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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

1 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 organization’s 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).

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forces are long on empirical data and narrative, but short on theory and explanation.2

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;

This

paper seeks to redress this failing by evaluating the Normative Theory of Military

Performance, which hypothesizes that a military force’s cultural norms influence its

tactical behaviour (its military effectiveness), against the evidence of five asymmetric

conflicts involving mercenary groups.

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 União Nacional para

a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA);4

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).

and a stage of the Sierra Leonean Civil

War, which lasted from May 1995 to November 1996, and saw a separate Executive

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), 79-80; 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, 77-78, 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 Else’s 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, Fortune’s 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 Else’s 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.

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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 Libertação de Angola (MPLA) soldiers

defeat a 60-strong force of private soldiers, called Callan’s Mercenaries,6

5 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, Fortune’s 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), 164-165; 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.

and, the First

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-

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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 Congo-

Zaire (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; Helmoed-Romer 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 Else’s 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 Jäger and Gerhard Kümmel (Wiesbaden, Germany: Vs Verlag für 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. Abdel-Fatau 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 Else’s 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 Bøås 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

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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 group’s

prospects for military success. If the theory is correct, a military force’s 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.

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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 Commando8 and Executive

Outcomes’ forces in Angola9 and Sierra Leone10

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 - 1950-1980 (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 Mercenary’s Personal Memoir (London, UK: Leo Cooper, 1989), 9-10, 14, 16, and 19; J. Gérard-Libois and J. Van Lierde, Congo: 1964 (Brussels, Belgium: Centre de Recherche et d’Information 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 Else’s 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.

should have defeated their materially

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, 237-238, 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, Fortune’s 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),

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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 Callan’s Mercenaries11 and the White Legion12

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.

should

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, Fortune’s 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, 224-225, 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, 77-78, 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

8

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 Gouré, "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 Gouré, "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, 1926-1982," (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 Else’s 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 O’Brien, "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

9

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

13 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 66. The US Army’s 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 Brassey’s Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 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

For

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10

example, EO’s 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 EO’s 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 town’s defenders sufficiently off guard that they could not react in time to reach EO’s

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, Fortune’s 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, 229-232, 243-246, and 248-249; Macdonald, Soldiers of Fortune, 74; Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 63-64; O’Brien, "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 Else’s 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, Fortune’s Warriors, 129. 16 Venter, War Dog, 433-434. 17 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 211; O’Brien, "Private Military Companies and African Security: 1990-98," 52; Singer, Corporate Warriors, 110. 18 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 238-239.

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11

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

19 Boyne, "The White Legion," 280; Clayton, Frontiersmen, 190; McNulty, "The Collapse of Zaire," 75.

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

20 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.

DRAFT

12

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, EO’s 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, EO’s 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, EO’s

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 EO’s chief executives, argued emphatically that

his personnel in Sierra Leone reacted, “with rigor,” when they encountered unforeseen

25 Guevara, The African Dream, 86. 26 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.

DRAFT

13

developments.31 Venter, similarly, argued that EO’s 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

EO’s 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

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).

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

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.

DRAFT

14

out into the open.37 Likewise, EO’s force in Sierra Leone proved highly adept at

countering the RUF’s 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 country’s dense forests.38

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.

As Barlow recalled,

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 EO’s 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

37 Germani, White Soldiers in Black Africa, 87; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 81.

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.

38 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.

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15

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

42 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 66.

43 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 Else’s 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 rebel’s 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.

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16

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

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.

The results of this behaviour were disastrous

for the rebels.

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

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.

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.

47 Dodenhoff, "The Congo," 59. 48 Reed, Save the Hostages, 140. 49 Reed, Save the Hostages, 140.

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This prediction was, however, completely borne out in the other conflicts. Indeed,

Callan’s 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

Callan’s 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

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.

This is precisely what the

Cuban-MPLA unit did at the beginning of February 3, which allowed them to eliminate

about half of Callan’s 22-strong killer group very quickly and send the remaining

mercenaries fleeing in disarray.

53

50 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.

This prediction was borne out as well in these

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.

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cases.54 For example, when faced with the ADFL’s 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 Callan’s 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

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.

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.

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.

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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

Similarly, the RUF never developed effective counters to EO’s tactics, which

included combined-arms assault, preemptive strikes against ambush positions, counter-

ambush pursuits, and a variety of other behaviours. To a force accustomed to mounting

and facing roadside ambushes followed by quick withdrawals, EO’s tactics proved to be

both novel and unassailable.

Taking this into account, the mercenaries’ complete

inability to develop new tactics helped doom them in the end.

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 Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 210. 59 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.

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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, Maidan’s 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

61 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 67.

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

62 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, Fortune’s 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 Else’s 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 Else’s War, 19; Thallon, Cut-Throat, 35. 65 Mockler, The New Mercenaries, 65. 66 Baker, Wild Goose, 182.

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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 south-

west, 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

Similarly, the tactical-level commanders in Executive Outcomes’ force in Sierra

Leone reportedly lead, “from the front, not the back.”

In the process, they saved thousands of Congolese and foreign civilians from certain

death at the hands of the rebels.

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 firm’s senior officers.71

67 Rogers, Someone Else’s War, 22.

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

68 Rogers, Someone Else’s War, 22-25. 69 Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 167-170. 70 Davis, Fortune’s Warriors, 138; Venter, War Dog, 476. 71 Davis, Fortune’s Warriors, 138; Venter, War Dog, 476.

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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 Force’s commander quickly

modified the plan to draw exclusively on EO’s 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

72 Venter, War Dog, 542.

Reflecting on this situation, a senior Zairian Army officer,

Lieutenant Colonel Nufuta B. Kosanga, observed in February 1997 that the rebels, “seem

73 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.

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23

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 force’s 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

commander’s 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 EO’s force in Angola, tactical-level commanders

frequently sought out engagements with the rebels without being ordered to by their

superiors.82

79 French, "In Zaire's Unconventional War, Serbs Train Refugees for Combat."

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,

80 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, 119-120; 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.

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24

which he decided to follow to determine the extent of UNITA’s 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, EO’s 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

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.

This increased the number of rebel settlements, personnel,

weapons, and vehicles destroyed from the air during the conflict.

87

83 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 245.

Therefore, most tactical-level decisions in

these forces should be referred to senior commanders for resolution, which should

84 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.

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25

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

Callan’s 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

Similarly, this prediction certainly played out during the Sierra Leonean Civil

War because RUF field commanders felt they needed to seek Sankoh’s direct approval

for virtually any tactical actions.

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.

91

88 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 67.

This was problematic because radio transmissions

intercepted by the mercenaries suggested that Sankoh had little idea how to respond to

89 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 Else’s 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 Else’s War, 79. 91 Venter, War Dog, 458.

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26

EO’s 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

92 Venter, War Dog, 516.

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

93 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, 357-358, 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 Else’s 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 Callan’s control; but, without any organizational structure… the situation floundered quickly.” Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 37; Venter, "Angola Flashbacks," 29.

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27

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

Legion’s 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… haven’t helped much. They’ve 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

98 Roebuck, The Whores of War, 97.

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

99 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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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

105 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.

For instance, several accounts of the Sierra Leonean Civil War refer to

EO’s 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 firm’s two Mi-17s; 60, 81, 82, and 120 mm mortars; and 105 mm

106 Timothy Lupfer, "Tactics," in Brassey’s Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 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.

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artillery.109 The firm was particularly adept with mortars: “we’d 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. They’d 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,

EO’s infantry trapped several dozen rebels inside their camp near Gandorhun while the

firm’s mortar team systematically eliminated them from afar.111

EO’s 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 that’s 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.

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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 Commando’s 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

113 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 73.

The Simbas were equally inept with

small-arms, which they tended to fire far above the heads of the mercenaries. Indeed,

114 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 384-385; 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 Else’s 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.

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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 Callan’s 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 Guevara, The African Dream, 25. 119 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.

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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, EO’s 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

124 Robert Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver-Warfare Theory and Airland Battle (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1991), 33.

During

these engagements, the accuracy of EO’s 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

125 Baker, Wild Goose, 187; Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 241, 252, 255, 286, 329, 363, and 388; Davis, Fortune’s 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, Fortune’s Warriors, 130; Hooper, Bloodsong, 113 and 168; Howe, Ambiguous Order, 199.

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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 Callan’s 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

129 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 256, 259, 262, and 288; Hooper, Bloodsong, 148.

Scholars of the conflict have concluded both that, “Cuban tankers were

130 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 Else’s War, 86-87; 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;

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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 Callan’s Mercenaries acquired reasonably good equipment during the first

week of February, 1976, including several Panhard armoured cars, two Chinese-built

tanks, and two miniature “Stalin’s 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-to-

ground attacks conducted by these forces should demonstrate adaptation to the specific

tactical threats being addressed and should generally hit their intended targets.138

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.

This

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 Else’s 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 Brassey’s Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997), 179.

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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, EO’s pilots in Sierra Leone, flying two Mi-17

“Hip” transport helicopters and one Mi-24 “Hind” gunship, offered crucial support to the

firm’s 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

139 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, Fortune’s 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.

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, EO’s 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

140 Adams, "The New Mercenaries and the Privatization of Conflict."; Avant, The Market for Force, 87; Davis, Fortune’s 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.

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about air-to-ground tactics took place on a daily basis, as pilots and ground commanders

worked through problems encountered during the day’s operations.142 One important

tactical innovation that developed out of these discussions was that the firm’s 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 firm’s 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 Legion’s 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 force’s

deemphasis on creative thinking and personal initiative severely hampered its overall

ability to conduct air-to-ground attacks.146

142 Venter, War Dog, 493-494.

Indeed, despite having access to potent ground

attack aircraft, including four Mi-24 Hind helicopters, one SA-330 Puma helicopter, five

143 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.

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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 force’s 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

147 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 Else’s 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 Else’s War, 286; Taulbee, "Mercenaries, Private Armies and Security Companies in Contemporary Policy," 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. 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.

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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

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.

As a result, such forces should have little difficulty repairing

damaged equipment and should experience generally high operational readiness rates.

153 Specifically,

these military forces routinely cleaned and maintained their weapons and vehicles

between combat operations.154

152 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 73; J. H. Skinner, "Maintenance," in Brassey’s Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997), 655-659.

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

153 A major exception to the general deemphasis on technical proficiency within both Callan’s 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 Else’s War, 286; Taulbee, "Mercenaries, Private Armies and Security Companies in Contemporary Policy," 95-96; Thallon, Cut-Throat, 36; 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, 276-277, 465, 467, 479, 481-482, 488, 492, and 517; Vines, "Mercenaries, Human Rights and Legality," 181.

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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 BMP-

2s. Several of the poorly maintained Angolan Army BMP-2s broke down throughout the

conflict and many were subsequently abandoned; in contrast, virtually all of EO’s well-

maintained BMP-2s remained in good working order throughout the conflict.156

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.

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.

157

155 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 Else’s War, 72, 75, and 80; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 74 and 171.

As a

156 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 241 and 253; Hooper, Bloodsong, 134 and 203. 157 Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 73.

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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 force’s 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

158 Skinner, "Maintenance," 655-659.

This, in

turn, undermined their ability to engage EO’s forces.

159 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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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

These predictions were borne out as well.

Finally, they should be able to utilize explosives safely and effectively.

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

163 Ulrich Kreuzfeld, "Engineering, Military," in Brassey’s Encyclopedia of Land Forces and Warfare, ed. Franklin Margiotta (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1997), 351-355; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 74.

Accounts of the conflicts also

indicate that the forces that emphasized technical proficiency routinely constructed

164 Kreuzfeld, "Engineering, Military," 351-355; Pollack, "The Influence of Arab Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness," 74. 165 A major exception to UNITA’s general deemphasis on technical proficiency was the force’s strong emphasis on combat engineering, particularly mine warfare. 166 Barlow, Executive Outcomes, 248; Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 110, 150, 183, 222, and 226; Hooper, Bloodsong, 147-148 and 209; Venter, War Dog, 412. 167 Hoare, Congo Mercenary, 253.

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42

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, EO’s

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 ADFL’s 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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43

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 man-

made and natural obstacles.175 Moreover, they should have difficulty breaching well-

fortified defensive lines and constructing defensive positions for their own force.176

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.

Finally, they should generally not be able to utilize explosives safely and effectively.

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, Callan’s 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

174 Kreuzfeld, "Engineering, Military," 355.

Given the small size of their force and their limited stockpile of equipment, these losses

175 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 Else’s 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 Else’s War, 77; Spikes, Angola and the Politics of Intervention, 305; Tendler, "British mercenaries 'killed by mine'," 7; Tickler, The Modern Mercenary, 172.

DRAFT

44

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

These predictions were borne out as well in all of the conflicts. For example, no

accounts of the behaviour of 5 Commando or EO’s military units suggest that they ever

lost cohesion or retreated in panic from a battle, despite facing much larger enemy

forces.

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.

184

182 Dempster and Tomkins, Fire Power, 256, 273, and 482; Rogers, Someone Else’s War, 76; Thomas, Mercenary Troops in Modern Africa, 84.

On the face of it, this may not seem like a noteworthy accomplishment;

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, Fortune’s 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, 240-241, 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

DRAFT

45

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 Else’s 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," 108-110.

DRAFT

46

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

187 Guevara, The African Dream, 48.

For example, Guevara noted in

October, 1965 that, Simba troops, “were deserting all the time and taking their rifles with

188 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 Else’s 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.

DRAFT

47

them.”191 Moreover, a diary found on the body of a dying member of Callan’s

Mercenaries noted, in an entry dated February 11, 1976, that, “the problem of retreating

troops has become acute.”192 Indeed, although that force’s 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 Guevara, The African Dream, 146. 192 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.

DRAFT

48

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 Callan’s 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.

DRAFT

49

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