New Armies from Old: Merging Competing Military Forces After Civil Wars

Peace settlements after civil wars frequently involve power sharing among the former opponents to attempt to fuse a new representative society. International mediators often recommend that these agreements also merge the competing armed groups into a single national army. The presumed merits of this strategy have become common wisdom among conflict-resolution practitioners, but little systematic research has been conducted to test whether or not this works. Can people who recently have been killing one another be effectively merged into a single military force? Under what conditions is military integration more or less likely to succeed? Is military integration a good idea in all cases? This volume uses a comparative case-study approach and considers competing views. The result is that the volume fills a serious gap in our understanding of civil wars, their possible resolution, and how to promote lasting peace. The cases cover eleven countries: Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Philippines, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.