ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the capabilities of African armies to carry out their roles as national ground forces either for intervention or home defence. Such consideration must however extend to the types of conflict in which they may be committed; these can involve combat with insurrectionary groupings of men, warlord factions, militias not members of professional armies but well trained in the handling of weapons which they have acquired or seized. The chapter focuses on the military requirements of successful peace support operations and how capable African armies may be for this, increasingly important and necessary, role. Peace enforcement is however coercive, concerned with threats to and breaches of peace, provocation and aggression. Peace support operations must have consent as their aim, coercion only being used if absolutely necessary and the process being achieved by persuasion rather than force. The peace support force should be supervisory, a referee.
