Chapter 5 offers the first comprehensive analysis of supportive military interventions by African states. Supportive interventions are those that assist the target government, a phenomenon which

Chapter 1 provides the rationale and the context for the book while also highlighting the novelty of the study. Existing research in international relations and African politics has yet to provide a thorough analysis of military intervention into or within Africa. This initial chapter discusses the utility of studying the continent as a whole (rather than sub-Saharan Africa alone), defines terms, and offers basic data on intervention patterns in Africa. It then presents the book’s theoretical framework, which is built upon three components: diversionary theory (domestic level), rebel movement theory (transnational level), and role theory (international level). The chapter continues by outlining the three research methods used to explain intervention in Africa and to evaluate the utility of the theory: quantitative analysis, historical narrative, and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). It explains the benefits of triangulation across the three methods and how this offers a more comprehensive understanding of African intervention. The chapter then analyzes a large N quantitative results that offer a foundation for more detailed historical and qualitative work in later chapters. As further preparation for the qualitative chapters to come, it provides details on the QCA approach before outlining the remaining chapters in the book.

States usually intervene in failed states for broader strategic or humanitarian motives. However, chapter 6 uses Somalia, the Democratic Repblic of Congo (DRC), and South Sudan to show that most African interveners lent their support to one side or the other in these lawless lands in the pursuit of their own interests. In the DRC, external interveners were primarily interested in looting rather than in Congo’s stability. In Somalia, Ethiopia switched from hostile to supportive military interventions in an attempt to dampen Islamist influence while also creating a weak transitional government it could easily manipulate. Kenya and Eritrea, in contrast, intervened in order to establish a strong Somali state capable of counterbalancing Ethiopia’s hegemonic aspirations in the horn of Africa. Unlike the first two cases, South Sudan did not experience multiple military interventions despite encountering similar conditions. This negative case is the result of Ethiopia’s restraint from taking any military action to support its kin, the Nuer, because it feared upsetting the ethnic balance in its eastern region. Results from qualitative comparative analysis show that most African interveners are motivated to dispatch their militaries to failed states by the presence of prominent roles, rebel sanctuaries, lootable resources, and domestic pressures.

Hostile military interventions have been common in postcolonial Africa. Chapter 4 begins with East Africa, the locale of the largest number of hostile military interventions. Central Africa, Southern Africa, North Africa, and West Africa follow. Many of these hostile interventions have targeted transnational rebels operating from neighboring states that pose a challenge to the incumbent regime. Ideological rivalry played a role in state sponsorship of rebel groups and interstate tensions during the Cold War, and local interstate rivalries have been present in the post-Cold War period. Although some regional differences emerged in the historical narrative, results from qualitative comparative analysis suggest that states with prominent foreign policy roles on the continent target rebels in neighboring states, but when rivalries or subsystemic crises are present states without prominent role status intervene as well. Domestic conditions may also pose a challenge to a government’s tenure and compel it to use hostile force, often against targets that represent a tangible threat to the ruling ethnic group. Negative economic growth and inflation are the domestic pressures that most frequently help to explain hostile military intervention in postcolonial Africa, demonstrating that when combined with other conditions the diversionary argument has purchase in this context.

Chapter 3 analyzes military intervention into Africa by former colonial powers and the European Union. It shows that their supportive and neutral interventions have been much more frequent than hostile interventions. Among these powers, France has remained the most interventionist state in Africa because close ties with Francophone governments have helped to provide successive French leaders with a global status and a mission beyond Europe. Consistent with quantitative and historical treatments, qualitative comparative analysis emphasizes the impact that capabilities and national roles have had on interventions by former colonial metropoles in Africa, while the European Union has intervened into Africa for humanitarian motives. Chapter 3 also demonstrates that supportive and neutral military interventions by former colonial powers into Africa correspond with high levels of mass unrest at home. As a result, this chapter contends that many French and other colonial military interventions failed to produce stability in African polities in part because the military actions were motivated by domestic concerns. Thus, some combination of national role, capabilities, and domestic political pressures help to explain many military interventions by former colonial powers, and none of these conditions seem likely to result in operations that put African populations’ interests at the forefront.

The goal of this book is to develop a deeper understanding of interstate military intervention into and within Africa. We marshaled a mixed-methods approach to look beyond individual cases and idiosyncratic events and to acquire broader knowledge on an understudied phenomenon of growing importance in Africa. Our results underscore the complexity of the topic, and that multiple, equifinal paths are required to shed adequate light on the use of interstate military force in Africa. This outcome was not unexpected given the range of different state actors involved and the distinct environments that different African and external actors operate within. Despite this complexity, clear patterns are evident. They vary across the set of actors analyzed and across individual actors, but they demonstrate the sets of conditions and the pathways that produce interstate military interventions in Africa.

Chapter 2 presents a historical outline of military interventions into Africa by non-colonial actors and uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis to investigate the causes of such interventions. It begins with a historical summary of the sometimes large-scale military interventions taken during the Cold War by the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the United States (US). It then looks at US military intervention on the continent after the end of the Cold War, noting a change in motives following the 9/11 terror attacks in the US. The chapter documents the more covert, but lasting, form that US military intervention took following 9/11 (a phenomenon some have termed “liquid” warfare) and the increasing US use of drone attacks against Islamic terror groups. Following this review of superpower and superpower proxy activity, the chapter outlines the interventionary record of other non-colonial external actors. It examines actions taken by Israel within Africa, the Chinese naval presence off of the Somali coast since 2008, and a handful of small European evacuation and rescue missions. Results from qualitative comparative analysis suggest that combinations of conditions like national role conceptions, rivalry, capabilities and at times mass unrest within the intervening state help to explain many of these external interventions.