Arms and the African: military influences on Africa's international relations

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Book

Title:	Arms and the African: military influences on Africa's international relations
Editors:	Foltz, William J. Bienen, Henry S.
Year:	1985
Pages:	221
Language:	English
City of publisher:	New Haven
Publisher:	Yale
ISBN:	0300033478; 0300039255
Geographic term:	Africa
Subjects:	foreign policy defence
Abstract:	Military factors have come to play an increasing role in Africa's international politics. They affect the relations of African states with each other and have begun to turn one parochial African disputes into occasions for superpower competition. In this book six scholars examine both the causes and the consequences of this development. The book opens with a broad historical view of Africa's changing involvement in the strategic calculations and miscalculations of the great powers. It considers next the involvement of the two most prominent outside actors in Africa's military affairs, the Soviet Union and France. It then looks at the military capabilities of the black African states and the army's increasingly political role in Africa's military 'superpower', South Africa, and investigates how the spread of military regimes in Africa affects the international behaviour of African states. The final chapter lays out the policy issues the West, and especially the United States, must face in adjusting to a more heavily militarized Africa in the coming years.