citizen in uniform”26 — has taught soldiers since 1955 that their loyalty is first to the Constitution, not to a leader or an institution.
3.2. When control does not work: Iran, Algeria, Türkiye, Venezuela, Morocco
In Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is much more than an army. They control ports, oil industries, construction companies, commercial networks.27 Their real budget escapes Parliament entirely. Reforming their status would call into question the foundations of the regime – which is practically impossible from within.
In Algeria, the army has never officially taken power since 1962. But it makes decisions in the shadows.28 In 2019, the popular Hirak movement expressly called for an end to military influence on politics. He was not heard.
In Venezuela, Harold Trinkunas (2005) showed how the army was transformed in three stages under Hugo Chávez: first politicized appointments (1999–2002), then civilian missions entrusted to active officers (2003–2006), and finally the merger between the financing of the army and oil revenues (2007–2013).24 Each step made the next one easier. And the counter-powers – Parliament, justice – were weakening at the same time.
Morocco presents a different case. The army obeys the king, not because laws oblige it, but because personal allegiance to the sovereign is the foundation of the institution. This ensures real stability. But the army is not reforming itself as a professional institution in the classical sense.
Turkey is the most complex case. For decades, the army proclaimed itself the guardian of secularism, intervening directly in politics four times between 1960 and 1997.29 Erdoğan succeeded in placing the army under civilian control. But civil control exercised by a power which crushes counter-powers is not a democratic guarantee. It’s just a different type of capture.
IV. How armed conflicts have changed since 1990
4.1. Fewer wars between states, more civil wars
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, some thought that peace would spread. Francis Fukuyama even theorized the “end of history”30 : liberal democracy had won, the great wars belonged to the past.
What happened is different. Wars between states have indeed declined. But civil wars, insurrections, internal armed conflicts exploded. Mary Kaldor called these conflicts “new wars”31 : combatants without uniform, who finance their operations by controlling natural resources, and who deliberately target civilians.
4.2. Bosnia and Rwanda: when the international community failed to act
In July 1995, in Srebrenica, Bosnia, around eight thousand men and boys were executed in a few days. UN soldiers were present. They had not received the order to intervene.32
In 1994, in Rwanda, around eight hundred thousand people were killed in less than a hundred days.33
These two massacres changed international law. In 2005, the UN adopted the doctrine of the “responsibility to protect”: a state that massacres its own citizens cannot hide behind its sovereignty to escape the consequences.
4.3. Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia: when the state disappears, the army disappears with it
In 1991, the Somali regime of Siad Barré collapsed. The national army dissolves immediately. The territory is fragmented into areas controlled by warlords and clan militias.34
In Liberia and Sierra Leone, the civil wars of the 1990s followed a similar pattern. The armed factions financed themselves by controlling diamond mines.35 As long as gemstones brought in money, no one really had any interest in negotiating peace.
In these three cases, the dissolution of the national army is not the cause of the failure of the state. This is the most visible sign. The problem was deeper.
4.4. Mali, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Senegal: four lessons from West Africa
These four countries make it possible to draw a map of possible trajectories.
Senegal is the case of stability. Since independence in 1960, the army has never overthrown the government. This stability is not a coincidence. It comes from regular investment in the training of soldiers, particularly through UN peace missions.36
Ivory Coast illustrates hidden fragility. The country seemed stable. But during the post-election crisis of 2010–2011, the army fractured into rival factions.37 Surface stability can mask deep tensions.
Guinea represents an emblematic case of states rich in natural resources and institutionally fragile. The country has some of the largest mineral reserves on the continent. Extractive rent has historically fueled competition for control of power – a mechanism documented in the literature on the resource curse (Collier, 2003; Forest, 2021).38 In this context, the armed forces have occupied a central position in Guinean political life since independence: sometimes as an instrument of transitions, sometimes as an autonomous actor. The four regime changes by force that occurred between 1984 and 2021 illustrate an army that has regularly replaced failing civilian institutions, rather than being subordinate to them. The Guinean case thus confirms the thesis of this article: an army cannot be more solid than the state which produced it.
Mali embodies the predictable collapse. Promotions in the army depended on networks of allegiance, not on merit. When the security crisis of 2012 hit, the army did not have the officers capable of handling it.39
4.5. Syria and Yemen: two never-ending wars
The war in Syria began in 2011. More than three hundred thousand dead. More than four million refugees.40 Government forces used chemical weapons and bombed hospitals. These crimes are not the work of soldiers acting alone: they were ordered by a state which assumes political responsibility.
In Yemen, since 2015, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been confronting the Houthis, supported by Iran.41 The humanitarian crisis is one of the worst in a decade. And despite overwhelming air superiority, the coalition did not succeed in lastingly controlling the territory. It’s an old lesson that repeats itself: bombings are not enough to win a war when the local populations do not support you.
4.6. Why wars break out: four explanations, and their limits
When a civil war breaks out, we often hear the same explanations. Here are four of them, with their strengths and limitations.
The religious explanation is the most widespread in the media. But it does not stand up to scrutiny: the same religious communities have coexisted peacefully for centuries in the same territories. Religion is not the cause – it is the tool that political leaders use to mobilize support.42
The economic explanation: countries whose economy depends on a single natural resource – oil, diamonds, coltan – are statistically much more exposed to armed conflicts. Paul Collier showed this convincingly.43
The geopolitical explanation: great powers often fuel conflicts that serve their interests without them having to fight themselves. This is what Aron called “belligerent peace” — a balance based not on the absence of violence, but on its delegation to others.44
The ethnic explanation is the most dangerous. It makes people believe that conflicts are natural, inevitable, inscribed in the identity of peoples. This is false. Ethnic identities do not start wars. These are political leaders who deliberately activate them to divide and mobilize. As Jean-François Bayart writes: “There is no identity conflict, there are only identity conflict strategies. HAS”45
V. Reforming an army: why it is so difficult and how to get there
5.1. The mistake of believing it’s a technical problem
Many military reform programs fail because they start from a bad assumption: the problem is technical. It would be enough to train officers, buy equipment, write new regulations.
This is the wrong problem. Reforming an army means changing who decides on promotions, who controls the money, who can punish mistakes. It is therefore a redistribution of power and privileges within the institution. Those who benefit from the current system will not give in without resistance.46 This is not a technical challenge. It is a political challenge.
5.2. The trap of reform imposed from outside
Since the 1990s, dozens of international programs have financed military reforms in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The overall results are disappointing.47
The reason is simple. A reform that officers experience as a constraint from outside does not produce real change. They sign new regulations to maintain access to international funds. But in reality, practices do not change.
In Mali, between 2013 and 2020, the armed forces received years of training and equipment paid for by international partners. Promotions granted according to allegiance networks? Still there. Insufficient supplies for the units deployed at the front? Still there.48 And when the crisis hit, the army was not ready.
5.3. Lessons from Liberia and Sierra Leone: rebuilding after civil war
After their civil wars in the 1990s, Liberia and Sierra Leone had to rebuild everything. Their experience contains valuable lessons.49
Three challenges proved decisive.
First challenge: disarming former combatants and reintegrating them into civil society. Some had committed war crimes. Leaving them armed and without prospects guaranteed a resumption of violence.
Second challenge: recruit into the new army according to merit, not according to membership in a group or network.
Third challenge: rebuilding trust between the army and the populations it had mistreated during the war.
5.4. Four examples of successful reforms
Spain (1975–1982). After forty years of Franco’s dictatorship, the transition to democracy succeeded in subjecting the army to civilian power. The method: gradual changes, a dialogue maintained with reluctant officers, and no brutal ruptures likely to provoke a coup d’état.50
Brazil (1988). After twenty-one years of military rule, the 1988 Constitution reestablished civilian control. Important innovation: the army participated in the drafting of the constitutional text which defined its own status. She did not receive the rules from above: she co-constructed them.51
South Korea (1998–2003). Under Kim Dae-jung, two reforms changed things permanently: Parliament obtained real control over the military budget, and freedom of the press on military affairs was guaranteed. Two simple mechanisms. Two profound effects.
Germany (1955 to present). The most successful case. The concept ofInner leadership — “citizen in uniform”52 — has taught Bundeswehr soldiers for seventy years that their loyalty is to the Constitution, not to a hierarchy or a leader. This value is enshrined in the culture of the institution, not just in the regulations.
5.5. The five conditions for a reform that lasts
The analysis of these cases reveals five conditions. They are not enough separately. But when they are united, the reform holds.
First condition: strong and lasting political will. Without a leader who really wants to reform and who holds out over the long term, internal resistance takes over (example: Spain, 1975–1982).
Second condition: change the culture, not just the rules. We can write new regulations in a week. Changing the habits and values of an institution takes years. Without this cultural work, the new rules are circumvented as soon as no one is looking (example: Germany, 1955).
Third condition: involve ordinary soldiers in the process. Senior officers are not the only ones affected. Rank-and-file soldiers who have a hard time with reforms create instability that leaders do not see coming (example: Sierra Leone, 2002–2010).
Fourth condition: civil institutions capable of truly controlling. A parliament that votes on military budgets without examining them, or a justice system that never prosecutes corrupt officers: these are conditions that allow the army to remain beyond any real control. Civilian control must be effective, not just formal (example: South Korea, 1998–2003).
Fifth condition: a clear national narrative. When people understand why their army must change, reform has social legitimacy. When it appears as a constraint imposed by foreign donors or by a disconnected elite, it fails (example: Brazil, Constitution of 1988).53
These five conditions are not independent. Political will is the condition of the four others: without it, neither the culture changes, nor the soldiers are associated, nor civilian control is consolidated, nor the national narrative is constructed. This is therefore where we must start – and this is precisely what international aid programs most often struggle to produce from outside.
Conclusion
Look at how an army behaves, and you will understand what the state that created it is really worth. Not because the army mechanically reflects the state. But because it reveals the deep truth. It is at the time of crises that everything is seen: do the fine principles – neutrality, professionalism, respect for the law – hold up in the face of particular interests, personal ambitions and internal power games? The answer to this question says it all.
The United States lost in Vietnam because its army did not know how to explain to its soldiers what they were dying for. Russia spent billions of dollars a year on an army that turned out, in Ukraine, to be much less powerful than expected – because twenty years of corruption had emptied its stated capabilities of substance.
Somalia descended into chaos because the state itself had ceased to exist.
Senegal has maintained its stability because it has, year after year, built an army whose legitimacy was deep enough to survive political alternations.
What the analysis of these seventeen countries allows us to say is that Huntington’s idea must be reversed. It is not the State which explains the army. It is the army that reveals what the state is truly capable of producing.
This reversal has direct consequences for military aid and reform programs.54 Any reform of the army which does not at the same time address the failings of the state which produced it will only produce surface effects. We train officers. We buy equipment. But promotions continue to be done according to networks, budgets continue to be diverted, and ordinary soldiers continue to not know why they serve.
This results in three practical implications for those working on international security cooperation – and the first is the most decisive, because it conditions the effectiveness of the other two.
First: military aid must be linked to real progress in civilian governance – independence of Parliament, freedom of the press, budgetary transparency. This is not interference. It is a condition of effectiveness. Without institutions civilians capable of real control, all training and equipment will sooner or later be diverted to the benefit of those who hold power.
Second: officer training must include an explicit component on institutional culture. Teaching to shoot and command is not enough. We must also teach why we obey the law rather than a leader.
Third: Disarmament and reintegration programs for ex-combatants cannot be treated as mere logistical operations. They are deeply political.
In the final analysis, the army’s place in the state is not a military question. It is a fundamental political question: it says who governs, how, and whether citizens trust those who govern them. Reforms that ignore this dimension only produce appearances. Those who truly confront it – by reforming civil institutions at the same time as the military institution – are the only ones who create lastingly legitimate and effective armies.
Amadou BAH
Political Analyst, International Relations Specialist
Notes
1 Samuel P. HUNTINGTON, The Soldier and the State : The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1957.
2 Morris JANOWITZ, The Professional Soldier : A Social and Political Portrait, New York, Free Press, 1960, pp. 3–36.
3 Mary KALDOR, New and Old Wars, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999, pp. 1–12.
4 Oren BARAK & Gabriel SHEFFER (dir.), Militaries, Civilians and the Fate of States, Albany, SUNY Press, 2010, pp. 1–28.
5 Nicole BALL & Kayode FAYEMI (dir.), Security Sector Governance in Africa, Lagos, Centre for Democracy and Development, 2004, pp. 78–95.
6 Neil SHEEHAN, A Bright Shining Lie, New York, Random House, 1988, pp. 731–787.
7 Michael KOFMAN et al., Ukraine’s Successful Defense, Washington D.C., CNAS, 2023, pp. 8–24.
8 Ibid.
9 Kathleen M. EISENHARDT, « Building Theories from Case Study Research », Academy of Management Review, vol. 14, n° 4, 1989, pp. 532–550 ; Charles C. RAGIN, The Comparative Method, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1987.
10 Jack LEVY, « War and Peace », in Handbook of International Relations, London, Sage, 2002, pp. 350–368.
11 John MUELLER, Retreat from Doomsday, New York, Basic Books, 1989, pp. 3–30.
12 Raymond ARON, Peace and war between nations, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1962, p. 17.
13 Neil Sheehan, op. cit., pp. 731–787.
14 Colin POWELL, My American Journey, New York, Random House, 1995, pp. 148–149.
15 Anthony CORDESMAN & Adam BURKE, The Afghan War, Washington D.C., CSIS, 2021.
16 L. Paul BREMER III, My Year in Iraq, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2006. Order No. 2 of May 23, 2003 is retrospectively considered one of the most consequential decisions of the occupation period.
17 KOFMAN et al., op. cit., pp. 8–24.
18 SIPRI, Military Expenditure Database 2024. En ligne : https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex
19 Anthony KING, Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2021, pp. 115–138.
20 Samuel BENDETT & Jeffery EDMONDS, « Russia’s Use of Drones and Electronic Warfare in Ukraine », CNA Analysis, mars 2023.
21 Charles MILLON, The professionalization of the French armies, Paris, La Documentation française, 1997.
22 Thierno SOW, “Senegal’s participation in UN peacekeeping operations”, Contemporary Africa, vol. LVIII, n° 2, 2020, pp. 41–68; Thierry TARDY, “The legitimacy of peace operations,” Geneva Center for Security Policy, n° 12, Geneva, 2011.
23 Frédéric GOUT, Operation Sentinel, Paris, IFRI, 2018.
24 Harold TRINKUNAS, Crafting Civilian Control of the Military in Venezuela, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2005, pp. 178–221.
25 Eliot COHEN, Supreme Command, New York, Free Press, 2002, pp. 3–15.
26 Bernard BOËNE & Christopher DANDEKER (dir.), Armies in Europe, Paris, La Découverte, 1998, pp. 105–128.
27 Ali ALFONEH, Iran Unveiled, Washington D.C., AEI Press, 2013, pp. 45–98.
28 Lahouari ADDI, L’Algérie et la démocratie, Paris, La Découverte, 1994, pp. 113–138.
29 Gareth JENKINS, Political Islam in Turkey, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 55–89.
30 Francis FUKUYAMA, The end of History and the last man, Paris, Flammarion, 1992.
31 Mary KALDOR, New and Old Wars, op. cit., pp. 1–12.
32 David ROHDE, Endgame, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997.
33 Roméo DALLAIRE, I shook hands with the devil, Paris, Libre Expression, 2003.
34 Ken MENKHAUS, « Somalia : State Collapse and the Threat of Terrorism », Adelphi Papers, n° 364, IISS, 2004.
35 William RENO, Warlord Politics and African States, Boulder, Lynne Rienner, 1998, pp. 79–110.
36 Thierno SOW, op. cit., pp. 41–68.
37 Richard BANÉGAS, « Post-war Violence and Social Reconstruction in Côte d’Ivoire », African Affairs, vol. 110, n° 440, 2011, pp. 431–452.
38 Patrick FOREST, “Natural resources and governance in Guinea”, African Politics, n° 162, 2021, pp. 45–72; Paul COLLIER, Breaking the Conflict Trap, Washington DC, World Bank / OUP, 2003, pp. 53–81.
39 Serge MICHAILOF, Africanistan: development or chaos?, Paris, Fayard, 2015, pp. 245–268.
40 Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Documented Deaths since the Beginning of the Syrian Revolution, Rapport annuel 2023.
41 Laurent BONNEFOY, Yemen: from happy Arabia to war, Paris, Fayard, 2017, pp. 189–225.
42 Gilles KEPEL, Fitna: war at the heart of Islam, Paris, Gallimard, 2004.
43 Paul COLLIER, Breaking the Conflict Trap, op. cit., pp. 53–81.
44 Raymond ARON, op. cit., p. 17.
45 Jean-François BAYART, The illusion of identity, Paris, Fayard, 1996, p. 12.
46 Thomas BRUNEAU & Harold TRINKUNAS (dir.), Global Politics of Defense Reform, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 3–27.
47 Ibid.
48 Andrew LEBOVICH, « The Sahel’s Crisis of Governance and the Coup Wave », ECFR Policy Brief, n° 387, janvier 2022.
49 Mark MALAN, Security Sector Reform in Liberia, Carlisle, Strategic Studies Institute, 2008.
50 Paul HEYWOOD, The Government and Politics of Spain, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1995, pp. 88–112.
51 Larry DIAMOND, The Spirit of Democracy, New York, Times Books, 2008, pp. 89–115.
52 Bernard BOËNE & Christopher DANDEKER (dir.), op. cit., pp. 105–128.
53 These five conditions are synthesized from Zoltan BARANY, The Soldier and the Changing State, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 22–58; BRUNEAU & TRINKUNAS (dir.), op. cit.; DIAMOND, op. cit.
54 Nicole Ball & Kayode Fayemi (dir.), op. cit., pp. 100-1 78–9
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COHEN Eliot, Supreme Command, New York, Free Press, 2002.
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CORDESMAN Anthony & BURKE Adam, The Afghan War, Washington D.C., CSIS, 2021.
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- Articles, reports and databases
BALL Nicole & FAYEMI Kayode (dir.), Security Sector Governance in Africa, Lagos, Centre for Democracy and Development, 2004.
BANÉGAS Richard, « Post-war Violence and Social Reconstruction in Côte d’Ivoire », African Affairs, vol. 110, n° 440, 2011, pp. 431–452.
BENDETT Samuel & EDMONDS Jeffery, « Russia’s Use of Drones and Electronic Warfare in Ukraine », CNA Analysis, mars 2023.
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FOREST Patrick, “Natural resources and governance in Guinea”, African Policy, n° 162, 2021, pp. 45–72.
GOUT Frédéric, Operation Sentinelle, Paris, IFRI, 2018.
KOHN Richard, « How Democracies Control the Military », Journal of Democracy, vol. 8, n° 4, 1997, pp. 140–153.
LEBOVICH Andrew, « The Sahel’s Crisis of Governance and the Coup Wave », ECFR Policy Brief, n° 387, janvier 2022.
LEVY Jack, « War and Peace », in Handbook of International Relations, London, Sage, 2002, pp. 350–368.
MENKHAUS Ken, « Somalia : State Collapse and the Threat of Terrorism », Adelphi Papers, n° 364, London, IISS, 2004.
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SIPRI, Military Expenditure Database 2024. En ligne : https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex
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