ABSTRACT

This book shows that wars that have hitherto been mainly interpreted as driven by economic, resource, ethnic or clan interests (such as the conflicts in Liberia and Somalia in the early 1990s) do have an overriding political rationale, which revalidates Carl von Clausewitz’s nineteenth-century understanding of war.

chapter 2|16 pages

CASE STUDY I

Liberia, 1989–97

chapter 3|16 pages

CASE STUDY II

Somalia, 1988–95

chapter 4|22 pages

POLITICAL ACTORS

chapter 5|18 pages

POLITICAL INTERESTS

chapter 6|14 pages

POLITICAL INSTRUMENTS AND CONVENTIONAL WAR

chapter 7|19 pages

POLITICS AND STRATEGY IN AFRICAN WARS

Intervention dilemmas