DRAFT

A Culture for War: Explaining Military Performance in Asymmetric Conflicts Involving Mercenary Forces
By Scott Fitzsimmons Department of Political Science, University of Calgary

Since the end of the Second World War, mercenary groups have played significant roles in wars throughout the developing world. However, despite being consistently outnumbered by their opponents, these groups have a highly uneven record of military performance. Indeed, some modern mercenary groups have managed to defeat far larger state and insurgent militaries while similar sized groups of private soldiers have experienced crushing defeats at the hands of more numerous adversaries. Taking this into account, how can we explain the military performance of modern mercenary groups in asymmetric conflicts? 1 Scarce literature exists on the performance of mercenary groups, and that which does exist consists largely of descriptive case studies offering an overview of specific groups or the private military industry. In brief, most of the leading works on mercenary

Military performance, the dependent variable in this essay, is specifically concerned with winning and losing battles. It is the outcome of battle; it is not what a military does in battle. Military performance is not a characteristic of an organization but rather the result of an organizations activity. This concept does not equate with military effectiveness, another major variable in this essay meaning the range of military behaviour that a military force is capable of undertaking. Armed forces may be highly effective yet still be defeated. For example, the German Army was arguably the most effective fighting force during both the First and Second World Wars yet it ultimately lost numerous battles and both conflicts. Indeed, the German army is often cited as an example of extraordinary military effectiveness because it fought so well even when faced with more numerous and better armed foes. Therefore, while military effectiveness and military performance are related concepts, it is important to recognize that they are quite different; military effectiveness is only one possible determinant of military performance. Martin Van Creveld, Fighting Power: German and US Army Performance, 1939-1945 (London, UK: Arms and Armour Press, 1983); Allan Millett, Williamson Murray, and Kenneth Watman, "The Effectiveness of Military Organizations," International Security 11, no. 1 (Summer 1986).

DRAFT forces are long on empirical data and narrative, but short on theory and explanation. 2 This paper seeks to redress this failing by evaluating the Normative Theory of Military Performance, which hypothesizes that a military forces cultural norms influence its tactical behaviour (its military effectiveness), against the evidence of five asymmetric conflicts involving mercenary groups. These conflicts include three in which a group of mercenaries defeated a numerically superior opponent: the Simba Rebellion, which lasted from January 1964 to November 1965, and saw a force of 300 mercenaries, called 5 Commando, defeat a force of 5,000-7,000 insurgents, called the Simbas; 3 a stage of the Angolan Civil War, which lasted from March 1993 to November 1994, and saw a force of 550 mercenaries, called Executive Outcomes, defeat a force of tens of thousands of insurgents, called the Unio Nacional para a Independncia Total de Angola (UNITA); 4 and a stage of the Sierra Leonean Civil War, which lasted from May 1995 to November 1996, and saw a separate Executive
2 Indeed, only two major works of international relations theory directly examine mercenaries: Deborah D. Avant, The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). 3 Colin Baker, Wild Goose: The Life and Death of Hugh van Oppen (Cardiff, UK: Mpemba Books, 2002), 169-170, 182, and 187; Anthony Clayton, Frontiersmen: Warfare in Africa Since 1950 (New York, NY: Routledge, 1999), 7980; George H. Dodenhoff, "The Congo: A Case Study of Mercenary Employment," Naval War College Review 21 (April 1969): 59; Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, Pretoria (Alberton, SA: Galago, 2002), 62-64 and 111; Ernesto "Che" Guevara, The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo (New York, NY: Grove Press, 1999), 12 and 99; Mike Hoare, Congo Mercenary (London, UK: Robert Hale, 1982), 21, 7778, 103, 167-170, and 262; Anthony Mockler, The Mercenaries (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1969), 172; Anthony Mockler, The New Mercenaries: The History of Hired Soldiers from the Congo to the Seychelles (New York, NY: Paragon House Publications, 1987), 57 and 77; Thomas P. Odom, Dragon Operations: Hostage Rescues in the Congo, 1964-1965 - Leavenworth Papers 14 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, US Army Command and General Staff College, 1996); Anthony Rogers, Someone Elses War: Mercenaries from 1960 to the Present (London, UK: Harper Collins, 1998), 15-16, 19-25, and 31; Gerry S. Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984), 16 and 34-36; Peter Tickler, The Modern Mercenary: Dog of War, or Soldier of Honour? (London, UK: Thorston Publishing Group, 1987), 20-21. 4 Eeben Barlow, Executive Outcomes: Against All Odds (Alberton, SA: Galago Publishing, 2007), 116; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 149; James R. Davis, Fortunes Warriors: Private Armies and the New World Order (Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, Ltd., 2000), 124-125; Herbert Howe, Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), 198-200; W. Martin James, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola, 1974-1990 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1992), 97; William Minter, Apartheid's Contras: An Inquiry into the Roots of War in Angola and Mozambique (Johannesburg, SA: Witwatersrand University Press, 1994), 191 and 195; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 67; David Shearer, Private Armies and Military Intervention (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998), 46-48; Peter W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 108-110; Al J. Venter, War Dog: Fighting Other People's Wars (Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2006), 349 and 412.

DRAFT Outcomes force of 250 mercenaries defeat a 4,000-strong insurgent force, called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). 5 In addition, these conflicts include two in which a group of mercenaries was defeated by a numerically superior opponent: an earlier stage of the Angolan Civil War, which lasted from January to February 1976, and saw a 2,000 strong force of Cuban and Movimento Popular de Libertao de Angola (MPLA) soldiers defeat a 60-strong force of private soldiers, called Callans Mercenaries, 6 and, the First

Ibrahim Abdullah, "Bush Path to Destruction: The Origin and Character of the Revolutionary United Front/Sierra Leone," The Journal of Modern African Studies 36, no. 2 (June 1998): 207-208 and 226; Ibrahim Abdullah and Patrick Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front: A Revolt of the Lumpenproletariat," in African Guerillas, ed. Christopher Clapham (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), 177 and 187; Guy Arnold, Mercenaries: The Scourge of the Third World (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1999), 132; Avant, The Market for Force, 89-90; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 388; Steven Brayton, "Outsourcing War: Mercenaries and the Privatization of Peacekeeping," Journal of International Affairs 55, no. 2 (Spring 2002): , 314; Michael Cheng, "Sierra Leone: The State that Came Back from the Dead," The Washington Quarterly 25, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 149; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 195-197; Christopher Coker, "Outsourcing War," Cambridge Review of International Affairs XIII, no. 1 (Autumn-Winter 1999): 197; Sean Creehan, "Soldiers of Fortune 500: International Mercenaries," Harvard International Review 23, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 6; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 133-134; Andrew Dorman, "The British Experience of Low-Intensity Conflict in Sierra Leone," Defense & Security Analysis 23, no. 2 (June 2007): 186; Ian Douglas, "Fighting for Diamonds: Private Military Companies in Sierra Leone," in Peace, Profit or Plunder?: The Privatisation of Security in War-torn African Societies, ed. Jakkie Cilliers and Peggy Mason (Johannesburg, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, 1999), 182-183; Scott Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens (George, SA: August 22, 2007); David J. Francis, "Mercenary Intervention in Sierra Leone: Providing National Security or International Exploitation?," Third World Quarterly 20, no. 2 (April 1999): 326-327; Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone (London, UK: Hurst & Company, 2005), 95; Globalsecurity.org, Revolutionary United Front (RUF) (Globalsecurity.org, 2005 [cited); available from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/ruf.htm; Danny Hoffman, "Disagreement: Dissent Politics and the War in Sierra Leone," Africa Today 52, no. 3 (Spring 2006): 5; Jim Hooper, Bloodsong: An Account of Executive Outcomes in Angola (London, UK: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003), 262; Howe, Ambiguous Order, 201; Herbert Howe, "Private Security Forces and African Stability: The Case of Executive Outcomes," The Journal of Modern African Studies 36, no. 2 (June 1998): 313 and 315; David Isenberg, "Combat for Sale: The New, Post-Cold War Mercenaries," USA Today March 2000, 14; Jimmy D. Kandeh, "What Does the 'Militariat' Do When it Rules? Military Regimes: The Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia," Review of African Political Economy 23, no. 69 (September 1996): 390; J. Anyu Ndumbe, "Diamonds, Ethnicity, and Power: The Case of Sierra Leone," Mediterranean Quarterly 12, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 94-95; Sarah Percy, Mercenaries: The History of a Norm of International Relations (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 210; Krijn Peters and Paul Richards, "Why We Fight: Voices of Youth Combatants in Sierra Leone," Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 68, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 186; Paul Richards, "Forced Labour & Civil War: Agrarian Underpinnings of the Sierra Leone Conflict," in Violence, Political Culture & Development in Africa, ed. Preben Kaarsholm (Oxford, UK: James Currey, 2006), 189; Paul Richards, "War as Smoke and Mirrors: Sierra Leone 1991-2, 1994-5, 1995-6," Anthropological Quarterly 78, no. 22 (Spring 2005): 395; Adam Roberts, The Wonga Coup (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2006), 12; Fred Rosen, Contract Warriors: How Mercenaries Changed History and the War on Terrorism (New York, NY: Penguin Books Ltd., 2005), 16; Shearer, Private Armies and Military Intervention, 50; Ken Silverstein, Private Warriors (New York, NY: Verso, 2000), 164165; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 78 and 112-114; Alex Vines, "Gurkhas and the Private Security Business in Africa," in Peace, Profit or Plunder?: The Privatisation of Security in War-torn African Societies, ed. Jakkie Cilliers and Peggy Mason (Johannesburg, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, 2000), 130; Alex Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," in Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma, ed. Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. Kayode Fayemi (Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000), 175; A. Zack-Williams and Stephen Riley, "Sierra Leone: The Coup and Its Consequences," Review of African Political Economy 56 (March 1993): 93-94; Alfred B. Zack-Williams, "The Political Economy of Civil War, 1991-1998," Third World Quarterly 20, no. 1 (February 1999): 147. 6 Juan del Aguila, "The Changing Character of Cuba's Armed Forces," in The Cuban Military Under Castro, ed. Jaime Suchlicki (Miami, FL: University of Miami Press, 1989), 33; Mitchell Bainwoll, "Cuba," in Fighting Armies: Non-

DRAFT Congo War, which lasted from October 1996 to May 1997, and saw the crushing defeat of a group of 200 mercenaries, called the White Legion, at the hands of a 10,000-strong insurgent force called the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of CongoZaire (ADFL). 7

Aligned, Third World, and Other Armies, ed. Richard A. Gabriel (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983), 229 and 231; Caribbean Report, "U.S. Admiral Pushes for Neutral Havana," Caribbean Report, March 29, 1985, 4-5; Chris Dempster and Dave Tomkins, Fire Power (London, UK: Transworld Publishers Ltd., 1978), 134; Edward George, The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965-1991: From Che Guevara to Cuito Cuanavale (New York, NY: Frank Cass, 2005), 107; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 266 and 338; Ian Greig, The Communist Challenge to Africa: An Analysis of Contemporary Soviet, Chinese and Cuban Policies (Richmond, UK: Foreign Affairs Publishing Co. Ltd., 1977), 229; Robin Hallett, "The South African Intervention in Angola, 1975-76," African Affairs 77, no. 308: 378; HelmoedRomer Heitman, War in Angola: The Final South African Phase (Gibraltar: Ashanti Publishing Ltd., 1990), 202-305; James, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola, 1974-1990, 231; Peter Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune: The Twentieth Century Mercenary (New York, NY: Gallery Books, 1986), 93-94; Peter McAleese, No Mean Soldier: The Story of the Ultimate Professional Soldier in the SAS and Other Forces (London, UK: Cassell, 2003), 82-84, 87, and 111; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 160-161, 163, 165, 172, 174, and 182-183; Piet Nortje, 32 Battalion: The Inside Story of South Africa's Elite Fighting Unit (Cape Town, SA: Zebra Press, 2004), 9-10; Kenneth M. Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996), 662; Wilfred Burchett and Derek Roebuck, The Whores of War: Mercenaries Today (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1977), 42; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 67 and 73; Daniel Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co. Inc., 1993), 297; Christopher Stevens, "The Soviet Union and Angola," African Affairs 75, no. 299 (April 1976): 144; John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1978), 216; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 23-24; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 68; Al J. Venter, "Angola Flashbacks," Soldier of Fortune Spring 1976, 21. 7 John F. Clark, "Explaining Ugandan Intervention in Congo: Evidence and Interpretation," The Journal of Modern African Studies 39, no. 2 (June 2001): 267-268; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 188-189; Christopher Kinsey, "Private Security Companies: Agents of Democracy or Simply Mercenaries?," in Private Military and Security Companies: Chances, Problems, Pitfalls and Prospects, ed. Thomas Jger and Gerhard Kmmel (Wiesbaden, Germany: Vs Verlag fr Sozialwissenschaften, 2007), 97; Mel McNulty, "The Collapse of Zaire: Implosion, Revolution or External Sabotage?," The Journal of Modern African Studies 37, no. 1 (March 1999): 53; Martin Meredith, The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence (New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2005), 535-536; Musifiky Mwanasali, "Civil Conflicts and Conflict Management in the Great Lakes Region of Africa," in Zones of Conflict in Africa: Theories & Cases, ed. George Klay Keih and Ida Rousseau Mukenge (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), 59; Mabiengwa Emmanuel Naniuzeyi, "The State of the State in Congo-Zaire: A Survey of the Mobotu Regime," Journal of Black Studies 29, no. 5 (May 1999): 669; Leonce Ndikumana and Kisangani F. Emizet, "The Economics of Civil War: The Case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Volume 1: Africa," in Understanding Civil War: Evidence and Analysis ed. Paul Collier (Herndon, VA: The World Bank, 2005), 75-76; Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Gwinyayi A. Dzinesa, "One Man's Volunteer is Another Man's Mercenary? Mapping the Extent of Mercenarism and Its Impact on Human Security in Africa," in Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa: A Need for a New Continental Approach, ed. Sabelo Gumedze (Johannesburg, South Africa: The Institute for Security Studies, 2008), 83; Francois Ngolet, "African and American Connivance in Congo-Zaire," Africa Today 47, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 68 and 70; Ola Olsson and Heather Congdon Fors, "The Prize of Predation," Journal of Peace Research 41, no. 3 (May 2004): 324; Khareen Pech, "The Hand of War: Mercenaries in the Former Zaire 1996-97," in Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma, ed. AbdelFatau Musah and J. Kayode Fayemi (Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000), 122, 124-127, 133,140, and 145; John Pomfret, "Rwandans Led Revolt in Congo: Defense Minister Says Arms, Troops, Supplied for Anti-Mobutu Drive," The Washington Post, July 9, 1997, A1; Johan Pottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 45; Gerard Prunier, "Rebel Movements and Proxy Warfare: Uganda, Sudan and Congo," African Affairs 103, no. 412 (2004): 374; William Cyrus Reed, "Guerillas in the Midst," in African Guerillas, ed. Christopher Clapham (Indiana University Press, 1998), 134, 141, and 150; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 285-288; William G. Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," The Journal of Conflict Studies XIX, no. 2 (Fall 1999): 10-11 and 20; Denis M. Tull, "The Democratic Republic of Congo: Militarized Politics in a 'Failed State'," in African Guerillas: Raging Against the Machine, ed. Morten Bs and Kevin C. Dunn (London, UK: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), 115; Venter, War Dog, 261-262 and 271; Koen Vlassenroot, "A Societal View of Violence

DRAFT Ultimately, the results of this analysis indicate that the military cultures maintained by the combatants in this conflict played a critical role in deciding the outcome of these conflicts. Taking this into account, the normative theory of military performance appears to offer a convincing explanation of military performance in asymmetric conflicts.

The Normative Theory of Military Performance

The core logic of the normative theory of military performance is that a grossly outnumbered force must be highly flexible and adaptable if it is to perform the range of military tasks required to defeat materially superior opponents. Norms encouraging the pursuit of a wider range of tactical behaviour, such as personal initiative, should, therefore, increase military effectiveness, which, in turn, should increase a groups prospects for military success. If the theory is correct, a military forces performance should be conditioned by the degree to which the members of the force have been indoctrinated into norms that encourage them to be militarily effective. Specifically, the theory reasons that military forces that strongly emphasize norms encouraging creative thinking, decentralized authority, personal initiative, technical proficiency, and group loyalty, should exhibit greater militarily effectiveness than forces that deemphasize these norms. Moreover, it reasons that military forces exhibiting greater military effectiveness should experience greater battlefield military performance than less effective groups, all else equal. Taking this into account, the theory predicts that the materially weaker party in an asymmetric conflict, which the mercenary forces were in these cases, should only be able
and War: Conflict & Militia Formation in Eastern Zaire," in Violence, Political Culture & Development in Africa, ed. Preben Kaarsholm (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press), 49.

DRAFT to defeat its materially stronger opponent if the weaker party emphasizes behavioural norms that encourage it to perform a wide range of tactical behaviour that is, be very militarily effective and the stronger party does not emphasize these norms because this should allow the weaker party to exploit the weaknesses and counter the strengths of the stronger party and, through this, defeat it. In all other scenarios, the balance of military effectiveness should prevent the mercenaries from overcoming the material superiority of their opponents; consequently, in all other scenarios, the mercenaries should be defeated. With this in mind, the theory correctly predicted that 5 Commando 8 and Executive Outcomes forces in Angola 9 and Sierra Leone 10 should have defeated their materially

8 The Simbas did, however, strongly emphasize decentralized authority. Baker, Wild Goose, 173, 175, 179-181, and 185; Stephen Clarke, The Congo Mercenary (Johannesburg, ZA: South African Institute of International Affairs, 1968), 73; Dodenhoff, "The Congo," 46 and 50-51; Victor Dreke, From the Escambray to the Congo: In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution (New York, NY: Pathfinder Press, 2002), 136-137, 140, and 144-145; Tony Geraghty, Inside the SAS (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1980), 103; Tony Geraghty, Who Dares Wins: The Story of the SAS - 19501980 (London, UK: Arms and Armour Press, 1980), 118; Hans Germani, White Soldiers in Black Africa, trans. E. Lansberg (Capetown, ZA: Nasionale Beekhandel Beperk, 1967), 82; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 150; Piero Gleijeses, "Flee! The White Giants Are Coming!: The United States, the Mercenaries, and the Congo, 1964-65," Diplomatic History 18, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 210; Guevara, The African Dream, 14, 18, 25-27, 31, 34, 53, 62, 107, and 115; Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria: Congo (New York, NY: Ocean Press, 2006), 31; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 20-21, 62, 72-73, 131, 180, 245, and 305-309; Mike Hoare, The Road to Kalamata: A Congo Mercenarys Personal Memoir (London, UK: Leo Cooper, 1989), 9-10, 14, 16, and 19; J. Grard-Libois and J. Van Lierde, Congo: 1964 (Brussels, Belgium: Centre de Recherche et dInformation Sociopolitiques, 1965), 365; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 61-63, and 66; Brian Pottinger, Mercenary Commander (Alberton, ZA: Galago Publishing, 1986), 192-193; David Reed, Save the Hostages (New York, NY: Bantam, 1988), 10 and 70; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 19; Wayne Thallon, Cut-Throat: The Vicious World of Rod McLean - Mercenary, Gun-Runner, and International Drug Baron (London, UK: Mainstream Publishing, 2005), 15-16 and 42; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 35-36; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 30; Venter, War Dog, 250; Benoit Verhaegen, "La Premiere Republique (1960-1965)," in Du Congo au Zaire, 1960-1980, ed. Jacques Vanderlinden (Brussels, Belgium Centre de Recherche et D'information Socio-politiques, 1984), 126. 9 UNITA did, however, weakly emphasize technical proficiency. Africa Watch, Land Mines in Angola (New York, NY: Africa Watch, 1993), 34-35; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 16, 20-22, 115, 130-131, 134, 143, 182, 184, 189, 237238, 250, and 254-255; Gerald J. Bender, "Angola: Left, Right and Wrong," Foreign Policy 43 (Summer 1981): 59; Jan Breytenbach, The Buffalo Soldiers: The Story of South Africa's 32 Battalion, 1975-1993 (Alberton, SA: Galago Publishing, 2002), 16, 26-29, 70, 135, 149, 131-133, 188-189, 198, 207, 209, 211, and 235; Jan Breytenbach, They Live by the Sword: 32 'Buffalo' Battalion - South Africa's Foreign Legion (Alberton, South Africa: Lemur, 1990), 12 and 72; Fred Bridgeland, Jonas Savimbi: A Key to Africa (New York, NY: Paragon House Publishers, 1987), 16, 71, 78, 92, 221-225, 236-237, 286, and 362; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 142 and 150; Augusta Conchiglia, UNITA: Myth and Reality (London, UK: European Campaign Against South African Aggression on Mozambique and Angola, 1990), 45; Zoe Daniel, "Mercenary Town," (United Kingdom: Journeyman Pictures, 2005); Leon De Costa Dash, Savimbi's 1977 Campaign Against the Cubans and MPLA - Observed for 7 1/2 Months, and Covering 2,100 Miles Inside Angola (Pasadena, CA: California Institute of Technology, December 1977), 24; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 138; Edward Feit, "South Africa," in Fighting Armies: Non-Aligned, Third World, and Other Armies, ed. Richard A. Gabriel (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983), 214-215; Scott Fitzsimmons, First Interview with Des Burman (Cape Town, SA: August 24, 2007); Scott Fitzsimmons, Interview with Johann Anderson (Cape Town, SA: August 23, 2007); Mariyam Hasham, "Executive Outcomes: An Unconventional Army," British Army Review 132 (Summer 2003): 2; Helmoed-Romer Heitman and Paul Hannon, Modern African Wars 3: South-West Africa (London, UK: Osprey Publishing Ltd., 1991),

DRAFT superior opponents because, in all of these conflicts, the mercenary force strongly emphasized the five norms of military effectiveness and their opponents did not. The theory also correctly predicted that Callans Mercenaries 11 and the White Legion 12 should

16-17 and 20-23; Jim Hooper, "Angola," in Flashpoint: At the Front Line of Today's Wars, ed. Anthony Rogers, Ken Guest, and Jim Hooper (London, UK: Arms and Armour Press, 1994), 41; Hooper, Bloodsong, 23; Howe, Ambiguous Order, 197-198; James, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola, 1974-1990, 96-97, 100, 111, 134-135, 137-140, and 255; Jesse Selber and Kebba Jobarteh, "From Enemy to Peacemaker: The Role of Private Military Companies in Sub-Saharan Africa," Medicine & Global Survival 7, no. 2 (February 2002): 91; Assis Malaquias, "Angola: How to Lose a Guerilla War," in African Guerrillas: Raging Against the Machine, ed. Morten Boas and Kevin C. Dunn (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007), 201, 204, and 207-208; Assis Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers: Violence in Post-Colonial Angola (Stockholm, Sweden: Elanders Gotab AB, 2007), 92, 97-98, 100, and 113; John A. Marcum, "Angola: A Quarter Century of War," CSIS Africa Notes #37, 21 December 1984, 5; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 204, 211, and 357; Minter, Apartheid's Contras, 178; Nortje, 32 Battalion, 69, 70-71, and 73-76; Robert Young Pelton, Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror (New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2006), 255 and 259; Rosen, Contract Warriors, 11; Jonas Savimbi, "The War against Soviet Colonialism: The Strategy and Tactics of Anti-Communist Resistance," Policy Review 35 (Winter 1985): 19; Shearer, Private Armies and Military Intervention, 357; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 187, 193, and 281; Peter Stiff, The Covert War: Koevoet Operations Namibia 1979-1989 (Alberton, SA: Galago Publishing, 1999), 50, 58-59, 62, and 88; Al J. Venter, "Privatizing War," (London, UK: 2000), 13; Venter, War Dog, 356, 360-361, 390, 392, 394-395, 413, 415, 418, and 438; Robin Wright, "Talking With Angola's Jonas Savimbi," New Leader, 2 February 1976, 6. 10 Abdullah, "Bush Path to Destruction," 207-208 and 226; Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front," 180 and 188-190; Avant, The Market for Force, 86-87; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 184, 189, 324, 326, 329, 331, 335, 358, 363-365, 384-385; Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2007), 24; Martin Boas, "Liberia and Sierra Leone: Dead Ringers? The Logic of Neopatrimonial Rule," Third World Quarterly 22, no. 5 (October 2001): 714; Breytenbach, The Buffalo Soldiers, 198 and 211; Cheng, "Sierra Leone," 149; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 197; Daniel, "Mercenary Town."; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 138-139; Dodenhoff, "The Congo," 46; Fitzsimmons, First Interview with Des Burman; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Johann Anderson; Scott Fitzsimmons, Second Interview with Des Burman (Cape Town, SA: August 27, 2007); Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 61-62 and 65; Gleijeses, "Flee! The White Giants Are Coming!: The United States, the Mercenaries, and the Congo, 1964-65," 210-211; Globalsecurity.org, Revolutionary United Front (RUF) ([cited); Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 20; Hooper, Bloodsong, 8, 43, 152, 222, 224225, 228, 231-233, 246, 248-250, and 239; Howe, Ambiguous Order, 197; Howe, "Private Security Forces and African Stability," 308; David Keen, Conflict & Collusion in Sierra Leone (New York, NY: Palgrave, 2005), 42-44; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 204 and 211; Glenn McKenzie, "Unruly Militia Defends Sierra Leone," Associated Press, July 5, 2000; William P. Murphy, "Military Patrimonialism and Child Soldier Clientalism in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean Civil Wars," African Studies Review 46, no. 2 (September 2003): 64; Nortje, 32 Battalion, 74; Pelton, Licensed to Kill, 255; Peters and Richards, "Why We Fight," 186-187 and 204; Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth & Resources in Sierra Leone (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998), 5; Richards, "Forced Labour & Civil War," 190; Richards, "War as Smoke and Mirrors," 387-389; Steve Riley, Max Sesay, and Max A. Sesay, "Sierra Leone: The Coming Anarchy?," Review of African Political Economy 22, no. 63 (March 1995): 122; Roberts, The Wonga Coup, 69; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 113; Ian Stewart, Ambushed: A War Reporter's Life on the Line (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2002), 49; Stiff, The Covert War, 59; Venter, "Privatizing War," 13; Venter, War Dog, 27, 58, 361, 390, 392, 449-450, 458, 463-464, 467, 474, 500-501, 513, 518-519, 521, and 545-547; Verhaegen, "La Premiere Republique (1960-1965)," 126; A. B. Zack-Williams, "Child Soldiers in the Civil War in Sierra Leone," Review of African Political Economy 28, no. 87 (March 2001): 80; Zack-Williams, "The Political Economy of Civil War," 154. 11 Aguila, "The Changing Character of Cuba's Armed Forces," 35 and 39; Arnold, Mercenaries, 34 and 37; Bainwoll, "Cuba," 231-232 and 234-235; John Barron, KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents (New York, NY: Reader's Digest Press and E.P. Dutton Company, Inc., 1974), 148 and 151; Steven L. Canby, The Alliance and Europe. Part IV: Military Doctrine and Technology, Adelphi Paper 109 (London, UK: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1976), 85; Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Vol. III: The Afghanistan and Falklands Conflicts (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), 209; Defense Intelligence Agency, "Handbook on the Cuban Armed Forces," (Defense Intelligence Agency, April 1979), 2-1; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 74, 7778, 134,140, 148, 176-177, 200, 206, 209, 216, 251, 268, 279, 296, 311-312, 320, 328, 353, 363, 364, 367-368, and 400; Christopher Donnelly, Red Banner: The Soviet Military System in Peace and War (Alexandria, VA: Jane's Publishing Inc., 1988), 85-86, 181, 211, and 217; Adrian J. English, "The Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces," Jane's

DRAFT have been defeated by their materially superior opponents because, in the first case, neither the mercenary group nor its materially superior opponent strongly emphasized the

Defence Weekly, June 30, 1984, 1066; John Erickson, "The Soviet System: Doctrine Technology, and 'Style'," in Soviet Military Power and Performance, ed. John Erickson and E. J. Feuchtwanger (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1979), , 34; John Erickson, Lynn Hansen, and William Schneider, Soviet Ground Forces: An Operational Assessment (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986), 35, 183, 205, and 217; Rafael Fermoselle, The Evolution of the Cuban Military: 1492-1986 (Miami, FL: Ediciones Universal, 1987), 293, 296, 299, 302, and 306; Raymond L. Garthoff, How Russia Makes War: Soviet Military Doctrine (London, UK: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1954), 253-262; Geraghty, Who Dares Wins, 131; Herbert Goldhamer, The Soviet Soldier (New York, NY: Crane Russak and Co. Inc, 1975), 9 and 115; Leone Gour, "Cuban Military Doctrine and Organization," in The Cuban Military Under Castro, ed. Jaime Suchlicki (Miami, FL: University of Miami Press, 1989), 69 and 167; Leone Gour, "Soviet-Cuban Military Relations," in The Cuban Military Under Castro, ed. Jaime Suchlicki (Miami, FL: University of Miami Press, 1989), 188; John Hemsley, "The Soviet Ground Forces," in Soviet Military Power and Performance, ed. John Erickson and E. J. Feuchtwanger (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1979), 49, 55-60, and 68; Robert S. Leiken, Soviet Strategy in Latin America, The Washington Papers-93 (Washington, DC: Praeger Special Studies, 1982), 51; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 93-95; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 82, 84, 87-94, and 95-96; Benjamin Miller, "The Development of Soviet Armor, 19261982," (Cornell University, 1984), 265 and 463-464; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 154-155, 160-161, 163, 172, 181-183, 186-187, 189-190, and 196-197; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 122, 125, 127, 129-130, 132, 134, 653, 656, and 661; Roebuck, The Whores of War, 42, 62, 81, 84, and 99; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 70, 73-74, 76, and 85; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 260-261, 292, and 298; Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 225; Stewart Tendler, "British mercenaries 'killed by mine'," The Times, February 5, 1976, 7; Stewart Tendler, "Mercenaries puzzle Angola court: Britons knew little of what the war was about," The Times, June 14, 1976, 5; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 37, 55, 67, and 114; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 68, 70-72, 74-75, 79-80, 87-90, 92, and 173; U.S. Department of State, The Soviet-Cuban Connection in Central America and the Caribbean (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), 6; Venter, "Angola Flashbacks," 29; Ghulam Dastagir Wardak, The Voroshilov Lectures: Materials from the Soviet General Staff Academy, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 1989), 226, 229, 291-295, and 317. 12 Sean Boyne, "The White Legion: Mercenaries in Zaire," Jane's Intelligence Review 9, no. 6 (June 1997): 279-280; Dan Connell and Frank Smyth, "Africa's New Bloc," Foreign Affairs 77, no. 2 (March-April 1998): 85; Kisangani N. F. Emizet, "Explaining the Rise and Fall of Military Regimes: Civil Military Relations in the Congo," Armed Forces & Society 26, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 222; Howard W. French, "In Zaire's Unconventional War, Serbs Train Refugees for Combat," The New York Times, February 12, 1997; Gordana Igric, "Alleged 'Assassins' Were No Strangers to France," (London, UK: Institute for War & Peace Reporting, November 26, 1999), 2; Edward Katumba-Wamata, "The National Resistance Army (NRA) as a Guerilla Force," Small Wars & Insurgencies 11, no. 3 (Winter 2000): 166; Christopher Kinsey, "Private Security Companies: Agents of Democracy or Simply Mercenaries?," in Private Military and Security Compnaies: Chances, Problems and Prospects, ed. Thomas Jager and Gerhard Kummel (Wiesbaden, Germany: Vs Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften, 2007), 96; Kinsey, "Private Security Companies," 96; Marcus Mabry, "Soldiers of Misfortune: European Mercenaries Fighting for the Zairean Government," Newsweek, February 24, 1997, 40-41; Matthew McAllester, "Elusive Justice: War Criminals in the U.S.," Chicago Tribune, March 12, 2006; James C. McKinley, "Rwanda's War Role May Haunt Congolese," The New York Times, July 12, 1997; Elizabeth Neuffer, "The Ghosts of Srebrenica: In Massacre's Aftermath, War Criminals Still Haunt Bosnia," The Boston Globe, May 19, 1996; Pascal Ngoga, "Uganda: The National Resistance Army," in African Guerillas, ed. Christopher Clapham (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), 101; Ngolet, "African and American Connivance in Congo-Zaire," 69; Kevin OBrien, "Private Military Companies and African Security: 1990-98," in Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma, ed. Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. Kayode Fayemi (Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000), 55; Pech, "The Hand of War," 133, 137-138, and 140; Jane Perlez, "Serb Leader Expects to Turn Over Key War Crimes Suspects," The New York Times, March 13, 1996; Pomfret, "Rwandans Led Revolt in Congo," A1; Gerard Prunier, "The Rwandan Patriotic Front," in African Guerillas, ed. Christopher Clapham (Indiana University Press, 1998), 131 and 133; William Cyrus Reed, "Exile, Reform, and the Rise of the Rwandan Patriotic Front," The Journal of Modern African Studies 34, no. 3 (September 1996): 486, 488, 491, and 498; Suzana Sasic, "Mladic's Monster Finally Talks," Slobodna Bosna, September 1, 2005; Michael G. Schatzberg, "Beyond Mobutu: Kabila and the Congo," Journal of Democracy 8, no. 4 (1997): 80-81; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 19; Venter, War Dog, 271 and 273; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 181; Catherine Watson, "Rwanda: War and Waiting," Africa Report (November/December 1992): 54-55; Colin W. Waugh, Paul Kagame: Power, Genocide and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (London, UK: McFarland and Company Inc., 2004), 24-25, 29-30, and 40; Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 127, 140-142, and 144.

DRAFT five norms of military effectiveness and, in the second, case the mercenaries did not strongly emphasize these norms, save for technical proficiency, and their materially superior opponent did.

How well did the Normative Theory of Military Performance Predict the Dynamics of These Conflicts
The normative theory of military performance appears to have done an admirable job at predicting how the five norms thought to enhance military effectiveness would influence the behaviour of the military forces discussed in this paper. This section summarizes my findings. In the interests of brevity, I have included only a handful of examples from these conflicts to help illustrate general trends.

Tactical Innovation The normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that strongly emphasize norms promoting creative thinking, personal initiative, and decentralized authority should demonstrate significant tactical innovation. Tactical units within these forces should routinely seek tactical advantages over opponents by, for instance, using maneuver warfare, and not rely exclusively on simple frontal assaults when attacking or counterattacking. 13 This prediction was borne out in these cases. 14 For

13

Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 66. The US Armys Field Manual 100-5: Operations defines maneuver warfare as the movement of forces in relation to the enemy to secure or retain positional advantage, to gain an advantage over the adversary requires that the commander be able to imagine a situation different from his present situation, one in which he has an advantage over his enemy derived from a different spatial arrangement. William S. Lind, "Maneuver," in Brasseys Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brasseys, 1997), 662. Contemporary maneuver warfare developed in part out of the German concept of Aufragstaktik (mission tactics), which emphasizes decentralized decision making authority and personal initiative: orders tell the subordinate what is to be accomplished while leaving him maximum latitude in deciding how to accomplish it. In effect, he is given a goal, and it is left to him to attain it. This is done at all levels of

DRAFT example, EOs force in Angola frequently deployed groups of infantry around a battle space so that they could herd, trap, and easily eliminate UNITA fighters. 15 This often involved conducting fake helicopter landings, known as dummy deliveries, which were intended to trick UNITA into thinking that far more groups of EO infantry were in the area than was actually the case. 16 EOs heliborne mortar attacks on UNITA guerillas and field camps were especially destructive to the rebels because they not only tended to kill several rebel troops but, since UNITA could generally not react fast enough to engage their attackers, they also undermined the rebels will to fight. 17 For example, a mortar and infantry team was deployed to bombard the UNITA-held town of Lubalo with 80 mortar shells before being extracted by helicopter, which caused, massive casualties, and took the towns defenders sufficiently off guard that they could not react in time to reach EOs men before the extraction. 18 Moreover, during the First Congo War, the ADFL consciously chose to employ herding tactics to drive the mercenaries and other forces loyal to Mobutu away from

command. As part of mission orders, the subordinate is expected to show a high level of initiative. Lind, "Maneuver," 665. Maneuver warfare demands that the commander quickly develop an operation plan that will allow him to place his forces into the newly imagined, spatially-advantageous position that anticipates the likely reactions of his adversary. Consequently, these forces ought to opt for more complicated flanking and envelopment maneuvers in situations where such maneuvers could be advantageous. 14 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 238-239, 249, 255-256, 262-263, 265, 289, 335, 358, 364-365, and 370-371; Clarke, The Congo Mercenary, 61; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 190; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 129 and 137; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Fitzsimmons, Second Interview with Des Burman; Howard W. French, "Major City's Fall Poses Dire Threat to Zaire's Rulers," The New York Times, March 16, 1997; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 85; Mike Hoare, Mercenary (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1967), 84; Hooper, Bloodsong, 42, 103, 158, 170, 222-223, 229232, 243-246, and 248-249; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 74; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 63-64; OBrien, "Private Military Companies and African Security: 1990-98," 52; Pelton, Licensed to Kill, 262-263; Reed, "Guerillas in the Midst," 147; William Cyrus Reed, "The New International Order: State, Society, and African International Relations," Africa Insight 25, no. 3 (1995): 140-148; Roberts, The Wonga Coup, 10; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 19; Rosen, Contract Warriors, 15; Shearer, Private Armies and Military Intervention, 53-54; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 113; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 15; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 80; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 33; Venter, War Dog, 262, 272, 428-429, 433-434, 481, 533-534, and 536. 15 Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 129. 16 Venter, War Dog, 433-434. 17 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 211; OBrien, "Private Military Companies and African Security: 1990-98," 52; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 110. 18 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 238-239.

10

DRAFT government-held settlements. 19 This primarily involved coordinating a vanguard made up of multiple 100 to 200-strong groups of infanteers, what Anthony Clayton referred to as tourniquet groups, in multidirectional assaults that left open an escape route to encourage their opponents to break and flee in a particular direction. 20 For example, on October 4, 1996, rebel forces seized Lemera, a village north of Uvira, by attacking from three directions at the same time while leaving an escape route for the government troops assigned to the defend the settlement. 21 This tactic was also employed against the mercenaries to successfully seize Watsa on February 2, 1997, and the mercenaries main airbase at Kindu on March 1, 1997. 22 Likewise, in mid-March 1997, the rebels employed this tactic to assault the village of Babagulu and, soon after, the city of Kisangani from three directions at the same time. 23 The normative theory of military performance also predicted that military forces emphasizing creative thinking, personal initiative, and decentralized authority should have little difficulty adapting to unforeseen developments on the battlefield. This prediction was also borne out in these conflicts. 24 For example, 5 Commando were generally able to respond to Simba ambushes along roadways, which tended to proceed as follows: Congolese or Rwandan rebels, sometimes supported by Cuban troops, would spring the ambush by firing wildly from the underbrush at the side of the road, with rifles

Boyne, "The White Legion," 280; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 190; McNulty, "The Collapse of Zaire," 75. Clayton, Frontiersmen, 190; Howard W. French, "Insurgents Shatter Defense in Capital's Front," The New York Times; McNulty, "The Collapse of Zaire," 75; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 16-17 and 19. 21 Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 11. 22 Boyne, "The White Legion," 280. 23 Megan Arney, "Rebels Take More Ground in Zaire," Militant, March 24, 1997; McNulty, "The Collapse of Zaire," 75; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 16. 24 Guevara, The African Dream, 88; Hooper, Bloodsong, 249; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 13; Venter, War Dog, 368-369.
20

19

11

DRAFT and rocket launchers, in the general direction of the mercenaries, then charge forward from the underbrush in a straight line to finish off any survivors. 25 On the face of it, this tactic should have proven generally effective, especially if all of the mercenaries were immediately killed. However, this rarely happened, and, if even a handful of mercenaries remained alive and in fighting form after the initial attack, they tended to reverse the situation by inflicting heavy casualties on the advancing rebels and forcing them to retreat. 26 Similarly, as Singer put it, EOs personnel in Angola were, innovative and adjusted to changing situations by using ad-hoc tactics not found in the books, options perhaps less possible in a public military. 27 This seems to have paid dividends because, throughout the conflict, EOs personnel were able to quickly retaliate against unforeseen moves by UNITA, such as ambushes or large-scale surprise attacks. 28 With respect to the rebels ambushes, very few were successful in the sense that few resulted in the death, injury, or capture of EO personnel. 29 Rather, in the vast majority of incidents, EOs personnel responded immediately, launched counterattacks, and put the ambushers to flight. This occurred even in instances where the rebels succeeded in landing the first blow by, for instance, firing before their presence was known to the mercenaries. 30 Likewise, Lafras Luitingh, one of EOs chief executives, argued emphatically that his personnel in Sierra Leone reacted, with rigor, when they encountered unforeseen

25 26

Guevara, The African Dream, 86. Guevara, The African Dream, 88; Thallon, Cut-Throat, 28-29. 27 Singer, Corporate Warriors, 116. 28 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 200-201; Hooper, Bloodsong, 86 and 164-165. 29 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 287; Venter, War Dog, 381-382. 30 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 248, 250-251, and 289.

12

DRAFT developments. 31 Venter, similarly, argued that EOs force in Sierra Leone was, an extremely versatile fighting group because they remained flexible in their approach to the kind of problems that might arise. Each situation was handled on its own terms. Nothing was predetermined or fixed. 32 Of critical importance, the heliborne infantry of EOs Fire Force, the attack helicopters of its Air Force, and the BMP-2s and infantry of its Mobile Force could rapidly support each other if any of them encountered an unexpected situation, such as a particularly large and well-armed RUF ambush. As a result, the firm usually dealt with these situations swiftly and decisively. 33 The normative theory of military performance also predicted that military forces emphasizing creative thinking, personal initiative, and decentralized authority should have little difficulty developing tactics to counter unexpected weapons or tactics used by their adversaries. 34 This prediction was also borne out in these cases. 35 For instance, when 5 Commando was spearheading attacks ahead of a larger force of ANC troops, the Simbas would sometimes let the mercenaries pass by their concealed ambush positions and then descend on the unskilled ANC soldiers following behind. 36 To counter this, the mercenaries began driving in small and deceptively vulnerable jeep convoys along contested roads to invite attack. A reserve column of mercenaries would follow closely behind and viciously attack the Simbas when they exposed their ambush points and burst

31 Avant, The Market for Force, 87; Al J. Venter, "Sierra Leone's Mercenary War: Battle for the Diamond Fields," Jane's International Defense Review 28 (November 1995). 32 Venter, War Dog, 478. 33 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 335-336; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Hooper, Bloodsong, 246; Venter, War Dog, 479, 480-482, 494-495, 497, and 502. 34 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 66. 35 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 255, 335, 353, 357-358, 363, and 381 ; Boyne, "The White Legion," 281; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Hooper, Bloodsong, 167, 179, 225-227, and 233; Venter, War Dog, 428-429, 433-434, 519-521, 533-534, and 546-547. 36 Dodenhoff, "The Congo," 57; Reed, Save the Hostages, 144.

13

DRAFT out into the open. 37 Likewise, EOs force in Sierra Leone proved highly adept at countering the RUFs ambush tactics. For instance, to reduce the frequency and effectiveness of the rebels ambushes, the mercenaries took to launching preemptive strikes against suspected rebel ambush positions, often by approaching them at night and through the countrys dense forests. 38 As Barlow recalled, At every anticipated ambush position, our men would debus from their vehicles and sweep ahead on foot, the vehicles ready to race into the area and provide fire support once contact had been made. This was something the SLA had never done and the RUF had never expected. At each position, the rebels were taken by surprise. 39

Finally, the normative theory of military performance also predicted that military forces emphasizing creative thinking, personal initiative, and decentralized authority should learn quickly from their mistakes. This prediction was borne out as well. 40 For example, during EOs initial assault on Quefiquena, Angola, near Soyo, one squad of mercenaries decided that carrying their heavy 60 mm mortar and its shells from their insertion point to within range of the UNITA troops was not worth the effort. 41 When the squad later realized that over three hundred rebels were guarding Quefiquena, they were forced to delay their assault while a mercenary went back to retrieve the equipment. Although EO did not suffer casualties because of this oversight, the force subsequently decided that, regardless of the inconvenience, all available equipment must be made readily available at all times.

Germani, White Soldiers in Black Africa, 87; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 81. Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Hooper, Bloodsong, 225; Venter, War Dog, 515. 39 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 357-358. 40 Boyne, "The White Legion," 281; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Guevara, The African Dream, xxxiv-xxxvi; Venter, War Dog, 532-534. 41 Venter, War Dog, 364-365.
38

37

14

DRAFT The normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that weakly emphasize norms promoting creative thinking, personal initiative, and decentralized authority should demonstrate little tactical innovation. Tactical units within these forces should generally use very simple tactics, if any, such as full-frontal assaults, straight at their opponents, when attacking and counterattacking. 42 These predictions were borne out fairly well by these conflicts. 43 For instance, although the Simbas exhibited little tactical innovation, they did so despite strongly emphasizing decentralized authority. It appears in this case that the rebels near-complete lack of creativity more than compensated for their emphasis on decentralized authority. Indeed, they were so uncreative that they never developed new tactics that empowered junior officers could have implemented. As predicted for a force that deemphasizing creative thinking and personal initiative in favour of their staunch belief in the protective power of dawa, the Simbas were incapable of any tactical innovation whatsoever. 44 As Dreke put it, they relied on (dawa) to fight, to move.45

Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 66. Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front," 190; Arney, "Rebels Take More Ground in Zaire."; Bainwoll, "Cuba," 233; Baker, Wild Goose, 190-192; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 110-111, 329-330, 336, 357-358, and 381; Boyne, "The White Legion," 281; Breytenbach, The Buffalo Soldiers, 123; Bridgeland, Jonas Savimbi, 150; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 352-354 and 363-367; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 81; Yekutiel Gershoni, "War without End and an End to a War: The Prolonged Wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone," African Studies Review 40, no. 3 (December 1997): 68 and 71; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 264; Hooper, Bloodsong, 87-88, 220, and 224-225; Integrated Regional Information Network, "Great Lakes: IRIN Update 129," (New York, NY: Integrated Regional Information Network, Department of Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations, March 17, 1997), 1; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 98; Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers, 97; James C. McKinley, "Serb Who Went to Defend Zaire Spread Death and Horror Instead," The New York Times, March 19, 1997; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 197-200; Peters and Richards, "Why We Fight," 186; Richards, "War as Smoke and Mirrors," 387; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 30 and 86; Sasic, "Mladic's Monster Finally Talks."; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 305; Stewart Tendler, "'Callan' and nine other Britons face Angola trial," The Times, April 2, 1976, 1; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 52, 87-90, and 173; Venter, War Dog, 350-351, 482-483, 519, and 546; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 182. 44 Dawa refers to a magical medicine that Simba witch doctors claimed would provide invincibility to any rebel under its protection. In effect, the witch doctors convinced their followers that the mercenaries bullets would transform into harmless water upon contact with a rebels skin or fly back and hit the shooter. Dodenhoff, "The Congo," 46; Geraghty, Who Dares Wins, 118; Gleijeses, "Flee! The White Giants Are Coming!: The United States, the Mercenaries, and the Congo, 1964-65," 210; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 20-21; Thallon, Cut-Throat, 15; Verhaegen, "La Premiere Republique (1960-1965)," 126. 45 Dreke, From the Escambray to the Congo, 137.
43

42

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DRAFT Presuming that they were impervious to bullets, the Simbas employed only the very simplest tactics walking straight toward the enemy while making no attempt to use cover or otherwise avoid being fired upon. 46 The results of this behaviour were disastrous for the rebels. For example, on September 15, 1964, Lieutenant Wilson led 15 members of 5 Commando in an attack against the port town of Lisala, which was guarded by approximately 400 Simbas. 47 Believing themselves to be invincible, the rebels grouped together in a single mass of troops on a highly exposed hilltop and made no attempt to take cover while their witch doctors chanted and fanned them with palm branches. 48 In addition to numerical and magical superiority, the Simbas also fielded superior weapons, including heavy machine guns and bazookas, while the mercenaries only had rifles. Although the mercenaries assessed the situation and were prepared to employ creative tactics to address the threat, the Simbas demonstrable lack of creativity made this unnecessary. Indeed, how could innovative tactics possibly improve their changes of hitting a huge cluster of targets that made no attempt to avoid being shot? Wilson later described the scene, in which 160 Simbas were killed in only a few minutes, as, a shooting gallery. 49 The mercenaries only suffered a single slight injury during the assault. This example is typical of how the mercenaries attacks on Simba-held settlements played out: what should have been an easy victory for the materially superior rebels, instead turned into a slaughter at the hands of a tiny force of private soldiers.

46 Dodenhoff, "The Congo," 46; Gleijeses, "Flee! The White Giants Are Coming!: The United States, the Mercenaries, and the Congo, 1964-65," 210-211; Verhaegen, "La Premiere Republique (1960-1965)," 126. 47 Dodenhoff, "The Congo," 59. 48 Reed, Save the Hostages, 140. 49 Reed, Save the Hostages, 140.

16

DRAFT This prediction was, however, completely borne out in the other conflicts. Indeed, Callans Mercenaries, which deemphasized creative thinking, personal initiative, and decentralized authority, utilized the same tactics during each of the six major engagements that took place between January 24 and February 3, 1976. These involved establishing an ambush position and then launching a full-frontal assault straight at the enemy. 50 Once an assault was launched, the mercenaries never attempted to use cover, suppressive fire, or any other tactics more advanced that standing-and-shooting or running-and-shooting at any enemy target. 51 After launching three near identical attacks on February 3, and two more in the previous week, against a single unit of Cuban-MPLA soldiers, the mercenaries opponents finally learned the secret of defending against Callans straightforward tactics, which required them to merely stand their ground for a few minutes and use their numerical and technological superiority to dispatch the mercenaries while they were in the open and exposed. 52 This is precisely what the Cuban-MPLA unit did at the beginning of February 3, which allowed them to eliminate about half of Callans 22-strong killer group very quickly and send the remaining mercenaries fleeing in disarray. The normative theory of military performance also predicted that military forces that deemphasized creative thinking, personal initiative, and decentralized authority should have difficulty adapting to unforeseen developments on the battlefield and should learn slowly from their mistakes, if at all. 53 This prediction was borne out as well in these

Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 77, 176, 206, 251, 320, and 353; George, The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965-1991, 108; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 89; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 171 and 198-199. 51 Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 77, 176, 206, 251, 320, and 353; George, The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965-1991, 108; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 89; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 171. 52 Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 366-367. 53 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 66.

50

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DRAFT cases. 54 For example, when faced with the ADFLs multi-directional combined-arms assault on Kisangani during the First Congo War, which involved infantry, shooting at the same time as the armoured column was moving toward the (Kisangani) airport, the White Legion fell into disarray very quickly because they could not mount a coherent response to these unexpected tactics and vehicles. 55 Finally, the normative theory of military performance also predicted that forces that deemphasize creative thinking, personal initiative, and decentralized authority should experience considerable difficulty developing tactics to counter unexpected weapons or tactics used by their adversaries. This prediction was borne out as well. 56 For example, despite facing Callans unchanging ambush/full-frontal assault tactics in six major engagements, including four times in a single day against the same group of soldiers, the Cuban-MPLA force did not adapt to these straightforward tactics until the sixth and final major battle of the conflict, on February 3, when they belatedly launched an effective counter-attack that killed at least nine mercenaries and drove the rest into the jungle.57 Although this adaptation proved decisive in allowing the Cuban-MPLA force to win the conflict, their inability to adapt much earlier to the mercenaries tactics is telling of their general deemphasis on creative thinking, personal initiative, and decentralized authority.

54 Arney, "Rebels Take More Ground in Zaire."; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 250-251; Boyne, "The White Legion," 281; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 80; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 206 and 363-367; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 63-64; Guevara, The African Dream, 48-49; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 21; Hooper, Bloodsong, 208; Integrated Regional Information Network, "Great Lakes: IRIN Update 129," 1; Malaquias, "Angola," 207; Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers, 96; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 99; McKinley, "Serb Who Went to Defend Zaire Spread Death and Horror Instead."; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 198-200; Sasic, "Mladic's Monster Finally Talks."; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 20-21 and 88-90; Venter, War Dog, 511, 521, and 523-524; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 182. 55 French, "Major City's Fall Poses Dire Threat to Zaire's Rulers."; McNulty, "The Collapse of Zaire," 75. 56 Arney, "Rebels Take More Ground in Zaire."; Boyne, "The White Legion," 281; Integrated Regional Information Network, "Great Lakes: IRIN Update 129," 1; McKinley, "Serb Who Went to Defend Zaire Spread Death and Horror Instead."; Reed, Save the Hostages, 37-38; Sasic, "Mladic's Monster Finally Talks."; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 52; Venter, War Dog, 432; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 182. 57 Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 368; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 199; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 749.

18

DRAFT At the same time, the mercenaries, who also deemphasized these norms, failed to develop any new tactics after February 3. Instead, over the subsequent two weeks, every attempt by the few surviving mercenaries to launch ambushes and full-frontal assaults failed miserably as the Cuban-MPLA troops had adapted and were able to quickly eliminate their attackers in every encounter. 58 Taking this into account, the mercenaries complete inability to develop new tactics helped doom them in the end. Similarly, the RUF never developed effective counters to EOs tactics, which included combined-arms assault, preemptive strikes against ambush positions, counterambush pursuits, and a variety of other behaviours. To a force accustomed to mounting and facing roadside ambushes followed by quick withdrawals, EOs tactics proved to be both novel and unassailable. 59 For example, captured RUF personnel revealed that their ambush parties had never been counter-attacked and pursued before, and admitted that these tactics greatly confused them. 60 However, even after encountering these tactics dozens of times, the rebels failed to adapt. As a result, groups of rebel fighters encountered toward the end of the conflict were just as easy for the mercenaries to defeat as those encountered at the beginning of the conflict.

Decision-making Patterns The normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that strongly emphasize norms promoting personal initiative and decentralized authority should maintain decentralized patterns of decision-making. Within these military forces,

58 59

Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 210. Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 353; Hooper, Bloodsong, 225-227; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 113; Venter, War Dog, 519-520. 60 Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Venter, War Dog, 482-483.

19

DRAFT tendencies toward demonstrating personal initiative and decentralization of authority should mutually reinforce each other because junior officers should demonstrate personal initiative if they have been delegated sufficient authority to permit them to do so, and senior officers should delegate authority if their subordinates have demonstrated sufficient personal initiative to warrant it. 61 Therefore, most tactical-level decisions in these forces should be addressed by tactical level commanders (junior officers and senior enlisted personnel), which should significantly increase the pace at which the tactical units of these forces are able to act and react against their opponents. 62 This prediction was borne out in these conflicts. 63 For instance, 5 Commando was made up of eight subcommandos, with approximately 30-40 personnel, each of which could operate separately and independently from each other. 64 For example, 53 Commando, commanded by Lieutenants Jack Maidan and George Schroeder, spent much of the fall of 1964 operating completely apart from Hoare and the rest of the subcommandos. During this period, Maidans sub-group captured the towns of Kabare and Uvira near the Congo-Rwandan border, then Lubero and Butembo as it moved north. 65 The subcommandos could also seamlessly recombine into any combination of new groupings to suit the requirements of the mission. 66 Indeed, following 55, 56, and 57 Commandos successful recapture of Kamina in southern Congo and Kindu in the central part of the country in the early fall of 1964, they united with 51 Commando at Kindu for

61 62

Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 67. Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 67. 63 Baker, Wild Goose, 171 and 173; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 108-110, 205, 252, 259, 336, 359, and 368-369; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 137; Fitzsimmons, First Interview with Des Burman; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Fitzsimmons, Second Interview with Des Burman; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 77-78; Hooper, Bloodsong, 233 and 244; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 76; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 20; Venter, War Dog, 372, 378-379, 421-422, 431, 477-478, 480, and 546-547 64 Baker, Wild Goose, 173-174; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 19; Thallon, Cut-Throat, 35. 65 Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 65. 66 Baker, Wild Goose, 182.

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DRAFT a north-westerly advance on the Simba strong-hold of Stanleyville, capturing Punia and Lubutu as they went. 67 At the same time, 52 Commando retook the northern town of Aketi; 53 Commando captured Lubero, Butembo, and Mambasa in the north-east before advancing on Stanleyville; and 54 Commando advanced on Stanleyville from the southwest, capturing the towns Ikela and Opela along the way. 68 Following the capture of Stanleyville, the united subcommandos split up again in November, 1964, and spent several months capturing more towns from the Simbas all over the Orientale Province, including, among others, Aketi, Buta, Poko, Paulis, which were captured by 52 Commando; Butembo, Olenga, Beni, Mambasa, and Bunia, which were captured by 53 Commando; and Wamba, which was captured by 54 Commando. 69 In the process, they saved thousands of Congolese and foreign civilians from certain death at the hands of the rebels. Similarly, the tactical-level commanders in Executive Outcomes force in Sierra Leone reportedly lead, from the front, not the back. 70 Jos Grobler, a Mobile Force commander, earned a reputation as a particularly, aggressive and uncompromising, leader who would take it upon himself to figure out how to best implement any general mission plans handed down from the firms senior officers. 71 Cobus Claassens, a Fire Force commander, was equally adept at taking a set of general orders from a senior officer and implementing them in a manner that suited the tactical situations he and his men faced. As Venter put it, when in the field with his unit, Claassens would run the

67 68

Rogers, Someone Elses War, 22. Rogers, Someone Elses War, 22-25. 69 Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 167-170. 70 Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 138; Venter, War Dog, 476. 71 Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 138; Venter, War Dog, 476.

21

DRAFT show. 72 For example, when ordered to seize Kailahun from the RUF, Claassens decided to deploy the mortar team and multiple infantry teams around the battlespace to conduct the assault. 73 Similarly, after an SLA unit refused to assist the Fire Force in an operation intended to herd and trap a group of RUF fighters, the Fire Forces commander quickly modified the plan to draw exclusively on EOs personnel and launched the operation. 74 Likewise, the, well-organized and effectively led, ADFL encouraged their junior officers to exercise considerable autonomy when making decisions about how and when to employ the units under their command and to avoid relying on senior commanders to tell them precisely what to do. 75 The rebels were able to conduct multiple assaults in different parts of the country at the same time. 76 For example, one contemporary observer wrote in February 1997 that, the rebels were advancing on several fronts, including the Oso River, east of Kisangani, and the Nia-Nia crossroads north-east of it. 77 Providing greater detail, Thom notes that the rebels opened up three fronts during the war, a northern front in the province of Haut Zaire, a southern front in the Fizi-Barak region, and, of greatest importance, a central front that progressed toward Kisangani and Kinshasa. 78 Reflecting on this situation, a senior Zairian Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Nufuta B. Kosanga, observed in February 1997 that the rebels, seem

Venter, War Dog, 542. Venter, War Dog, 536. 74 Hooper, Bloodsong, 243-244. 75 Katumba-Wamata, "The National Resistance Army (NRA) as a Guerilla Force," 166; Eric Margolis, "The Great Race for Africa Resumes," Foreign Correspondent, March 6, 1997; Ngoga, "The Revolutionary United Front," 101; Reed, "Exile, Reform, and the Rise of the Rwandan Patriotic Front," 486; Watson, "Rwanda," 54; Waugh, Paul Kagame, 25; Weinstein, Inside Rebellion, 127 and 140. 76 Nicholas Kotch, "Zaire Rebels Advance, Frustrating Army - Sources," Reuters News Service, January 30, 1997; Pech, "The Hand of War," 144-145; Reuters, "French troops said in Zaire, France denies report," Reuters News, February 7, 1997; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 10. 77 Pierre Briand, "Rebels Advance as Soldiers and Refugees Flee," Agence France-Presse, February 6, 1997. 78 Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 14.
73

72

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DRAFT to be able to push wherever they want to. 79 Indeed, being able to make decisions for themselves allowed rebel junior officers to implement the forces direct attack strategy, which involved seizing settlements from pro-Mobutu troops, much faster than they could have had they been grouped together as one large force because the small, centralized White Legion simply could not engage multiple dispersed rebel units at the same time. 80 These examples illustrate how effective these forces could be, as a whole, since their autonomous constituent sub-units could achieve multiple objectives simultaneously. This, in turn, almost certainly allowed these forces to defeat their opponents much more quickly than they would have if they had remained clustered together under their senior commanders direct command and control. The normative theory of military performance also predicted that military forces that emphasize personal initiative and decentralized authority should rarely miss opportunities to harm their opponents or fail to respond quickly to sudden moves by their opponents because officers at all levels of command can make tactical-level decisions without the need for higher approval. This prediction was borne out as well in these conflicts. 81 For instance, within EOs force in Angola, tactical-level commanders frequently sought out engagements with the rebels without being ordered to by their superiors. 82 For example, while leading a BMP patrol toward a UNITA-held village on June 23, 1994, Hennie Blaauw, a Mobile Force commander, noticed fresh rebel tracks,

French, "In Zaire's Unconventional War, Serbs Train Refugees for Combat." Kotch, "Zaire Rebels Advance, Frustrating Army."; Pech, "The Hand of War," 144-145; Reuters, "French troops said in Zaire, France denies report."; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 10. 81 Baker, Wild Goose, 176 and 196; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 332, 357, and 359; Geraghty, Who Dares Wins, 119120; Gershoni, "War without End and an End to a War," 68; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 156 and 220; Hooper, Bloodsong, 224, 229-230, 243-244, 247, and 250; Ngolet, "African and American Connivance in Congo-Zaire," 68; Pelton, Licensed to Kill, 262-263; Reed, Save the Hostages, 259-260; Thallon, Cut-Throat, 30; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 46; Venter, War Dog, 271-272, 477-478, 510, 513, 516, 520, and 540. 82 Venter, War Dog, 388-389.
80

79

23

DRAFT which he decided to follow to determine the extent of UNITAs presence in the area and engage any rebel troops he encountered. 83 Likewise, after seizing Cafunfo on July 15, 1994, Blaauw took it upon himself to consolidate the area around the settlement by launching sweeps for any remaining UNITA personnel. 84 This drive to engage the enemy whenever possible extended down through the ranks as well. For example, Blaauw recalled that his, small infantry contingent was outstanding and they never hesitated to debus under fire and close with UNITA to do battle. 85 In addition to this, EOs PC-7 and MiG-23 pilots frequently took it upon themselves to seek out and engage targets of opportunity, particularly UNITA vehicles, heavy weapons, and troop concentrations, over and above the targets that senior commanders and the mercenaries ground troops requested for destruction. 86 This increased the number of rebel settlements, personnel, weapons, and vehicles destroyed from the air during the conflict. Conversely, the normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that weakly emphasize norms promoting personal initiative and decentralized authority should maintain centralized patterns of decision-making. Within these military forces, tendencies toward general passivity and over-centralization of authority should mutually reinforce each other because junior officers should not demonstrate personal initiative if they have not been delegated sufficient authority to permit them to do so, and senior officers should not delegate authority if their subordinates have not demonstrated sufficient personal initiative to warrant it. 87 Therefore, most tactical-level decisions in these forces should be referred to senior commanders for resolution, which should

83 84

Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 245. Hooper, Bloodsong, 136-137. 85 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 271. 86 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 234 and 265; Hooper, Bloodsong, 172-173 and 178-179. 87 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 67.

24

DRAFT significantly decrease the pace at which the tactical units of these forces are able to act and react against their opponents. 88 This prediction was borne out in these conflicts. 89 For instance, most of the Callans Mercenaries were generally passive and inactive much of the time because all decisions were deferred up to the highest levels of the chain of command for resolution and no operations were attempted in the absence of direct authorization and participation by senior officers. 90 This, in turn, greatly slowed the pace at which the force could operate because the mercenaries were not able to conduct several strike missions at the same time. Had they been able to do this, it would certainly have enhanced their capacity to wear down the main Cuban-MPLA column arrayed against them by allowing them to strike the column at multiple points at the same time as it slowly advanced toward the mercenary-held settlements. Similarly, this prediction certainly played out during the Sierra Leonean Civil War because RUF field commanders felt they needed to seek Sankohs direct approval for virtually any tactical actions. 91 This was problematic because radio transmissions intercepted by the mercenaries suggested that Sankoh had little idea how to respond to

Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 67. Catherine Bond, "Zairian Recounts Torture by Serb Mercenaries," CNN.com, March 19, 1997; Bridgeland, Jonas Savimbi, 285; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 141; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 201, 352-354, and 363-367; Fitzsimmons, First Interview with Des Burman; Guevara, The African Dream, 41, 57, 103-104, and 139-140; Hooper, Bloodsong, 123; James, A Political History of the Civil War in Angola, 1974-1990, 95-96, 135, 138-140, and 255-256; Kotch, "Zaire Rebels Advance, Frustrating Army."; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 98; Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers, 105-106; Marcum, "Angola: A Quarter Century of War," 5; Minter, Apartheid's Contras, 126; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 172, 183-184, 187, and 197; Pech, "The Hand of War," 144-145; Reuters, "French troops said in Zaire, France denies report."; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 86; Sasic, "Mladic's Monster Finally Talks."; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 293; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 10; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 37; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 76, 87-88, 90, 92, and 173; Venter, War Dog, 250 and 417; Wright, "Talking With Angola's Jonas Savimbi," 6. 90 Other observers characterized their behaviour as highly unmotivated. McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 95; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 79. 91 Venter, War Dog, 458.
89

88

25

DRAFT EOs actions. 92 Moreover, in contrast to the mercenaries, rebel units rarely divided their field units into several smaller groups, and could, thus, not conduct multiple simultaneous operations in a given area of the country. 93 This tendency to stay bunched together also made RUF units easier to see and target from the air. 94 Finally, the normative theory of military performance also predicted that military forces that weakly emphasize norms promoting personal initiative and decentralized authority should frequently miss opportunities to harm their opponents and fail to respond quickly to sudden moves by their opponents because only senior commanders can make decisions. This prediction was borne out as well. 95 For example, although Callan organized killer groups and sought out combat with the Cubans and the MPLA, no junior members of his force did. 96 Rather, virtually all the members of the force who were not chosen for a mission simply sat around while Callan was away from their base camps, which further undermined their capacity to engage multiple threats at the same time.97 Furthermore, unless junior personnel were specifically ordered to do something by Callan or one of his senior officers, even tasks that were critical to their survival would not get

Venter, War Dog, 516. Venter, War Dog, 501. 94 Venter, War Dog, 501. 95 Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front," 190; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 235-237, 329-330, 357358, 362, and 381; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 352-354 and 365-366; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 81; George, The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965-1991, 108; Gershoni, "War without End and an End to a War," 68 and 71; Guevara, The African Dream, 44-45, 51, 87-89, 111, 119, 164, 226; Hooper, Bloodsong, 122-128, 220, 224-225, and 234; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 95 and 98; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 189-190, 197, and 199; Peters and Richards, "Why We Fight," 186; Richards, "War as Smoke and Mirrors," 387; Roebuck, The Whores of War, 97; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 80 and 86-87; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 298, 303, and 305; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 35 and 89; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 87-90 and 173; Venter, War Dog, 417, 481-483, 515, 519, 546. 96 Roebuck, The Whores of War, 97; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 81. 97 As Thomas summarizes, eventually, 141 British and 6 American mercenaries came under Callans control; but, without any organizational structure the situation floundered quickly. Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 37; Venter, "Angola Flashbacks," 29.
93

92

26

DRAFT done. 98 For example, all of the defensive ambush sites along the approaches to the mercenaries base camps were usually inadequately manned. 99 Likewise, the Serbian mercenaries that made up the vast majority of the White Legions personnel were indoctrinated into believing that they should not conduct any combat operations unless they received specific monetary rewards for doing so. Since the members of the force had been paid salaries of several thousand dollars in advance for their mere presence in Zaire, they saw no incentive to risk injury or death without additional monetary rewards. 100 These were not forthcoming, and so the force rarely conducted any operations away from their main base at Kisangani. 101 Indeed, by early spring 1997, the East European mercenaries pulled back (to Kisangani) and refused to fight because of lack of pay. 102 A Newsweek article from late February 1997 similarly argued that, the mercenaries havent helped much. Theyve remained in Kisangani while the rebels extended their control. 103 Although, as discussed below, the mercenaries were adept at using explosives, their general disinclination to venture far from Kisangani precluded them from demolishing any of the numerous distant bridges and ammunition dumps that the rebels eventually used to capture ever-more government territory. 104 Overall, it is clear that the mercenaries were truly soldiers of fortune because they had effectively stopped fighting within a month of their arrival in the Congo after

98 99

Roebuck, The Whores of War, 97. Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 176, 199, 206, 211, and 429. 100 Jonathan C. Randal, "Serb Troops Paid to Go to War - In Zaire," The Washington Post, March 18, 1997, A13. 101 Mabry, "Soldiers of Misfortune," 40-41; Pech, "The Hand of War," 138 and 140. 102 Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 15. 103 Mabry, "Soldiers of Misfortune," 40. 104 Clayton, Frontiersmen, 190.

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DRAFT realizing that they would be paid regardless of whether they risked their lives in combat. 105

Use of Hand-operated Weapons The normative theory of military performance predicted that, to the extent that the members of military forces that strongly emphasize norms promoting technical proficiency are willing to familiarize themselves with the functioning of military technology, these forces should be adept at using hand-operated weaponry, such as rifles, bazookas, anti-aircraft guns, and dismounted artillery. 106 Specifically, the marksmanship of the personnel in these forces should be quite good. 107 This prediction was borne out in these conflicts. 108 For instance, several accounts of the Sierra Leonean Civil War refer to EOs ability to lay down, very accurate, fire during contacts with the rebels, using all manner of hand-operated weapons. These include accounts of the mercenaries hitting and killing large numbers of RUF fighters with fire from AK-47s; 7.62 mm light PKM machine guns and 12.7 mm heavy machine guns, which were deployed with the ground forces and on the firms two Mi-17s; 60, 81, 82, and 120 mm mortars; and 105 mm

Boyne, "The White Legion," 281; Pech, "The Hand of War," 140; Michela Wrong, "The Emperor Mobutu," Transitions 9, no. 1 and 2 (2000): 108-110. 106 Timothy Lupfer, "Tactics," in Brasseys Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brasseys, 1997), 1022 and 1031; Millett, Murray, and Watman, "The Effectiveness of Military Organizations," 62. 107 Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 564. 108 Baker, Wild Goose, 184 and 187-188; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 121, 213, and 238-239; Boyne, "The White Legion," 280; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 80; French, "In Zaire's Unconventional War, Serbs Train Refugees for Combat."; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 74; Guevara, The African Dream, 43-48 and 102; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 229 and 245; Hooper, Bloodsong, 98 and 124; Igric, "Alleged 'Assassins' Were No Strangers to France," 2; Kotch, "Zaire Rebels Advance, Frustrating Army."; Mabry, "Soldiers of Misfortune," 40; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 67-68; Pech, "The Hand of War," 137-138 and 140; Pottinger, Mercenary Commander; Reed, Save the Hostages, 258-259; Rosen, Contract Warriors, 15; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 116; Thallon, Cut-Throat, 20-21; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 11 and 16; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 34; Fred Wagoner, Dragon Rouge: The Rescue of Hostages in the Congo (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1980), 66.

105

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DRAFT artillery. 109 The firm was particularly adept with mortars: wed hurl a few mortars at where we thought they (the RUF) might be. Our guys had a lot of experience with this stuff and they were accurate. Theyd sometimes get them spot on. Then the rebels would disappear into the jungle and there would be no resistance. 110 The firm used these weapons to hammer groups of fleeing rebels and to besiege rebel camps. For example, EOs infantry trapped several dozen rebels inside their camp near Gandorhun while the firms mortar team systematically eliminated them from afar. 111 EOs ability to use hand-operated weapons effectively was essential to their success in Sierra Leone because, in virtually every contact with the rebels, they were severely outnumbered. In other words, because the mercenaries fielded comparatively few rifles, they had to ensure that a comparatively high proportion of their shots hit useful targets. As Claassens summarized, The world thinks that Executive Outcomes was successful because of the use of overwhelming technology and superior firepower, which is absolutely untrue. If you look at the amount of rifles they had as opposed to our rifles, it was 80 rifles against thousands. The reason why we were successful is because we were able to utilize it better the guys who came with me into Executive Outcomes were. very, very good at what they did and thats the main reason why we did so well. 112

Conversely, the normative theory of military performance predicted that, to the extent that the members of military forces that weakly emphasize norms promoting technical proficiency are unwilling to familiarize themselves with the functioning of military technology, these forces should not utilize hand-operated weaponry very well.

109

Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 358, 364-365, 384-385; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Hooper, Bloodsong, 224-225, 228, 231-232, 246, and 248-250; Venter, War Dog, 521 and 545-547. 110 Venter, War Dog, 521. 111 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 364-365; Hooper, Bloodsong, 224-225 and 231-232. 112 Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens.

29

DRAFT Specifically, the marksmanship of personnel in these forces should be quite poor. 113 This prediction was borne out in these conflicts. 114 For instance, due to their general deemphasis on technical proficiency, the Simbas rarely conducted training to learn how to use their weapons. For example, in a letter to Comrade Muteba, Guevara argued plainly that, There is a general lack of the minimum training necessary to handle firearms, a lack all the graver in the case of weapons requiring special combat preparations. 115 Despite his pleas to start a training program, Guevara never received authorization to do this. However, it seems likely that, even if he had received authorization, few rebel foot soldiers would have submitted to training because they too placed little value on technical proficiency. Contemporary observers on both sides of the conflict frequently remarked on the near-total lack of technical competency among the Simbas. 116 Front-line observers, like 5 Commandos Hugh van Oppen, recalled that, despite often fielding far superior equipment than the mercenaries, including artillery with much greater range than anything in the mercenaries inventory, the rebels inflected few casualties because they simply could not aim. 117 The Simbas were equally inept with small-arms, which they tended to fire far above the heads of the mercenaries. Indeed,
Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 73. Thomas K. Adams, "The New Mercenaries and the Privatization of Conflict," Parameters 29, no. 2 (Summer 1999); Arnold, Mercenaries, 34; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 202-203, 215-216, 255-256, 270, 275, 288, 336, 353, and 384385; Beah, A Long Way Gone, 24; Breytenbach, The Buffalo Soldiers, 46; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 62, 74, 77, 135, 149, 171, 176-177, 204-205, 365-366, and 400; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Fitzsimmons, Second Interview with Des Burman; Lloyd Garrison, "Another Vietnam Feared in the Congo," New York Times, December 13, 1964, E3; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 258, 267, 269, and 317; Guevara, The African Dream, 38, 48, 63-64, and 196; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 157 and 307; Hooper, "Angola," 45; Hooper, Bloodsong, 45, 107, 129-130, 142, 159, 168-169, 171, 193, 195, 200-201, 208, 222, 224-225, 228, 246, and 248-250; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 95; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 93, 99, and 354; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 183 and 198-199; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 660 and 749; Reed, Save the Hostages, 196; Richards, "War as Smoke and Mirrors,", 387 and 390; Roebuck, The Whores of War, 108; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 76 and 86-87; Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 224; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 25 and 67; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 66, 74, 76, and 89-90; Venter, War Dog, 349, 369, 422-423, 433-434, 443-444, 479, 481, 494-496, 502, 509-510, 519-520, 533, and 546. 115 Guevara, The African Dream, 34. 116 Piero Gleijeses, for example, who is somewhat sympathetic in his portrayal of the Simbas nevertheless admitted that they had poor fighting skills. Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 137. 117 Baker, Wild Goose, 189.
114 113

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DRAFT Guevara commented in his diary entry for April 24, 1965, that, The main defect of the Congolese is that they do not know how to shoot, so ammunition is wasted. 118 As a result, the Simbas rarely hit their targets during ambushes and larger operations if the targets were beyond point-blank range. 119 The Cuban-MPLA force sent to destroy the Callans Mercenaries was similarly inept in the use of hand-operated weapons. 120 Despite fielding far more rifles and machine guns in every encounter, and often fielding hand-operated heavy weapons, including BM-21s and heavy mortars, the members of this force rarely succeeded in hitting any of the mercenaries. 121 Indeed, even sympathetic sources suggest that the, Cuban soldiers do not seem to have been terribly good shots. 122 For example, member of this force fired several volleys of BM-21 and heavy mortar shells on January 24, 1976, presumably in an attempt to soften up the mercenaries forward position before launching an assault with infantry and tanks. However, as with each of their other attempts to use hand-operated heavy weapons during the campaign, they failed to inflict any casualties. 123

Use of Ground Combat Vehicles The normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that strongly emphasize norms promoting creative thinking, personal initiative, and technical proficiency should be adept at using their ground combat vehicles. These forces should

118 119

Guevara, The African Dream, 25. Guevara, The African Dream, xxxiv. 120 Bainwoll, "Cuba," 234. 121 Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 298. 122 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 657; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 267. 123 Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 204; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 298.

31

DRAFT capitalize on both the maneuverability and firepower of their ground combat vehicles. 124 Moreover, vehicle crews in these forces should be able to fire the vehicles weapons fairly accurately. These predictions were borne out in these cases. 125 Indeed, as predicted, 5 Commando employed their armoured vehicles as part of highly mobile long-range maneuver actions to attack settlements from unexpected approach angles using rapid dash assaults that took advantage of the cars speed rather than merely their armoured plating. For example, these assets were used to help take Kamini in October, 1964, Kindu in November, 1964, and Baraka in September, 1965. 126 Specifically, at the battle of Kindu on November 5, 1964, 5 Commando used their armoured cars to shock the Simba defenders out of the defensive positions and into the streets where the mercenaries then utilized the vehicles machine guns to eliminate several hundred of the fleeing rebels. 127 Likewise, EOs personnel in Angola employed their BMP-2s, which were organized into multiple independently-maneuverable teams, during its successful assaults on Firiquich, Dala, Valodia, Cafunfo, Cacolo, and a host of other settlements. 128 During these engagements, the accuracy of EOs fire was reported very high. For example, statements along the lines of, the BMPs 30 mm guns decimated the enemy, and references to BMPs, cutting (UNITA) to shreds, appear frequently in accounts of

124 Robert Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver-Warfare Theory and Airland Battle (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1991), 33. 125 Baker, Wild Goose, 187; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 241, 252, 255, 286, 329, 363, and 388; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 137; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 94; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 261; Hooper, Bloodsong, 86, 135, 158-159, 170, 222, 224-227, and 249; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 66-67; Reed, Save the Hostages, 191 and 196; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 16; Venter, War Dog, 429-430, 440-441, 465, 467, 477-479, 509, 514-515, 517, and 547-548. 126 Baker, Wild Goose, 187. 127 Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 92-93. 128 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 262-263; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 130; Hooper, Bloodsong, 113 and 168; Howe, Ambiguous Order, 199.

32

DRAFT these engagements, along with descriptions of BMPs providing accurate covering fire in support of dismounted infantry assaults. 129 Conversely, the theory predicted that military forces that weakly emphasize norms promoting creative thinking, personal initiative, and technical proficiency should not utilize their ground combat vehicles very well. These forces should generally use their ground vehicles as static roadblocks rather than mobile fire support platforms.130 Moreover, vehicle crews in these forces should generally not be able to fire the vehicles weapons accurately. 131 These predictions were borne out in these cases. 132 For instance, the Simbas tended to simply drive their armoured cars to a narrow point in a road and park them to try to block the mercenaries advance. Moreover, because the Simbas could not fire the cars machine guns accurately, they failed to cause significant casualties and permitted the mercenaries sufficient time to counter-attack and disable the Simbas vehicles with accurate bazooka fire. 133 Similarly, although the Cuban soldiers that fought against Callans Mercenaries in Angola fielded a far greater quantity and higher quality of armoured vehicles than their opponents, including approximately 20 Soviet-made T-34, T-54, and T-55 tanks and at least six Soviet BRDM-2 armoured scout cars and BTR 60 armoured personnel carriers equipped with one or more turreted machine guns, their crews simply did not use them very well. 134 Scholars of the conflict have concluded both that, Cuban tankers were

Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 256, 259, 262, and 288; Hooper, Bloodsong, 148. Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver, 49; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 73. 131 Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver, 49 and 109. 132 Clayton, Frontiersmen, 141; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 352-354 and 363-367; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 89; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 98; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 197-200; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 8687; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 31-33, 87-90, and 173. 133 Reed, Save the Hostages, 196. 134 Aguila, "The Changing Character of Cuba's Armed Forces," 33; Bainwoll, "Cuba," 229 and 231; Caribbean Report, "U.S. Admiral Pushes for Neutral Havana," 4-5; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 171 and 363-364; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 266 and 338; Heitman, War in Angola, 202-305; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 83 and 111;
130

129

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DRAFT mediocre marksmen, and that, Cuban weapon crews do not seem to have been terribly good shots. 135 For example, despite the fact that scoring even an indirect hit in the general vicinity of the mercenaries parked unarmoured Land Rovers would have ether severely damaged or destroyed them, a group of four Cuban tanks only succeeded in destroying two Land Rovers during the February 2 battle, in exchange for the loss of all four tanks, because the tankers had great difficulty hitting these stationary targets. 136 Finally, when Callans Mercenaries acquired reasonably good equipment during the first week of February, 1976, including several Panhard armoured cars, two Chinese-built tanks, and two miniature Stalins Organ truck-mounted rocket launchers, they made little effort to learn how to use them properly, and so these potent assets had no influence on the course of the conflict. 137

Air-to-Ground Attacks The normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that strongly emphasize norms promoting technical proficiency, creative thinking, and personal initiative should have little difficulty conducting air-to-ground attacks. Air-toground attacks conducted by these forces should demonstrate adaptation to the specific tactical threats being addressed and should generally hit their intended targets. 138 This

Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 165 and 183; Nortje, 32 Battalion, 9-10; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 662; Stevens, "The Soviet Union and Angola," 144; Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, 216. 135 Heitman, War in Angola, 653; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 75-78, 231, 233, and 657. 136 Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 352-354; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 98; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 197; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 86; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 87-88 and 173. 137 Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 400 and 403; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 206; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 73. 138 Accurate delivery of ordinance on target has, for example, been described as the most difficult part of close air support. Timothy Kline, "Close Air Support," in Brasseys Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brasseys, 1997), 179.

34

DRAFT prediction was borne out in these conflicts, for all of the military forces that strongly emphasized norms promoting technical proficiency, creative thinking, and personal initiative did, indeed, adapt to the specific threats they faced and proved to be quite accurate shots. 139 To highlight but one example, EOs pilots in Sierra Leone, flying two Mi-17 Hip transport helicopters and one Mi-24 Hind gunship, offered crucial support to the firms ground operations by engaging rebel troops with accurate rocket, machine gun, and gatling gun fire. 140 They were able to do so effectively because, as predicted, they combined a strong emphasis on technical proficiency, which motivated them to train hard to learn how to use unfamiliar Eastern Bloc equipment, with an equally strong emphasis on creative thinking and personal initiative. 141 Although initially taken aback by the conditions of fighting a war in heavily forested Sierra Leone, which were radically different from those present above the wide-open grasslands of Angola, EOs pilots quickly set to work analyzing these conditions and determining how to best modify their own behaviour to effectively adapt. One pilot recalled, for example, that discussions
Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front," 185; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 157, 202-203, 210-211, 213-215, 234, 253, 260-261, 265, 270-271, 330-331, 336, 358, and 368-371; Douglas Brooks, "The Business End of Military Intelligence: Private Military Companies," Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin July-September 1999, 42-46; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 80; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 137; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Fitzsimmons, Second Interview with Des Burman; Gershoni, "War without End and an End to a War," 68; Hooper, Bloodsong, 64, 93, 98, 106-107, 112-113, 117-118, 141-142, 162, 172-173, 178-179, 189-190, 192-193, 221, 240-241, 245-246, and 249-250; Howe, Ambiguous Order, 199 and 202; Pelton, Licensed to Kill, 234, 259, and 262-263; Reed, Save the Hostages, 196 and 202; Shearer, Private Armies and Military Intervention, 53-54; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 9 and 109; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 33; Venter, War Dog, 391, 415-420, 429-430, 435, 480, 485, 487-488, 492-495, 501-503, 508, and 545-548; Alex Vines, The Business of Peace: 'Tiny' Rowland, Financial Incentives and the Mozambican Settlement (Accord: An International Review of Peace Initiatives, [cited); available from http://www.c-r.org/acc_moz/contents_moz.htm. 140 Adams, "The New Mercenaries and the Privatization of Conflict."; Avant, The Market for Force, 87; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 137; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Francis, "Mercenary Intervention in Sierra Leone," 327; Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 93; Gershoni, "War without End and an End to a War," 68; Hooper, Bloodsong, 221; Howe, Ambiguous Order, 202; Abdel-Fatau Musah, "A Country Under Siege: State Decay and Corporate Military Involvement in Sierra Leone," in Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma, ed. Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. Kayode Fayemi (Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000), 89; Will Reno, "African Weak States and Commercial Alliances," African Affairs 96, no. 383 (April 1997): 180; Richards, "War as Smoke and Mirrors," 395; Shearer, Private Armies and Military Intervention, 54; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 93; Venter, War Dog, 54, 64, and 391. 141 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 329; Hooper, Bloodsong, 222; Venter, War Dog, 491.
139

35

DRAFT about air-to-ground tactics took place on a daily basis, as pilots and ground commanders worked through problems encountered during the days operations. 142 One important tactical innovation that developed out of these discussions was that the firms ground troops began to provide a steady stream of updates to the pilots about the location of nearby rebel fighters, which helped the pilots and gunners target their weapons accurately through the triple-canopy jungle. 143 The firms ground troops also began launching flares toward groups of rebel fighters, again, so that the air crews could accurately target them through the thick foliage. 144 Conversely, the normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that weakly emphasize norms promoting technical proficiency, creative thinking, and personal initiative should have considerable difficulty conducting air-to-ground attacks. Air-to-ground attacks conducted by these forces should demonstrate little or no adaptation to the specific tactical threats being addressed and should generally not hit their intended targets. 145 This prediction was borne out as well during the First Congo War. Although the White Legions technically proficient pilots certainly knew how to fly their aircraft and aim their air-to-ground weapons fairly accurately, which they did, for example, at Walikale, Snabunda, and Bukavu on February 17, 1997, the forces deemphasis on creative thinking and personal initiative severely hampered its overall ability to conduct air-to-ground attacks. 146 Indeed, despite having access to potent ground attack aircraft, including four Mi-24 Hind helicopters, one SA-330 Puma helicopter, five
142 143

Venter, War Dog, 493-494. Venter, War Dog, 501. 144 Venter, War Dog, 501. 145 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 69. 146 Raymond Bonner, "France Linked to Defense of Mobutu," The New York Times, May 2, 1997; Boyne, "The White Legion," 279-280; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 190; French, "In Zaire's Unconventional War, Serbs Train Refugees for Combat."; Igric, "Alleged 'Assassins' Were No Strangers to France," 2; Mabry, "Soldiers of Misfortune," 40-41; Ngolet, "African and American Connivance in Congo-Zaire," 73; Pottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda, 45.

36

DRAFT SA-341 Gazelle helicopters, a mixture of three Yugoslav-built G-4 Galeb and J-21 Jastreb tactical strike jets, and three SIAI-Marchetti S.211 light attack aircraft, the mercenaries uncreative pilots reportedly had a very difficult time figuring out how to safely coordinate their airstrikes with allied ground forces. 147 This prevented the force from being able to conduct combined-arms attacks against the rebels. 148 Moreover, the forces lazy pilots were generally slow to deploy when ordered to conduct strike missions, and often declined to deploy at all, which caused them to miss numerous opportunities to strike the ADFL. 149 As a result of this, they were only able to briefly slow the rebels advance at Goma and Bukavu but did little to alter the general course of the conflict. 150 Rather, as Thom summarized, the mercenaries pilots, flew a few missions, but were ineffective, against the rebels. 151

Bonner, "France Linked to Defense of Mobutu."; Boyne, "The White Legion," 279-280; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 189-191; Kotch, "Zaire Rebels Advance, Frustrating Army."; Pech, "The Hand of War," 134, 137-138, and 140; Randal, "Serb Troops Paid to Go to War - In Zaire," A13; William Cyrus Reed, "Public Policy, Contested Government, and State Decay: Zaire as a Regional Actor in the Great Lakes Region," in War and Peace in Zaire/Congo, ed. Howard Adelman and Govind C. Rao (Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, Inc., 2004), 155; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 286; James Larry Taulbee, "Mercenaries, Private Armies and Security Companies in Contemporary Policy," in Global Society in Transition: An International Politics Reader, ed. Laura Neack (The Hauge, The Netherland: Kluwer Law International, 2002), 95-96; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 14-15; Venter, War Dog, 264 and 276-277; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 181. 148 Bonner, "France Linked to Defense of Mobutu."; Boyne, "The White Legion," 279-280; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 189-191; Kotch, "Zaire Rebels Advance, Frustrating Army."; Pech, "The Hand of War," 134, 137-138, and 140; Randal, "Serb Troops Paid to Go to War - In Zaire," A13; Reed, "Public Policy, Contested Government, and State Decay: Zaire as a Regional Actor in the Great Lakes Region," 155; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 286; Taulbee, "Mercenaries, Private Armies and Security Companies in Contemporary Policy," 95-96; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 199697 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 14-15; Venter, War Dog, 264 and 276-277; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 181. 149 Pech, "The Hand of War," 138; Venter, War Dog, 264. 150 Clayton, Frontiersmen, 190; Pottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda, 45; Reed, "Public Policy, Contested Government, and State Decay: Zaire as a Regional Actor in the Great Lakes Region," 155; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 15. 151 Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 15.

147

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DRAFT Maintenance The normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that strongly emphasize norms promoting technical proficiency should generally maintain their military equipment in good working order. Military forces with considerable appreciation for the importance of well-maintained military equipment should be willing and able to undertake such tasks under combat conditions. Therefore, at least some members of such forces are likely to be interested in serving as mechanics and most members of the force are likely to demonstrate aptitude for maintaining their own military equipment. 152 As a result, such forces should have little difficulty repairing damaged equipment and should experience generally high operational readiness rates. This prediction was borne out in all of the conflicts, for all of the military forces that emphasized technical proficiency proved to be adept at maintenance. 153 Specifically, these military forces routinely cleaned and maintained their weapons and vehicles between combat operations. 154 Moreover, these forces attempted to repair their damaged equipment and restore captured equipment to working order, which, in every conflict, allowed these forces to field greater quantities of weapons and vehicles than they

Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 73; J. H. Skinner, "Maintenance," in Brasseys Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brasseys, 1997), 655659. 153 A major exception to the general deemphasis on technical proficiency within both Callans Mercenaries and the Cuban-MPLA force arrayed against them during the Angolan Civil War was a strong emphasis on the importance of maintenance. 154 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 112, 116, 241, 253, 270, and 329; Bonner, "France Linked to Defense of Mobutu."; Boyne, "The White Legion," 279-280; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 189-191; Defense Intelligence Agency, "Handbook on the Cuban Armed Forces," chapters 2, 4, and 5; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 172; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 103; Hooper, Bloodsong, 113, 134, 170, and 224; Howe, Ambiguous Order, 198; Kotch, "Zaire Rebels Advance, Frustrating Army."; Margolis, "The Great Race for Africa Resumes."; Pech, "The Hand of War," 134, 137-138, and 140; Randal, "Serb Troops Paid to Go to War - In Zaire," A13; Reno, "African Weak States and Commercial Alliances," 180; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 286; Taulbee, "Mercenaries, Private Armies and Security Companies in Contemporary Policy," 95-96; Thallon, Cut-Throat, 36; Thom, "CongoZaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 14-15; Venter, War Dog, 264, 276-277, 465, 467, 479, 481-482, 488, 492, and 517; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 181.

152

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DRAFT otherwise could. 155 Perhaps the clearest example of the importance of maintenance occurred during the Angolan Civil War, where Executive Outcomes personnel performed daily maintenance on their BMP-2 armoured infantry fighting vehicles while, in contrast, their Angolan Army allies virtually never attempted to maintain their BMP2s. Several of the poorly maintained Angolan Army BMP-2s broke down throughout the conflict and many were subsequently abandoned; in contrast, virtually all of EOs wellmaintained BMP-2s remained in good working order throughout the conflict. 156 Overall, the efforts of the military forces that strongly emphasized the importance of technical proficiency seem to have paid dividends because no accounts of their operations suggest that malfunctions and breakdowns occurred frequently or that these issues contributed to defeats or other significant setbacks. Rather, virtually all of their equipment was maintained in working order at all times, which allowed them to field virtually all of their available weapons during engagements. Conversely, the normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that weakly emphasize norms promoting technical proficiency should generally not maintain their military equipment in good working order. Military forces that deemphasize the importance of maintaining military equipment are unlikely to attract many personnel interested in serving as mechanics and few, if any, members of the force are likely to demonstrate aptitude for maintaining their own military equipment. 157 As a

Baker, Wild Goose, 176; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 132; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 94; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 347-348; Reed, Save the Hostages, 229; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 72, 75, and 80; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 74 and 171. 156 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 241 and 253; Hooper, Bloodsong, 134 and 203. 157 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 73.

155

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DRAFT result, such forces should have significant difficulty repairing damaged equipment and should experience generally low operational readiness rates. 158 This prediction was borne out fairly well in these conflicts. However, given that maintenance is frequently performed off the battlefield, historical accounts of these conflicts did not always yield detailed descriptions of every forces maintenance practices. For example, it proved particularly difficult to evaluate the accuracy of this prediction in the case of UNITA. 159 Nevertheless, for the conflicts where detailed descriptions of maintenance practices are available, it is clear that military forces that deemphasized the importance of technical proficiency did not maintain their weapons and vehicles very well. 160 For example, although the Simbas had been given a number of motorboats and ferries by the Soviet bloc and their African allies, which were vital toward the end of the Simba Rebellion for moving personnel, weapons, and supplies across Lake Tanganyika to and from Tanzania, they made no effort to learn how to maintain them. Consequently, the watercraft were prone to breakdowns and almost all eventually ceased functioning. Guevara wrote to Fidel Castro on October 5, 1965, informing him that, Three brand-new Soviet launches arrived a little over a month ago, and two are already useless and the third leaks all over the place. 161 Likewise, the RUF did not maintain their weapons during the Sierra Leonean Civil war, and, as a result, they were routinely forced to discard damaged or malfunctioning weapons. 162 This, in turn, undermined their ability to engage EOs forces.

158 159

Skinner, "Maintenance," 655-659. Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 252 and 260-261. 160 Guevara, The African Dream, 15 and 25. 161 Guevara, The African Dream, 127. 162 Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front," 190; Eric G Berman, "Arming the Revolutionary United Front," African Security Review 10, no. 1 (2001): 8; Hooper, Bloodsong, 243; Howe, "Private Security Forces and African Stability," 329.

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DRAFT

Combat Engineering The normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that strongly emphasize norms promoting technical proficiency should have good combat engineering capabilities. Military forces with considerable appreciation for the importance of technical proficiency should have sufficient appreciation for the utility of combat engineering to undertake such tasks under combat conditions. Therefore, at least some members of such forces should be interested in serving as combat engineers and the skill level of those who do serve as combat engineers should be relatively high. As a result, such forces should have little difficulty overcoming man-made and natural obstacles, such as large rivers. 163 Moreover, they should experience little difficulty breaching well-fortified defensive lines and constructing defensive positions for their own force. 164 Finally, they should be able to utilize explosives safely and effectively. These predictions were borne out as well. 165 For instance, accounts of the conflicts include a number of descriptions of amphibious operations launched by the military forces that emphasized technical proficiency. 166 For example, 5 Commando conducted a decisive amphibious assault during on the Simba stronghold of Baraka, which helped bring a swift end to the Simba Rebellion. 167 Accounts of the conflicts also indicate that the forces that emphasized technical proficiency routinely constructed

Ulrich Kreuzfeld, "Engineering, Military," in Brasseys Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brasseys, 1997), 351-355; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 74. 164 Kreuzfeld, "Engineering, Military," 351-355; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 74. 165 A major exception to UNITAs general deemphasis on technical proficiency was the forces strong emphasis on combat engineering, particularly mine warfare. 166 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 248; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 110, 150, 183, 222, and 226; Hooper, Bloodsong, 147148 and 209; Venter, War Dog, 412. 167 Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 253.

163

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DRAFT defensive positions, such as trenches, foxholes, and tank traps, particularly after making camp for the night. 168 Finally, the military forces that emphasized technical proficiency also made frequent and safe use of explosives, ranging from prefabricated landmines and dynamite to improvised explosive devices. 169 For example, after occupying an RUF base, EOs personnel in Sierra Leone set up dozens of booby traps using a mixture of primed grenades, tin food cans, trip wires, and the bodies of dead RUF personnel. 170 They also placed several mortar bombs, on time-delayed fuses, in the rafters of the rebels mess hall. 171 Finally, the firm deployed trip-wired grenades and anti-infantry landmines along known rebel transit routes. 172 These weapons produced numerous casualties when the rebels were later allowed to return to the base. The White Legion also made skillful, if belated use of mines, dynamite, and other explosives during the First Congo War, which slowed but failed to stop the ADFLs advance. 173 Conversely, the normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that weakly emphasize norms promoting technical proficiency should have poor combat engineering capabilities. Military forces that lack appreciation for the importance of technical proficiency are unlikely to have sufficient appreciation for the utility of

168 Baker, Wild Goose, 194-196; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 255-256 and 330; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Guevara, The African Dream, 47-48; Hooper, Bloodsong, 107, 111, 121, 168-169, 178-179, 185, 201, and 224; Reed, Save the Hostages, 202; Mark Stucke, "The War Business," (United Kingdom: Journeyman Pictures, 2008); Venter, War Dog, 376, 429-430, 432, 481, 484-485, and 515. 169 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 246, 252, and 287; Boyne, "The White Legion," 281; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 264; Hooper, Bloodsong, 74, 158,163, 179, 207, and 209; Integrated Regional Information Network, "Great Lakes: IRIN Update 129," 1; Minter, Apartheid's Contras, 48; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 66; Al J. Venter, "Angola: New Mines, What Ban?," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 55, no. 3 (May-June 1999): 13-15; Venter, War Dog, 412 and 430. 170 Venter, War Dog, 384-385 and 551-552. 171 Venter, War Dog, 551-552. 172 Venter, War Dog, 384-385 and 551-552. 173 Arney, "Rebels Take More Ground in Zaire."; Boyne, "The White Legion," 279 and 281; Integrated Regional Information Network, "Great Lakes: IRIN Update 129," 1; McKinley, "Serb Who Went to Defend Zaire Spread Death and Horror Instead."; Sasic, "Mladic's Monster Finally Talks."; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 182.

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DRAFT combat engineering to undertake such tasks under combat conditions. 174 Therefore, very few, if any, members of such forces should be interested in serving as combat engineers and the skill level of those who do serve as combat engineers should be relatively low. Consequently, such forces should experience considerable difficulty overcoming manmade and natural obstacles. 175 Moreover, they should have difficulty breaching wellfortified defensive lines and constructing defensive positions for their own force. 176 Finally, they should generally not be able to utilize explosives safely and effectively. These predictions were borne out fairly well in these conflicts. The military forces that weakly emphasized technical proficiency did not conduct amphibious operations. Similarly, they rarely constructed defensive positions. 177 For example, Guevara recalled multiple occasions where Simbas refused to dig defensive trenches and foxholes. 178 The RUF, similarly, rarely employed defensive measures, and those they did employ, such as felling trees to block road ways, placing large sheets of metal on roadways to act as noisemakers, and digging large pits covered in elephant grass, were crude, easy to detect, and ineffective. 179 Likewise, most of these forces only rarely made use of explosives, and those that did failed to employ them safely. 180 For example, Callans Mercenaries proved so inept at placing and keeping track of landmines that they suffered eleven casualties and lost two vehicles after accidentally driving through one of their own minefields.181 Given the small size of their force and their limited stockpile of equipment, these losses

174 175

Kreuzfeld, "Engineering, Military," 355. Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 74. 176 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 74. 177 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 330-331. 178 Guevara, The African Dream, 57-103. 179 Venter, War Dog, 543 and 545. 180 Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 157; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 76; Venter, War Dog, 479, 543, and 551-552. 181 Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 274 and 350; Geraghty, Who Dares Wins, 131; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 197; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 77; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 305; Tendler, "British mercenaries 'killed by mine'," 7; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 172.

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DRAFT were considerable. Their Cuban-MPLA opponents were, likewise, poor at detecting landmines and lost a number of soldiers and vehicles to these devices during the conflict. 182

Unit Cohesion Finally, the normative theory of military performance predicted that military forces that strongly emphasize norms promoting group loyalty should maintain strong unit cohesion, manifested in consistently cooperative behaviour between group members. 183 To put it differently, members of these forces should feel that the other members of the force both can and will help keep each other alive and accomplish their assigned tasks. Therefore, members of these forces should demonstrate discipline in the face of enemy fire and not simply abandon the force without authorization. These predictions were borne out as well in all of the conflicts. For example, no accounts of the behaviour of 5 Commando or EOs military units suggest that they ever lost cohesion or retreated in panic from a battle, despite facing much larger enemy forces. 184 On the face of it, this may not seem like a noteworthy accomplishment;

Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 256, 273, and 482; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 76; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 84. 183 Millett, Murray, and Watman, "The Effectiveness of Military Organizations," 66. 184 Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front," 185; Baker, Wild Goose, 174; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 114, 123, 216-217, 227, 241, 250, 255-256, 265-266, 271, 273, 288-289, 330-331, 336, 358, 368-371; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 189; Davis, Fortunes Warriors, 127 and 137; Fitzsimmons, First Interview with Des Burman; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Howard W. French, "Zaire Crashes," The New Republic, April 14, 1997, 12; Gershoni, "War without End and an End to a War," 68; Hooper, Bloodsong, 53, 111, 133, 161, 168-169, 240241, 245-246, and 250; Howe, "Private Security Forces and African Stability," 317; Integrated Regional Information Network, "Great Lakes: IRIN Update 74," (New York, NY: Integrated Regional Information Network, Department of Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations, January 8, 1997); Margolis, "The Great Race for Africa Resumes."; Chris McGreal, "Fall of Zaire's Second City Pushes Mobutu to Brink," The Guardian, April 11, 1997; Musah, "A Country Under Siege," 94; Ngolet, "African and American Connivance in Congo-Zaire," 69; John Pomfret, "Evidence Mounts of Atrocities by Kabila's Forces," The Washington Post, July 11, 1997; Reed, "Guerillas in the Midst," 147; Reed, "The New International Order," 140-148; Roberts, The Wonga Coup, 10; Schatzberg, "Beyond Mobutu: Kabila and the Congo," 76-77; Shearer, Private Armies and Military Intervention, 43 and 53-54; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 44 and 116; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the

182

44

DRAFT however, if one of these small forces had ever broken and been routed during an engagement, its members would likely have suffered tremendous losses because they would have ceased to utilize the other components of military effectiveness, such as creative thinking and technical proficiency, which, in turn, would have removed the primary mitigating factor allowing the mercenaries to survive asymmetric engagements. Moreover, very few members of these forces deserted. 185 Conversely, the normative theory of military performance also predicted that military forces that weakly emphasize norms promoting group loyalty should maintain weak unit cohesion, manifested in consistently uncooperative behaviour between group members. Individualistic members of these forces should tend to feel little loyalty and obligation to their fellow members, which, in turn, should reduce their will to fight. Therefore, members of these forces should demonstrate little discipline in the face of enemy fire and desertion should occur relatively frequently. These predictions were borne out as well by the behaviour of every military forces that deemphasized group loyalty. 186

Era of Independence," 10; Venter, War Dog, 272-273, 334-335, 382-383, 424, 476, 479, 482, 494-495, 501-503, 508, 521, and 545-548. 185 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 113, 115, 237-238, and 253-255; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Hooper, Bloodsong, 127-128, 161-162, 164 and 201; Venter, War Dog, 368-370, 372, 377-378, 382-383, and 533. 186 Arney, "Rebels Take More Ground in Zaire."; Bainwoll, "Cuba," 235; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 111, 207, 211, 223, 237, 247, 249, 255, 263-265, and 286; Bond, "Zairian Recounts Torture by Serb Mercenaries."; Bonner, "France Linked to Defense of Mobutu."; Boyne, "The White Legion," 280; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 190-191; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 276, 295, and 365-366; Jorge I. Dominguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 355; French, "Major City's Fall Poses Dire Threat to Zaire's Rulers."; French, "Zaire Crashes," 12; George, The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965-1991, 108; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 111 and 325; Guevara, The African Dream, 38, 49, 67, 71, 88, and 205; Adam Hochschild, "Mr. Kurtz, I Presume," The New Yorker, April 7, 1997, 40; Igric, "Alleged 'Assassins' Were No Strangers to France," 2; Marcus Mabry and Sudarsan Raghavan, "The Horror, The Horror," Newsweek, March 31, 1997; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 94-95 and 98; Malaquias, "Angola," 217; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 104 and 107; McGreal, "Fall of Zaire's Second City Pushes Mobutu to Brink."; McKinley, "Serb Who Went to Defend Zaire Spread Death and Horror Instead."; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 183, 190, 197, and 199; Ngolet, "African and American Connivance in Congo-Zaire," 73; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 656, 661, and 749; Reed, Save the Hostages, 99; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 74, 86-88, and 173; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 44; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 199-200, 281, 298, and 305; Thallon, Cut-Throat, 19; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 87-90 and 173; Venter, War Dog, 278, 365-366, and 376-377; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 182; Phyllis Greene Walker, "Cuban Military Service System: Organization, Obligations, and Pressures," in The Cuban Military Under Castro, ed. Jaime Suchlicki (Miami, FL: University of Miami Press, 1989), 120; Wrong, "The Emperor Mobutu," 108110.

45

DRAFT For instance, the most visible effect of the Simbas deemphasis on group loyalty was that their fighters were undisciplined in the face of enemy fire; instead, they tended to run from battle once the fighting began. For example, on June 30, 1965, a force of 160 Cubans and Africans attacked the mercenary-controlled town of Katenga. Despite vastly outnumbering the mercenaries defending the settlement, 60 Simbas fled in panic right before the battle began and several dozen more Simbas followed soon afterwards, abandoning the Cubans to their fate. 187 The attack instantly turned into a complete rout during which at least 20 Simbas and four Cubans lost their lives. 188 The mercenaries suffered no casualties. Likewise, significant portions of RUF units fled during every engagement with the mercenaries, often only seconds after a contact began. 189 Ultimately, the most detrimental behaviour exhibited by members of the military forces that deemphasized group loyalty was that many opted to desert when the opportunity arose. Multiple accounts confirm this. 190 For example, Guevara noted in October, 1965 that, Simba troops, were deserting all the time and taking their rifles with
Guevara, The African Dream, 48. Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 116. 189 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 357-359 and 364-365; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; Hooper, Bloodsong, 221, 241, and 246; Richards, "Forced Labour & Civil War," 190; Venter, War Dog, 59, 511, 514, and 521; Zack-Williams, "Child Soldiers in the Civil War in Sierra Leone," 459. 190 Abdullah, "Bush Path to Destruction,", 207-208; Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front," 185, 187, and 190; Arney, "Rebels Take More Ground in Zaire."; Arnold, Mercenaries, 54; Associated Press, "13 British mercenaries reported executed by comrades in Angola," The Times, February 9, 1976, 1; Avant, The Market for Force, 87; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 298, 357-359, 364-365, and 382; Bond, "Zairian Recounts Torture by Serb Mercenaries."; Boyne, "The White Legion," 280; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 191 and 197-198; Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 335-336 and 361-362; Dreke, From the Escambray to the Congo, 138-139; Fitzsimmons, Interview with Cobus Claassens; French, "Major City's Fall Poses Dire Threat to Zaire's Rulers."; French, "Zaire Crashes," 12; Geraghty, Who Dares Wins, 131; Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions, 334-336 and 339; Guevara, The African Dream, 59, 134, 146, and 206; Hooper, Bloodsong, 221, 241, 243-244, and 246; Sam Kiley, "'White legion' abandons Zaire," The Times, February 15, 1997, 14; Mabry and Raghavan, "The Horror, The Horror."; Malaquias, Rebels and Robbers, 107 and 113; McAleese, No Mean Soldier, 101 and 107; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 172, 197-198, and 200; Peters and Richards, "Why We Fight," 186-187; Richards, "Forced Labour & Civil War," 190; Richards, "War as Smoke and Mirrors," 387; Roebuck, The Whores of War, 85, 94, 99, and 105; Rogers, Someone Elses War, 81-86 and 88-89; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 113; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 304-305; Tendler, "'Callan' and nine other Britons face Angola trial," 1; Stewart Tendler and Hugh Noyes, "New evidence of executions among British mercenaries," The Times, February 10, 1976, 1; Thom, "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence," 16; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 114; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 83; Venter, War Dog, 59, 440, 500-501, 511, 514, 521, and 536; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 182; Wrong, "The Emperor Mobutu," 108-110; Zack-Williams, "Child Soldiers in the Civil War in Sierra Leone," 459.
188 187

46

DRAFT them. 191 Moreover, a diary found on the body of a dying member of Callans Mercenaries noted, in an entry dated February 11, 1976, that, the problem of retreating troops has become acute. 192 Indeed, although that forces campaign in northern Angola officially came to an end when the Cuban-MPLA force captured Callan and his few loyal followers on February, 6, 1976, it was a lost cause by that point for virtually the entire rest of the force had already deserted. 193

Conclusion
The normative theory of military performance reasons that the military performance of opposing military forces is primarily the result of the interplay of their relative military effectiveness. In other words, the interactive clash of tactical behaviour is the primary determinant of military victory or defeat. Based on this, the theory predicts that the materially weaker party in an asymmetric conflict, which the mercenaries forces were in these cases, should only have been able to defeat its materially stronger opponent if the weaker party emphasized behavioural norms that encouraged it to perform a wide range of tactical behaviour that is, be very militarily effective and the stronger party did not emphasize these norms because this should have allowed the weaker party to exploit the weaknesses and counter the strengths of the stronger party and, through this, defeat it. In all other scenarios, the balance of military effectiveness should have prevented the mercenaries from overcoming the material superiority of their opponents; consequently, in all other scenarios, the theory predicted that the mercenaries should have been defeated.

191 192

Guevara, The African Dream, 146. Quoted in Roebuck, The Whores of War, 94. 193 Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 179, 186, and 361-362; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 200 and 204; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 90.

47

DRAFT With this in mind, the theory correctly predicted that 5 Commando and Executive Outcomes forces in Angola and Sierra Leone should have defeated their materially superior opponents because, in all of these conflicts, the mercenary force emphasized the five norms of military effectiveness and their opponents did not. The theory also correctly predicted that Callans Mercenaries and the White Legion should have been defeated by their materially superior opponents because, in the first case, neither the mercenary group nor it materially superior opponent emphasized the five norms of military effectiveness and, in the second, case the mercenaries did not emphasize these norms, save for technical proficiency, and their materially superior opponent did. The implications of these results are profoundly important because they suggest that governments, international organizations, and anyone else considering using mercenaries to implement their foreign and defence policies should attempt to understand the military culture of the private security organizations vying for their business. In other words, the potential clients of private security organizations cannot afford to determine the suitability of an organization based solely on the size of its inventory of weapons and vehicles or on the length of its personnel roster. Rather, prudent clients must demand access to the inner-workings of these organizations, particularly the junior and senior personnel who would be charged with implementing the terms of any contract, to assess how these individuals think and how they are encouraged to behave. Only then can a client determine whether a private security organization emphasizes the five norms of military effectiveness discussed in this paper and, in turn, determine whether this organization will likely accomplish its required tasks, even in the face of materially superior opponents.

48

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50

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DRAFT Odom, Thomas P. Dragon Operations: Hostage Rescues in the Congo, 1964-1965 Leavenworth Papers 14. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, US Army Command and General Staff College, 1996. Olsson, Ola, and Heather Congdon Fors. "The Prize of Predation." Journal of Peace Research 41, no. 3 (May 2004): 321-336. Pech, Khareen. "The Hand of War: Mercenaries in the Former Zaire 1996-97." In Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma, edited by Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. Kayode Fayemi, 117-154. Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000. Pelton, Robert Young. Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2006. Percy, Sarah. Mercenaries: The History of a Norm of International Relations. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007. Perlez, Jane. "Serb Leader Expects to Turn Over Key War Crimes Suspects." The New York Times, March 13, 1996. Peters, Krijn, and Paul Richards. "Why We Fight: Voices of Youth Combatants in Sierra Leone." Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 68, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 183-210. Pollack, Kenneth M. Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. . "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness." Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996. Pomfret, John. "Evidence Mounts of Atrocities by Kabila's Forces." The Washington Post, July 11, 1997. . "Rwandans Led Revolt in Congo: Defense Minister Says Arms, Troops, Supplied for Anti-Mobutu Drive." The Washington Post, July 9, 1997, A1. Pottier, Johan. Re-Imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pottinger, Brian. Mercenary Commander. Alberton, ZA: Galago Publishing, 1986. Prunier, Gerard. "Rebel Movements and Proxy Warfare: Uganda, Sudan and Congo." African Affairs 103, no. 412 (2004): 359-383. . "The Rwandan Patriotic Front." In African Guerillas, edited by Christopher Clapham, 119-133: Indiana University Press, 1998. Randal, Jonathan C. "Serb Troops Paid to Go to War - In Zaire." The Washington Post, March 18, 1997, A13. Reed, David. Save the Hostages. New York, NY: Bantam, 1988. Reed, William Cyrus. "Exile, Reform, and the Rise of the Rwandan Patriotic Front." The Journal of Modern African Studies 34, no. 3 (September 1996): 479-501. . "Guerillas in the Midst." In African Guerillas, edited by Christopher Clapham, 134-154: Indiana University Press, 1998. . "The New International Order: State, Society, and African International Relations." Africa Insight 25, no. 3 (1995): 140-148. . "Public Policy, Contested Government, and State Decay: Zaire as a Regional Actor in the Great Lakes Region." In War and Peace in Zaire/Congo, edited by Howard Adelman and Govind C. Rao, 137-162. Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, Inc., 2004.

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DRAFT Reno, Will. "African Weak States and Commercial Alliances." African Affairs 96, no. 383 (April 1997): 165-185. Reuters. "French troops said in Zaire, France denies report." Reuters News, February 7, 1997. Richards, Paul. Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth & Resources in Sierra Leone. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998. . "Forced Labour & Civil War: Agrarian Underpinnings of the Sierra Leone Conflict." In Violence, Political Culture & Development in Africa, edited by Preben Kaarsholm, 181-198. Oxford, UK: James Currey, 2006. . "War as Smoke and Mirrors: Sierra Leone 1991-2, 1994-5, 1995-6." Anthropological Quarterly 78, no. 22 (Spring 2005): 377-402. Riley, Steve, Max Sesay, and Max A. Sesay. "Sierra Leone: The Coming Anarchy?" Review of African Political Economy 22, no. 63 (March 1995): 121-126. Roberts, Adam. The Wonga Coup. New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2006. Roebuck, Wilfred Burchett and Derek. The Whores of War: Mercenaries Today. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1977. Rogers, Anthony. Someone Elses War: Mercenaries from 1960 to the Present. London, UK: Harper Collins, 1998. Rosen, Fred. Contract Warriors: How Mercenaries Changed History and the War on Terrorism. New York, NY: Penguin Books Ltd., 2005. Sasic, Suzana. "Mladic's Monster Finally Talks." Slobodna Bosna, September 1, 2005. Savimbi, Jonas. "The War against Soviet Colonialism: The Strategy and Tactics of AntiCommunist Resistance." Policy Review 35 (Winter 1985): 18-24. Schatzberg, Michael G. "Beyond Mobutu: Kabila and the Congo." Journal of Democracy 8, no. 4 (1997): 70-84. Shearer, David. Private Armies and Military Intervention. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998. Silverstein, Ken. Private Warriors. New York, NY: Verso, 2000. Singer, Peter W. Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. Skinner, J. H. "Maintenance." In Brasseys Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, edited by Franklin Margiotta. Washington, DC: Brasseys, 1997. Spikes, Daniel. Angola and the Politics of Intervention. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co. Inc., 1993. Stevens, Christopher. "The Soviet Union and Angola." African Affairs 75, no. 299 (April 1976): 137-151. Stewart, Ian. Ambushed: A War Reporter's Life on the Line. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2002. Stiff, Peter. The Covert War: Koevoet Operations Namibia 1979-1989. Alberton, SA: Galago Publishing, 1999. Stockwell, John. In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1978. Stucke, Mark. "The War Business." 52 minutes. United Kingdom: Journeyman Pictures, 2008. Taulbee, James Larry. "Mercenaries, Private Armies and Security Companies in Contemporary Policy." In Global Society in Transition: An International Politics 57

DRAFT Reader, edited by Laura Neack, 85-110. The Hauge, The Netherland: Kluwer Law International, 2002. Tendler, Stewart. "British mercenaries 'killed by mine'." The Times, February 5, 1976, 7. . "'Callan' and nine other Britons face Angola trial." The Times, April 2, 1976, 1. . "Mercenaries puzzle Angola court: Britons knew little of what the war was about." The Times, June 14, 1976, 5. Tendler, Stewart, and Hugh Noyes. "New evidence of executions among British mercenaries." The Times, February 10, 1976, 1. Thallon, Wayne. Cut-Throat: The Vicious World of Rod McLean - Mercenary, GunRunner, and International Drug Baron. London, UK: Mainstream Publishing, 2005. Thom, William G. "Congo-Zaire's 1996-97 Civil War in the Context of Evolving Patterns of Military Conflict in Africa in the Era of Independence." The Journal of Conflict Studies XIX, no. 2 (Fall 1999). Thomas, Gerry S. Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984. Thomson, Janice E. Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. Tickler, Peter. The Modern Mercenary: Dog of War, or Soldier of Honour? London, UK: Thorston Publishing Group, 1987. Tull, Denis M. "The Democratic Republic of Congo: Militarized Politics in a 'Failed State'." In African Guerillas: Raging Against the Machine, edited by Morten Bs and Kevin C. Dunn, 113-130. London, UK: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. U.S. Department of State. The Soviet-Cuban Connection in Central America and the Caribbean. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985. Venter, Al J. "Angola Flashbacks." Soldier of Fortune Spring 1976. . "Angola: New Mines, What Ban?" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 55, no. 3 (May-June 1999): 13-15. . "Privatizing War." London, UK, 2000. . "Sierra Leone's Mercenary War: Battle for the Diamond Fields." Jane's International Defense Review 28 (November 1995): 65-68. . War Dog: Fighting Other People's Wars. Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2006. Verhaegen, Benoit. "La Premiere Republique (1960-1965)." In Du Congo au Zaire, 1960-1980, edited by Jacques Vanderlinden. Brussels, Belgium Centre de Recherche et D'information Socio-politiques, 1984. Vines, Alex. The Business of Peace: 'Tiny' Rowland, Financial Incentives and the Mozambican Settlement Accord: An International Review of Peace Initiatives, [cited. Available from http://www.c-r.org/acc_moz/contents_moz.htm. . "Gurkhas and the Private Security Business in Africa." In Peace, Profit or Plunder?: The Privatisation of Security in War-torn African Societies, edited by Jakkie Cilliers and Peggy Mason, 123-140. Johannesburg, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, 2000. . "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality." In Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma, edited by Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. Kayode Fayemi, 169-197. Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000. 58

DRAFT Vlassenroot, Koen. "A Societal View of Violence and War: Conflict & Militia Formation in Eastern Zaire." In Violence, Political Culture & Development in Africa, edited by Preben Kaarsholm, 49-65. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Wagoner, Fred. Dragon Rouge: The Rescue of Hostages in the Congo. Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1980. Walker, Phyllis Greene. "Cuban Military Service System: Organization, Obligations, and Pressures." In The Cuban Military Under Castro, edited by Jaime Suchlicki, 99128. Miami, FL: University of Miami Press, 1989. Wardak, Ghulam Dastagir. The Voroshilov Lectures: Materials from the Soviet General Staff Academy, Vol. 1. Washington, DC: NDU Press, 1989. Watson, Catherine. "Rwanda: War and Waiting." Africa Report (November/December 1992): 51-55. Waugh, Colin W. Paul Kagame: Power, Genocide and the Rwandan Patriotic Front. London, UK: McFarland and Company Inc., 2004. Weinstein, Jeremy M. Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Wright, Robin. "Talking With Angola's Jonas Savimbi." New Leader, 2 February 1976, 6. Wrong, Michela. "The Emperor Mobutu." Transitions 9, no. 1 and 2 (2000): 92-112. Zack-Williams, A. B. "Child Soldiers in the Civil War in Sierra Leone." Review of African Political Economy 28, no. 87 (March 2001): 73-82. Zack-Williams, A., and Stephen Riley. "Sierra Leone: The Coup and Its Consequences." Review of African Political Economy 56 (March 1993): 91-98. Zack-Williams, Alfred B. "The Political Economy of Civil War, 1991-1998." Third World Quarterly 20, no. 1 (February 1999): 143-162.

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