Evaluating the Challenges and Opportunities of the Use of Military Diplomacy in Intrastate Conflict Management in the Horn of Africa
Downloads
Military diplomacy is increasingly relied on in the management of intra state conflicts globally. Far more common and controversial is the issue of combat troops to help end fighting in an intractable conflict. The Horn of Africa is an epitome of intractable regional intrastate conflicts that have attracted international, regional and even individual state military and humanitarian intervention since the 1970s. The Somalia and Sudan crises provide typical examples in which such efforts have been witnessed yet they also provide a case study of successful military diplomacy by African states in states engaged in protracted intra-state conflicts. This study was conceived to evaluate the challenges and opportunities of the use of military diplomacy in intrastate conflict management in the Horn of Africa. The study was located in the rational logic theory. It was carried out among peace groups and individuals who had participated in peace processes in the Horn of Africa. These were located in Mogadishu and Kismayu, Khartoum and Juba and embassies in Kenya that represent the Horn of Africa countries. Security personnel who have had a role in the Horn of Africa peace processes at African Union (AU), Inter - Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), East Africa Standby Force (EASF), United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), United Nations Africa (Union) Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) and African (Union) Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) were key informants. The study used purposive sampling and snowballing to determine the sample size. Data was collected using interview schedules and questionnaires which were analyzed using Concurrent Nested (Embedded) Design. Secondary data were gathered and reviewed from Journals, books and published proceedings that corroborated the primary data. The findings indicate that the obscurity of the military and the rubric in the understanding of military diplomacy poses a challenge for the military to influence intrastate conflicts in the Horn of Africa. This is compounded by other challenges including the Cold War mentality that has made the region to witness a series of foreign activities leading to militarization of the Horn of Africa with establishment of military bases in the Horn of Africa. Peace support operations are expensive to manage yet the missions undertaken in the Horn of Africa lack sustainable source of funds and instead over rely on foreign funding and goodwill. With no sufficient funds, buying equipment and paying the staff becomes a big challenge. Emerging threats and clan dynamics are actualities that the use of military diplomacy was found to face as a challenge. To change these challenges into opportunities requires rational logic from all stakeholders in the conflict management process
Downloads
Ayoob, M. (1995). The Third World Security Predicament: State Making Regional Conflict and the Continental System, Reenner Publishers
Barbosa, A. J. F. (2014). The challenges and Difficulties of Sino-Us military diplomacy in the African continent. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 10(10).
Barry, B and Woever, O. (2006). Regions and Powers: The structure of International Security, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Bellamy, J. A (2012). Pragmatic Soldierism and the Dilemmas of Humanitarian Intervention: Millenium Journal of International Peace.
Berridge, G. R. (2005) Diplomacy: Theory & Practice, 3rd edition, Palgrave, Basingstoke.
Brands H (2010) Latin America's Cold War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Clausewitz, V, (1968). On War, UK: Penguin.London.
Cliffe, L., Love, R & Tronvoll, K. (2009). Conflict and Peace in the Horn of Africa. Review of conflict in Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic, Third World Quarterly, 20(1): 89-111
Cohen, H. (2000). Intervening in Africa: superpower peacemaking in a troubled continent. Springer.
De Waal., A, (2015). The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa: Money, War and the Business of Power, Cambridge, Bridge Street, Polity Press.
Downing W., (2006) Kenya, Eretria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti. Harmony project. Combating terrorism center at west point.
Edmunds, T, (2006). What are Armed Forces for? The Changing Nature of Military Roles in Europe. International Affairs 82(6), 1059-1075.
Emma, L. (2012). Rendering Difference visible: The Kenyan State and its Somali Citizens. Oxford journals-social Science African Affairs Vol III Issue 445. Ethiopia, International Relations and Diplomacy, 4(12), 787-800.
Fahmy, N. (2006). Terrorism is the World’s Problem, 16 Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law pp 157-168.
Freeman, C. W Jnr (1997). Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy. United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington DC.
George, L. A, and Simons, E. W. (1994). The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, Westview Press: Boulder.
Hansen, S. J (2013). Al Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group. Oxford University Press.
Healy, L. (2008) International Social Work: Professional Action in an Interdependent World, Oxford University Press, New York
Hess, S and Aidoo, R. (2010). “Beyond the Rectories: Noninterference in China’s African Policy”. Africa and Asian Studies.
Heywood, A (2000). Key Concepts in Politics, Basingstoke: Plagrave Macmillan.
Holzgrefe, J. L. (2003). The humanitarian intervention debate, (eds) J. L. Holzgrefe and R. O. Keohane, Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Huntington, P. S. (1998). The Soldier and the State: Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. London: Howard University Press.
Janowitz, M. (2017). The professional soldier: A social and political portrait. Simon and Schuster.
Lasswell, H. D. (1998). The garrison state. American journal of sociology, 46(4), 455468.
Makinda, SM. (1982). Conflict and the superpowers in the horn of Africa. Third World Quarterly, 4(1): 93-103. DOI: 10.1080/01436598208419609. Management of Conflicts and Post Conflict Reconstruction. Addis Ababa: OSSREA; Oxford.
Menkhaus, K. (2007). The Crisis in Somalia: Tragedy in Five Acts. London, Oxford University Press
Migue, P. T. (2014) Military Diplomacy: A Case Study of Kenya Defence Forces in Somalia (2011-2012). MA Project, Institute of Diplomacy and International
Mohani, C R, (2012). From Isolation to Partnership: The Evolution of India‘s military Diplomacy, ISAS, working paper, vol.14 no.4.
Munk, G. L (2002). Rational Choice Theory in Comparative Politics. H.J. Wiarda, New Directions in Comparative Politics. Westview: Boulder.
Osikena J. (2010) “Geo-politics beyond Washington: Africa's alternative security and development partnerships”. Foreign Policy Center < http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/1203.pdf> Nigeria: Chinese Workers Killed by Gunmen in Benisheikh
Patman, R. G. (2009). The Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa: The diplomacy of intervention and disengagement (Vol. 71). Cambridge University Press.
Plessis, A. (2008). Defence Diplomacy: Conceptual and Practical Dimension with specific reference to South Africa. Academic journal Article in Strategic Review for Southern Africa. Vol 30 no.2.Political instrument. USA: Brookings.
Shea T C (2005): “Transforming Military Diplomacy,” Joint Force Quarterly38 50.
Swistek, G. (2012). The Nexus between Public Diplomacy and Military Diplomacy in T. Lyons, Avoiding Conflict in the Horn of Africa: U.S. Policy Toward Ethiopia and Eritrea, Council on Foreign Relations, CSR NO. 21 (December 2006), pp. 6–8.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2472 on the Security Situation in Somalia, 31 May 2019.
USA Annual Report to Congress (2011) “Military and Security Developments involving the People’s Republic of China.
Wallin, M. (2015). Military Public Diplomacy. How the military influences foreign audiences. ASP,
Walter R. Roberts, (2007) “What is Public Diplomacy? Past Practices, Present Conduct, Possible Future,” Mediterranean Quarterly 18:4: 37.
Woodward, P. (1996). The Horn of Africa: Politics and International Relations, London: Tauris Academic Studies.
Copyright (c) 2021 International Journal of Scientific Research and Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
