Overview

Negotiating a peaceful end to civil wars, which often includes an attempt to bring together former rival military or insurgent factions into a new national army, has been a frequent goal of conflict resolution practitioners since the Cold War. In practice, however, very little is known about what works, and what doesn't work, in bringing together former opponents to build a lasting peace. Contributors to this volume assess why some civil wars result in successful military integration while others dissolve into further strife, factionalism, and even renewed civil war. Eleven cases are studied in detail-Sudan, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Rwanda, the Philippines, South Africa, Mozambique, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burundi-while other chapters compare military integration with corporate mergers and discuss some of the hidden costs and risks of merging military forces. New Armies from Old fills a serious gap in our understanding of civil wars, their possible resolution, and how to promote lasting peace, and will be of interest to scholars and students of conflict resolution, international affairs, and peace and security studies.

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9781626160439

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Reviews

Licklider and his co-authors shed new light on a question frequently posed by diplomats, military strategists, aid workers and scholars: how to rebuild a functioning army from the embers of civil conflict. This exhaustive collection assembles leading thinkers in the field to consider the prospects for military integration when wars come to an end. It should be essential reading for academics and practitioners involved in stabilization and post-war reconstruction. -- Robert Muggah, Principal, the SecDev Group It is a truism of scholarship and policy that lasting peace in the wake of civil wars requires the integration of the rival militaries. But until now we have known little about how this can work or even whether the truism is true. Careful, thorough, and thoughtful, these excellent essays take us a big step forward both theoretically and empirically. -- Robert Jervis, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs, Columbia University What happens when states emerging from civil war attempt to integrate former enemy combatants into their newly reformed and reconstituted security forces? In this fascinating volume, distinguished scholars, policy analysts, and practitioners explore the politics and causal processes of various power-sharing arrangements across numerous well-researched cases, and evaluate the consequences that particular choices and underlying structural factors have for military effectiveness, democratic civilian control, and the prevention of renewed violence. This important addition to the literature on the aftermath of civil war is a must read for anyone interested in security-sector reform, ethnic conflict, or international intervention. -- Kimberly Marten, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University

It is a truism of scholarship and policy that lasting peace in the wake of civil wars requires the integration of the rival militaries. But until now we have known little about how this can work or even whether the truism is true. Careful, thorough, and thoughtful, these excellent essays take us a big step forward both theoretically and empirically. --Robert Jervis, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs, Columbia University Licklider and his co-authors shed new light on a question frequently posed by diplomats, military strategists, aid workers and scholars: how to rebuild a functioning army from the embers of civil conflict. This exhaustive collection assembles leading thinkers in the field to consider the prospects for military integration when wars come to an end. It should be essential reading for academics and practitioners involved in stabilization and post-war reconstruction. --Robert Muggah, Principal, the SecDev Group What happens when states emerging from civil war attempt to integrate former enemy combatants into their newly reformed and reconstituted security forces? In this fascinating volume, distinguished scholars, policy analysts, and practitioners explore the politics and causal processes of various power-sharing arrangements across numerous well-researched cases, and evaluate the consequences that particular choices and underlying structural factors have for military effectiveness, democratic civilian control, and the prevention of renewed violence. This important addition to the literature on the aftermath of civil war is a must read for anyone interested in security-sector reform, ethnic conflict, or international intervention. --Kimberly Marten, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University

Author Information

Roy Licklider is professor of political science at Rutgers University and an adjunct research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

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