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Abstract
In the existing literature, compensation is often understood to be an inferior source of cohesion in military organisations. Through an investigation of the militias who fought for Charles Taylor’s government of Liberia, this paper makes three claims. Firstly, the organisation of these forces was looser than is often claimed in previous literature, which assumes tight and often coercive military patrimonialism. Consequently, the militias did not enjoy the interpersonal bonds of solidarity that have dominated recent cohesion literature. Secondly, since Taylor chose to suppress attempts to build cohesion around ethnicity, it played a subordinate role in unifying the militias. Thirdly, Taylor instead relied on military contracting and compensation, which allowed for the broad mobilisation of forces. The combination of militias’ hopes of inclusion into the state patrimony and insufficient resources to realise this left the cohesion of the militias fragile. Ultimately, this paper questions both whether Taylor had any choice but to resort to compensation in a context with a weak state and fragmented social organisation, and also whether the strategy is as inefficient as often thought.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Swedish Armed Forces for supporting this research through its Forskning och Teknik (FoT) research programme. The views expressed in this article, however, belong solely to the author.
Notes
1. For the best account of the 1990s war, see Ellis, Mask of Anarchy.
2. Moran, Liberia: The Violence of Democracy, 105–123.
3. For a longer discussion regarding this strategy in Africa, see Käihkö, ‘Big Man Bargaining’.
4. This is, for instance, evident in the view that ‘neopatrimonial regimes are embedded in precapitalist societies’. Bratton and Van de Walle, Democratic Experiments, 89. Ultimately the view can be traced back to Max Weber and his forms of authority.
5. Reno, ‘Liberia: The LURDs’, 71.
6. Mkandawire argues that lacking room for the influence of ideas in analysis of African political affairs can be explained by the use of academically hollow concepts, such as neopatrimonialism. Mkandawire, ‘Neopatrimonialism and the Political Economy’.
7. John T. Richardson quoted in Hetherington, Long Story, 106.
8. Howe, ‘Private Security’; Reno, ‘Privatizing’.
9. Spicer, Unorthodox Soldier.
10. Hoffman, ‘Violence, Just in Time’, 52.
11. Hoffman, ‘Violence, Just in Time’.
12. Percy, Mercenaries.
13. Howard, War in European History, 25.
14. Collins, ‘Does Nationalist Sentiment Increase’, 41.
15. For instance, see Jentzsch et al., ‘Militias in Civil Wars’.
16. For a longer discussion of the methods used in this research (which I call conflict ethnography), see Käihkö, Bush Generals and Small Boy Battalions, 47–61.
17. Murphy, ‘Military Patrimonialism’.
18. Shils and Janowitz, ‘Cohesion and Disintegration’; Siebold, ‘Essence of Military Group Cohesion’.
19. Collier, ‘Doing Well out of War’; Kaldor, New & Old Wars; Keen, ‘Greed and Grievance’.
20. Chabal, Africa: The Politics, 9; Kopytoff and Miers, ‘African “Slavery” as an Institution’, 17–18; Utas, ‘Malignant Organisms’, 270; Vigh, ‘Militantly Well’, 100.
21. For instance, see Gberie, ‘Destabilizing Guinea’.
22. Hoffman, Kamajors of Sierra Leone.
23. Banegas, ‘Post-Election Crisis’.
24. Käihkö, ‘“Taylor Must Go”’, 259.
25. See Themnér, Violence in Post-Conflict Societies.
26. On this Second War, see Gerdes, Civil War and State Formation, 132–187; Käihkö, ‘“Taylor Must Go”’; Reno, ‘Liberia: The LURDs’.
27. For a discussion on the intensity of the war, see Käihkö, ‘“Taylor Must Go”’, 262; Käihkö, ‘“No Die, No Rest”?’, 11–22.
28. See Käihkö, ‘Mystical and Modern Transformations’.
29. For a Sierra Leonean parallel, see Hoffman, War Machines, 278–279.
30. For discussions of violence in Sierra Leone, see Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest, xviii–xxiv; Mitton, Rebels in a Rotten State.
31. Hoffman, ‘Violence, Just in Time’, 38.
32. For a discussion on the historical development of military organisation in Liberia, see Käihkö, ‘“No Die, No Rest”?’, 11–13; Utas, ‘Malignant Organisms’, 276–279.
33. These estimates may be well off, and the number of militia groups and their size fluctuated during the war. One LURD commander believed that the power relationship between the GoL forces and the LURD was four to one in Lofa, where the rebels could only compensate with firepower. Likely as a result of their inferior logistics, only 15,595 disarmed as government militias, in comparison to LURD’s 34,273. National Commission on Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration, ‘DDRR Consolidated Report Phase 1, 2 & 3’.
34. Percy, Mercenaries, 74–75.
35. Hoffman, ‘Meaning of a Militia’, 652; Murphy, ‘Military Patrimonialism’.
36. Shils and Janowitz, ‘Cohesion and Disintegration’; Siebold, ‘Essence of Military Group Cohesion’.
37. On these flat structures, see Utas, Sweet Battlefields, 161–163.
38. Kress, Operational Logistics, 9–11.
39. Kress, Operational Logistics, 3. For examples of how this worked out with Taylor’s enemies in Liberia, see Hoffman, Kamajors of Sierra Leone, 313; Käihkö, ‘“Taylor Must Go”’, 253, 256, 258.
40. Hoffman, War Machines.
41. For slightly different sums, see Global Witness, ‘Usual Suspects’, 41.
42. Bøås and Hatløy,‘“Getting In, Getting Out”’, 45.
43. Malešević, Sociology of War and Violence, 96–97.
44. Keegan, History of Warfare, 233.
45. Malešević, Sociology of War and Violence, 222–226; Stouffer, Studies in Social Psychology.
46. Moskos, American Enlisted Man, 146–148; Shils, ‘Primary Groups in the American Army’, 22.
47. Ferme, ‘Violence of Numbers’; Hoffman, ‘Disagreement: Dissent Politics’; Hoffman, War Machines; Moran, Liberia: The Violence of Democracy.
48. Utas, ‘Fluid Research Fields’, 229–230.
49. Fittingly for the theme of compensation, many seemed willing to exchange information for a monetary reward. Offering such a reward would, however, have been both ethically and methodologically problematic.
50. Bledsoe, Women and Marriage in Kpelle Society; Utas, ‘Introduction: Bigmanity and Network Governance’; for criticism, see Hoffman, War Machines, 134–135.
51. Stack, All Our Kin.
52. Standing, Precariat.
53. Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 9.
54. Marchal, ‘Being Rich, Being Poor’.
55. Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States.
56. Howard, War in European History, 54.
57. Hoffman, ‘Meaning of a Militia’, 661.
58. Hoffman, ‘Violence, Just in Time’.
59. For an excellent historical account of the Liberian state-building process, see Moran, Liberia.
60. Vlassenroot and Van Acker, ‘War as Exit from Exclusion?’; Vigh, ‘Militantly Well’, 99.
61. Vigh, ‘Social Death and Violent Life Chances’, 47.
62. Standing, Precariat, 157.
63. Käihkö, ‘“Taylor Must Go”’, 263–264.
64. For a parallel from Ivoirian militias, see Arnaut, ‘Corps Habillés, Nouchis and Subaltern Bigmanity’.
65. Utas, Sweet Battlefields, 53.
66. Ferme, ‘Violence of Numbers’; Christensen and Utas, ‘Mercenaries of Democracy’.
67. Bayart, State in Africa.
68. Vigh, ‘Militantly Well’, 9.
69. Hoffman, ‘Meaning of a Militia’, 651.
70. Hoffman, War Machines, 135–137.
71. Aretxaga, Shattering Silence, 18.
72. Hoffman, ‘Violence, Just in Time’, 46. See also Newell, Modernity Bluff.
73. Standing, Precariat, 12.
74. Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 34–39.
75. These views are well summed in Kaldor’s ‘identity politics’, which include the use of ‘tribal’ labels ‘as a basis for political claims’; Kaldor, New & Old Wars, 79.
76. Charles Taylor, quoted in Dwyer, American Warlord, 95.
77. Käihkö, ‘“Taylor Must Go”’, 251.
78. Bøås and Hatløy, ‘“Getting In, Getting Out”’, 40–41.
79. Käihkö, ‘“No Die, No Rest”?’, 20–21.
80. See Højbjerg, ‘Victims and Heroes’; Bøås and Dunn, Politics of Origin.
81. Lachmann, ‘Mercenary, Citizen, Victim’, 47.
82. Strachan, ‘Soldier’s Experience’, 376. See also Moskos, American Enlisted Man, 147.
83. Keegan, ‘Theory of Combat Motivation’, 7.
84. Käihkö, ‘“Taylor Must Go”’, 257–260.
85. King, ‘On Cohesion’.
86. Käihkö, ‘“Taylor Must Go”’, 255.
87. Smith, Inquiry into the Nature; Clausewitz, On War, 230–232.
88. Howard, War in European History, 25.
89. Keen, Economic Functions of Violence, 74.
90. For three examples of how this feeling has recently contributed to violent labour, see Christensen, ‘Underbelly of Global Security’; Käihkö, ‘“Even My Grandmother”’. For the case of former soldiers of the Armed Forces of Liberia who seek to use their formal military training as a way to gain inclusion, see Käihkö, ‘Mystical and Modern Transformations’.