African Wars: A Defense Intelligence Perspective

ISBN-13: 9781552382738 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 275 str.

William Thom

Opis

I have never read anything quite like it: it is original in that it provides historical accounts from the perspective of the military and what an American analyst would consider important events in African wars. Comparable books would not have access to the kind of data or information provided therein; hence it is a unique advancement of the literature on African wars ...
- Erin Baines, Liu Institute for Global Issues,
University of British Columbia

During the past forty years, Africa south of the Sahara has been the most conflict-prone region of the world. Yet in spite of its growing geopolitical importance, both as a resource base and as an emerging factor in the U.S.-led 'war on terror, ' it remains one of the least understood.

African Wars provides a concise summary of four decades of warfare in sub-Saharan Africa, with expert commentary by an experienced and highly respected senior U.S. intelligence officer. As a defense analyst and eventually senior Africa specialist in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, William Thom acquired unique in-depth knowledge of conflict in this vast and troubled region. Ranging from postcolonial insurgency in Rhodesia to ongoing strife in the Horn of Africa, from the horrors of Rwanda and the Congo to devastating civil wars in Angola, Mozambique, and Liberia, the book tracks seventeen different conflicts, many of which have a continuing influence on the continent's political-military affairs today. Thom complements his penetrating and often gripping accounts of specific wars with valuable wide-ranging impressions, in particular the often surprising adaptability of combatant groups to their material and political environments, and the frustrating marginalization of Africa within security circles during this period.

African Wars is also a lively memoir, as Thom brings a wealth of detail, personal insight, and wit to the story of his training and education as an intelligence officer, the difficulties and oddities of traveling in Africa, and his skirmishes with the intelligence bureaucracy. Anyone interested in African security issues, contemporary warfare, or military intelligence will find this book a vital and timely discovery.

Spis treści

• Foreward
• William T. Stoakley
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue: The World of Defense Intelligence
• Part One: Non-Combat Realities
• 1. The Making of a Defense Intelligence Analyst
• Growing Up in the 1950s
• The Great Leap into Sub-Saharan Africa
• Two Out of Three is Not Bad!
• 2. Assignment EUCOM J-2, 1977-1980
• Hitting the Ground Running at EUCOM
• The EUCOM Experience Pays Dividends
• Generals Haig and Huyser and the Soft Underbelly of NATO
• Traveling through Africa
• 3. The War for Resources - and Briefind VIP's
• Unfavourable Pairings
• Out of Africa
• Africa Just Doesn't Make the Cut
• ""Something New Is Always Coming Out of Africa"" - Pliny the Elder
• What We Have Learned
• Briefing People in High Places
• 4. Threats to International Security: Optimists versus Pessimists
• The Optimists
• The Pessimists
• The Bottom Line
• Domestic Analogies
• Part Two: African Wars I Have Known

  5. Counter-insurgency in Africa

• Learning on the Job
• Insurgency in Southern Rhodesia, 1965-1980
• Lancaster House Marks a New Beginning
• 6. Civil War in Africa
• The Angolan Civil War, Phase One, 1975-1976
• The Angolan Civil War, Phase Two, 1980-1992
• The Angolan Civil War, Phase Three, 199s-2002
• 7. South Africa; The White Redoubt
• South Africa's Evolving Defense Strategy, 1960s-1980s Surprise in Angola
• The Receding White Redoubt
• South Africa's Defense Industry
• Apartheid South Africa: A Challenge for U.S. Intelligence
• 8. Mozambique: The RENAMO War, 1978-1992
• RENAMO: From an Insurgent Seed, a Monster Grows
• U.S. Policy Slightly Out of Tune
• The War Winds Down: The Times They Were a-Changin'
• Photo Gallery

  9. Two Surprising East African Wars

• The Ogaden War, 1977-1991
• Tanzania-Uganda War, 1978-1979
• 10. Two Antagonistic Regimes Collapse
• Somalia's Civil War, 1980s-1991
• The Ethiopian Civil War: Collapse of the Mengistu Regime, 1988-1991
• 11. Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan in the 1990s
• UN and U.S. Intervention in Somalia, 1992-1995
• The Ethiopia-Eritrea Border War, 1998-2000: All in the Family
• War in Sudan: The Enigma on the Nile
• 12. Two Improbable Conflicts: Zaire (Congo) and Chad
• The Shaba I and Shaba II Incursions into Zaire, 1977-1978
• Chad's "Toyota Wars" 1986-1987
• 13. The Great Lakes Crises: Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo
• Rwanda's Civil War and Genocide Crisis, 1990-1994
• The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Implodes, 1996-2002
• Burundi's Civil War, 1993-2001
• 14. Vicious Civil Conflicts in West Africa
• Liberia's Civil War, 1989-1997
• Sierra Leone's Civil War, 1991-2001
• 15. African Wars I Did Not Get to Know
• The Congo Crisis
• The Nigerian Civil War
• Other African Conflicts
• Other Wars Since Independence
• Epilogue
• Glossary of Acronyms
• Bibliography
• Index