742243

research-article2018
SDI0010.1177/0967010617742243Security DialogueAbrahamsen

Special issue on Militarism and security: Dialogue, possibilities and limits

Security Dialogue
2018, Vol. 49(1-2) 19­–31
Return of the generals? Global © The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0967010617742243
https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010617742243
Cold War to the present journals.sagepub.com/home/sdi

Rita Abrahamsen
University of Ottawa, Canada

Abstract
Militarism is always historically constructed and context specific and must therefore be studied at the
intersection of the global and the local. This article does so by tracing the continuities and changes of global
militarism in Africa from the Cold War to the present. It argues that contemporary global militarism on the
continent differs from its predecessor in two crucial aspects. First, it is promoted by development actors
as much as by military establishments and is more firmly embedded within discourses of development and
humanitarianism. Second, contemporary militarism remains focused on political order and stability but it is
more concerned with war and direct combat. The article probes this paradox through an engagement with
the concepts of security and securitization. It argues that today’s militarism is suffused with the values of
security and that it is precisely the logic of security and securitization that gives it its contemporary political
force.

Keywords
Africa, development, international political sociology, militarism, security, terrorism

Introduction
It is no coincidence that the life, death and rebirth of the study of militarism correspond roughly
to the historical periods of the Cold War, its end and the emergence of what is sometimes labelled
the global war on terror. During the bipolar struggle of East versus West, military power and its
penetration of social, political and cultural life was a central preoccupation of international rela-
tions, strategic studies and peace studies alike. As the Berlin Wall crumbled, militarism faded
from the scholarly lexicon, replaced by a broader focus on security that was often framed in direct
opposition to the previous fixation on states and militaries. Only after the terrorist attacks of 9/11,
the prolonged, retaliatory wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the widespread
application of military force against violent extremism was militarism rediscovered as an object
worthy of study.

Corresponding author:
Rita Abrahamsen, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, 120 University, Ottawa,
K1N6C8, Canada.
Email: [email protected]
20 Security Dialogue 49(1-2)

But old concepts are cold comfort in a radically changed geopolitical environment. Much as
there are similarities and continuities between the past and the present, the contemporary expres-
sions of militarism and militarization appear in new guises, with subtle inflections and different
justifications, doctrines, practices, friends and enemies. Aware of the inadequacies of earlier
vocabularies, scholars and observers have given us militarism with adjectives – the two most
prominent being ‘new militarism’ (Bacevich, 2013; Mann, 2003; Stavrianakis and Selby, 2013a)
and ‘liberal militarism’ (Basham, 2013, this issue; Edgerton, 1991). Both descriptions seek to
capture the contemporary imbrication of military and humanitarian activities, that is, a form of
militarism emerging from the marriage of military force and utopian ideologies, leading to impe-
rial ambitions in the name of development, democratization, human rights and liberal values
(Bacevich, 2013).
In keeping with the focus of this special issue, this article probes the current situation through
an engagement with the concepts of militarism, militarization, security and securitization. By trac-
ing a simple – and inevitably somewhat simplified – chronological story of the transformation of
militarism from the Cold War to the present, I argue that although the merger of security and devel-
opment, and thus the concept of security, worked to facilitate a return of militarism, its present
form, values, dynamics and relationships cannot be adequately captured by simply returning to the
old conceptualization of militarism and militarization, nor can the concepts of security and secu-
ritization be abandoned. Instead, present-day militarism is infused with the values of security, and
its political force is conditional on the prior securitization of underdevelopment and poverty. Put
differently, neither militarism nor security is static or ontologically given, but historically con-
structed and context specific.
This specificity is recognized by many of the classic works on militarism, arising as they do
from the discipline of historical sociology and linking the emergence of different forms of milita-
rism to particular types of social forces and historically formed social relations between soldiers
and civilians (Mabee and Vucetic, this issue; Mann, 1988; Shaw, 1991). At the same time, while
militarism is always specific (and often national), it is also simultaneously global, intimately linked
to and shaped by geopolitics, alliance-making, and dominant norms, technologies and ideologies.
A key challenge in studying the forces that mould and shape contemporary militarism is accord-
ingly to capture at one and the same time the global and the local, and their intersection in particu-
lar locations.1 This article attempts to sketch the beginnings of such an international political
sociology of militarism, tracing the manner in which it has been shaped in interaction, translation
and competition between local and global actors, norms and agendas.
It does so by focusing on Africa, a continent that has historically been central to the study of
militarism and that offers ample opportunities for investigating its contemporary expressions.
During the Cold War, African militaries were rarely far from the corridors of power, while today
vast areas of the continent are considered the ‘front line’ in the war against violent extremism, with
some perceiving an ‘arc of instability’ stretching from the Sahel in the west to Somalia in the east
(UN Security Council, 2013). The African continent is admittedly a rather big canvas for a short
article, and the analysis is therefore centred on the broad contours of the forces and transformations
that have shaped global militarism. At this level, some generalizations are warranted, given that
most countries in the immediate post-independence period shared important colonial legacies,
most notably a military that had been devoted to protecting the empire. In the present period, the
article hones in on those states that are most closely affected by and involved in the fight against
violent extremism, although homologous dynamics are at play in many other countries. Importantly,
however, rather than offering a detailed case study, the article aims to cast light on global milita-
rism and seeks to place Africa at the heart of the study of contemporary global politics.2 Drawing
on numerous research trips, interviews and participation in high-level continental meetings on
Abrahamsen 21

security over several years, it shows that militarism in Africa has been produced in close interac-
tion with the global, but that today’s militarism differs from its Cold War incarnation in two crucial
respects. First, its main conduits are not only the usual suspects of military establishments and
ministries of defence, but also development actors, discourses and practices justified in the name
of development. Second, despite being couched in the language of development and security,
today’s militarism is more warlike than its predecessor. As such, the turn to security has paradoxi-
cally facilitated a subtle shift from order-making towards war-making, while retaining a central
focus on statebuilding, political order and international stability.

Militarism and Cold War order

At the time of independence, Africa seemed an unlikely site for militarism to flourish. The conti-
nent’s militaries were generally regarded as weak and insignificant. Moulded to the needs of
empire, they were seen as vestiges of imperial rule, an alien imposition whose task had been to
defend the colonial power and who accordingly had little to offer the new, independent nations
(Gutteridge, 1969). Most armed forces had few African officers, and their recruits were often
drawn from non-elite groups in rural and peripheral areas.3 The gap between the continent and
Vagts’s (1959: 13) seminal description of societies infused with military values could thus hardly
have been bigger: far from ranking ‘military institutions and ways above the ways of civilian life’,
and far from transposing a ‘military mentality and modes of acting and decision into the civilian
sphere’, most African political leaders and citizens were torn between distrust and disregard for the
men in uniform. Indeed, as Ruth First (1970: 89) observed, ‘of all those belonging to the Western-
groomed elite, the military looked the least likely avenue to political influence’.
Within a short decade, however, militaries had made up for lost time and had become prominent
and often dominant features of the political landscape. During the 1960s, military coups became an
established route to political power, and in the 1970s more than half of all African states, and up to
65% of the continent’s population, were governed by military regimes. By the 1980s, civilian rule
had become ‘a statistical deviation’ (Decalo, 1998a: 2), with politicians acutely aware of the gener-
als’ readiness to exit the barracks and hence always governing with an eye to keeping the military
happy. Given this history, Africa has provided fertile ground for the study of militarism and gener-
ated some of the classic works and enduring insights into military rule, civil–military relations, and
the relationship among modernization, militaries and political order (Decalo, 1976; First, 1970;
Huntington, 1968; Luckham, 1982; Mazrui, 1976; Pye, 1962; Welch, 1970; Zolberg, 1973).
My concern here is neither to explain the emergence of military rule nor to unpack in detail the
social forces and historical contexts that produced and sustained militarism on the African continent.4
Instead, I point to some of the key characteristics of Cold War militarism so as to capture its specific
modalities and facilitate an analysis of its subsequent transformations. Needless to say, given the
prevalence of military engagement in politics in the decades from the 1960s to the 1990s, generaliza-
tions are fraught with dangers, not least because the intensity of the geopolitical struggle varied from
country to country and military rulers came in numerous guises, ranging from the populist revolution-
ary socialist to the right-wing economic conservative, not to mention the non-ideological brute. For
the purpose of this analysis, however, I highlight two key aspects of Cold War militarism: its external
dependence and its predominant objective of maintaining international order and stability.
First, militarization in Africa, as in all newly independent regions, was externally dependent and
fuelled by external actors (Barnett and Wendt, 1992; Thee, 1977). This was particularly the case in
terms of the hardware that made militarization possible: at the time of independence, African states
(with the exception of South Africa) lacked domestic or regional arms-manufacturing industries
and accordingly had to rely on imports and give-aways from former colonial masters and Cold War
22 Security Dialogue 49(1-2)

allies to strengthen their arsenals and renew their equipment and technologies. Military training
was also provided by outside actors. Inspired by modernization theory, departing colonial powers
and allies regarded the professionalization of the army as part of building the modern nation-state
and ensuring that its institutions took hold on the continent.5 The post-independence period was
accordingly accompanied by generous provision of African officer training in Western military
establishments, the two most prominent being the elite academies of Sandhurst in Britain and
Saint-Cyr in France. By 1970, so many states were governed by men with graduation papers from
Western military academies that First (1970: 3) dryly commented that ‘Sandhurst and St Cyr ... had
succeeded the London School of Economics and École Normale William Panty in Dakar as the
training ground for Africa’s leaders’.
Thee’s (1977: 301) observation that great-power militarism was ‘largely the root cause and the
driving force behind the global spread of militarism’ thus holds true also for the African continent.
This not to say that African actors had no agency or influence on the development of militarism.
They unquestionably did, and militarism had its own internal agents with their own distinct inter-
ests and agendas. African states, and more precisely their coercive agents, were able to access
resources, pursue their diverse strategies and maintain their power within conditions created by the
logic of the Cold War. Accordingly, militarism took on its own life and character in each country,
reflecting its specific history and social, political and economic makeup, but in each case the geo-
politics of bipolarity imbued militarism with the values of order and stability.
For Africa’s Western allies, functioning militaries were not only seen as part of building the
modern nation-state, but also regarded as naturally conservative institutions that could be relied
upon to temper and contain the social pressures and dislocations arising from rapidly changing
societies. The military was, as Coleman and Brice (1962: 359) put it, ‘a modernizing and stabiliz-
ing source of organizational strength in society, a last stand-by reserve which could be called in, or
could take over, to prevent subversion or a total collapse of the social order’. In different words,
social disorder was tantamount to the rise of communism, and militaries were conservative bul-
warks against its spread and central to the maintenance of international stability.
For both sides in the Cold War, support for Africa’s militaries and military rulers was a perilous
balancing act: supplying clients with weapons, technologies and training carried the risk of desta-
bilizing often-turbulent countries and regions. Conversely, withholding support raised the spectre
of losing allies to the opposing bloc. As a result, both the East and the West were equally willing to
prop up military dictators who held the promise of stability, and to support military coups against
those who did not – regardless of their otherwise-unpalatable politics. A prime example is President
Mobutu of Zaire, whose rise to power and three-decade-long reign was directly linked to his
shrewd ability to mobilize Western fears of the instability that would result if communism were
allowed to take hold at the heart of the continent.
The primacy of order and stability gave African Cold War militarism its defining characteristics.
Definitions of militarism – from those focused on ideology to those centred on quantitative meas-
urements and deeply embedded social practices – invariably include a reference to the constant
readiness for war (Eide and Thee, 1980; Kinsella, 2013). Mann (2003: 16–17), for example, defines
militarism as ‘a set of attitudes and social practices which regard war and the preparation for war
as a normal and desirable social activity’ (see also Åhäll, 2016; Enloe, 1988; Shaw, 2003, 2013).
While African militarism clearly entailed an element of war preparation, especially by virtue of its
connection to Cold War struggles and ideologies that normalized armed force as a solution to social
and political conflicts, it was predominantly a ‘cold’ war. With the important exceptions of South
Africa, the front line states and the bloody proxy wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique,
few African countries had any external enemies or were threatened by hostile neighbours. Neither
African states nor their superpower patrons had much interest in external warfighting or
Abrahamsen 23

the creation of armies whose war-making or war-posturing could not be controlled in a volatile
international climate. As a result, much as Africa’s militarism was (at least initially) accompanied
by relatively high military expenditure and expanding armies, the latter were rarely seriously
trained for or employed in active combat.
Instead, militarism was domestically oriented. The justifications for military coups and military
rule provide telling evidence: only very rarely did the generals invoke the threat of external ene-
mies and war as an explanation for seizing or holding on to political power.6 When African militar-
ies referred to their duty to ‘defend the nation’, it was against the misrule and mismanagement of
corrupt politicians, against the loss of national glory and pride resulting from the greed, corruption,
inefficiency, ideologies and ill-discipline of civilian leaders (Decalo, 1976, 1998a; Onwudiwe,
2004). In classic militarist fashion, the virtues of discipline, order and efficiency were extolled as
superior qualities intrinsic to the military, placing it above the chaos and raucousness of political
life and making it a model for social and political transformation. The extent to which this glorifi-
cation of military values and organization was shared by the population varied from country to
country, and sometimes from coup to coup. Similarly, the extent to which such justifications for
military rule were simply a convenient shield for ruthless self-interest is a moot point in this con-
text; the key is that despite the extensive military presence in politics and society, order and stabil-
ity – not war and the preparation for war – were the defining features of Africa’s militarism in the
Cold War period.

Security against militarism

At the end of the Cold War, the study of militarism faded from the discipline of international rela-
tions, even if its practices, as many feminists observed, continued unabated (Åhäll, 2016; Enloe,
2007; Mama and Okazawa-Rey, 2012). Within the study of international affairs, however, milita-
rism as an organizing concept was replaced by security, and militarization by securitization. This
transformation, Stavrianakis and Selby (2013b: 10) argue, also entailed a shift in the object of
critique

away from a core concern with the excessive influence of arms, and military institutions and ideologies,
on domestic and international politics, to a broader concern with the practice and legitimatization of
exceptional ‘security’ measures, regardless of whether these be the work of the military, or instead of the
intelligence services, domestic law enforcement agencies, the media, or any number of state, private sector
and international ‘securitizing actors’.

From this perspective, the problematic of security displaced the critique of military power and
violence and ‘detracted critical attention from the problems of militarism and militarization’
(Stavrianakis and Selby, 2013b: 11).
There is much to commend this interpretation, and it is undoubtedly the case that the turn to
security entailed a concern with a much broader range of threats and issues than those relating to
military power and violence. At the same time, the concept of security encapsulated a powerful
critique of militarization, militarism and the excessive preoccupation with the state and regime
security within international relations and the subdiscipline of strategic studies (Krause and
Williams, 1997). Against this state-centrism, ‘critical security’ perspectives argued for a reconcep-
tualization of the referent object of security away from the state towards the individual and society.
As was frequently pointed out, the state – and by implication the military – was in many parts of
the world a provider of insecurity rather than security, and national security should not therefore be
equated with the security and well-being of individuals and populations within the nation (Buzan,
24 Security Dialogue 49(1-2)

1991). In other words, within the logic of ‘security’, militaries are no longer simply providers of
security; they also have to be restrained in the name of security.
These critiques, and their adoption and transformations into both development and security
policy in the post-Cold War era, are of crucial relevance for understanding today’s global milita-
rism and its marriage to humanitarian values and development.7 Freed from the constraints of
bipolarity, Western states abandoned their long-term, often authoritarian allies and demanded mul-
tiparty elections and free market economics in return for continued development assistance, while
aid from the former Eastern bloc dried up in the face of mounting domestic challenges. At the same
time, without the stabilizing effects of bipolarity, many long-term dictatorships (like that of
President Mobutu in Zaire and Siad Barre in Somalia) crumbled and the number of conflicts and
civil wars peaked in the 1990s (Straus, 2012). In this context, the relationship between develop-
ment and security was reinterpreted, and gradually poverty and underdevelopment came to be seen
as a main cause of conflict and insecurity (Duffield, 2000). Through the emphasis on the link
between poverty and insecurity, and thus the securitization of underdevelopment, issues previously
considered to fall within the realm of development were now reframed as security issues, requiring
security measures and interventions (Abrahamsen, 2005). As summed up in the catch-phrase ‘there
can be no development without security and no security without development’, development and
security came to be seen as two sides of the same coin (see Stern and Öjendal, 2010). The remit of
development was thus stretched to embrace previously excluded issues, and a whole series of new
security-focused initiatives became staple features of development practice.
The status of the military and other security institutions within these discourses and practices is
polyvalent and ambivalent, containing a curious blend of simultaneous disdain and respect. On the
one hand, the military is perceived as an obstacle to human security, its personnel and culture relics
of an authoritarian, violent and oppressive past. On the other hand, because security is a precondi-
tion for development, military actors acquire a newfound importance and prestige – if only they
can be adequately transformed along democratic and developmental lines.
This ambiguity is evident in security sector reform, an entirely new invention within the armoury
of development. Emerging in the 1990s, security sector reform sought to transform militaries by
subjecting them to democratic, civilian control and instilling respect for human rights among offic-
ers and soldiers alike. As Clare Short, the UK secretary of state for international development,
argued at the launch of security sector reform: ‘Too often, the developing world is blighted by
security sectors which are secretive, repressive, undemocratic and inappropriately structured. They
soak up resources that would be better used elsewhere, with too much going towards arms expendi-
ture, at the expense of essential public services’ (Short, 1999). In this way, the merger of develop-
ment and security emboldened development donors who had never before touched the issue of
military spending not only to demand cuts in defence budgets, but also to insist that militaries be
retrained – and restrained – in the name and interest of human security.
At the same time, the development/security nexus accorded a new importance to diverse
security actors. Because development now required security, militaries and other security insti-
tutions became key beneficiaries of development assistance, and their activities – when reformed
in accordance with the precepts of human security – were reconceptualized as indispensable to
development and poverty reduction. Moreover, not only did the armed forces and police become
favoured recipients of development, but the actors deemed best positioned to deliver this assis-
tance were their counterparts in donor states. Militaries and security establishments in the North
eagerly embraced their new roles within this broadened security/development agenda as a means
of maintaining their relevance in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment that emphasized
human security, humanitarian intervention and peacekeeping rather than defence and warfare.
As a result, military and police personnel from countless countries descended on Africa to train
Abrahamsen 25

and reform its security institutions, while private security companies rebranded themselves as
subcontractors of the numerous security sector reform programmes funded by bilateral and mul-
tilateral development organizations.8 In this way, development issues have not only become
security issues, and vice versa, but security actors have also come to occupy a more prominent
place and voice within development both as recipients and as implementers of development
assistance. This ambivalence of security institutions within the security/development agenda –
that is, their simultaneous status as objects of reform and agents of change, as potential wreckers
of development but also the guarantors of that very same process – has been heightened since the
terrorist attacks of 9/11 2001.

Militarism and development/security

Militarism has been on the rise in many parts of the world since 9/11 (Bacevich, 2013; Mann, 2003;
Shaw, 2013; Stern and Stavrianakis, this issue), and Africa is no exception. In quantitative terms,
the data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) tell a clear story: mili-
tary hardware, including tanks, missiles and artillery, is flowing into Africa faster than into any
other region. African arms imports grew by 45% from 2005 to 2014, and two out of three African
countries substantially increased their military spending over the last decade.9 Continental military
expenditure grew by 65% over the same period, and in 2013 alone military spending rose by 8.3%
– a rate of growth outpacing that of all other parts of the world (Economist, 2014).
Although many African countries have joined the ranks of weapons manufacturers and export-
ers, most are still dependent on imports and give-aways to maintain their military prowess.10
Contemporary militarization, like that of the Cold War, thus remains fuelled by international
actors, but following the merger of development and security a range of development and human-
itarian actors have joined the usual agents of war, working side by side with militaries, ministries
of defence and security contractors – all invoking development as a justification for military and
security assistance. As Bacevich (2013: 25) puts it, various kinds of ‘do-gooders’ are often the
most enthusiastic supporters of today’s militarism, seeking to ‘harness military power to their
efforts to do good’.
The link between such efforts to do good and contemporary militarism is mediated by a concept
of security that signifies ‘human security’ and not simply ‘national security’, or the integrity of the
state. In this respect, development discourse and practice stand in a tension-filled, yet central, rela-
tionship to militarism. The various development initiatives grouped under the label of security sec-
tor reform, for example, were designed in part precisely to restrain militaries and tame their excessive
use of force against civilians. They belong to a family of interventions intended to build capable,
legal-rational Weberian states with a monopoly on the use of force, which entails reorienting public
security forces away from political involvement and domestic oppression, towards more efficient,
professional and accountable performances of their legitimate security functions. As such, many of
these training and capacity-building projects share a Cold War focus on order and stability, and their
outcomes are often unspectacular, having as much to do with mundane, bureaucratic security prac-
tices and statebuilding as with militarism per se (see Frowd and Sandor, this issue).
That said, after the attacks of 9/11, donors have increasingly prioritized the ‘harder’, technical
aspects of security sector reform, and the imperative to ‘train and equip’ has come to dominate over
more developmental and political ambitions to limit defence spending and ensure democratic over-
sight, accountability and respect for human rights (Scheye, 2010). Reforming military institutions,
cultures and practices is not only a long and difficult process; such changes are also frequently
resisted because they contradict the interests of recipient governments and elites (Scheye, 2010).
The ambivalent status of military actors within the development/security nexus as both obstacles
26 Security Dialogue 49(1-2)

to and guarantors of security has thus become more apparent and difficult to reconcile, and efforts
to restrain have lost ground to demands for capacity to defend, leading close observers to speak of
the militarization of security sector reform (Albrecht and Stepputat, 2015).
Direct support for African militaries and counter-terrorism strategies has also expanded rapidly
in recent years. The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) is by far the most striking of these new
partnerships and forms of cooperation. Authorized by US President George W. Bush in 2005,
AFRICOM’s activities and reach now span the African continent. About 4,000 troops are stationed
at AFRICOM’s base in Djibouti, which serves as a continental hub for counter-terrorism training
and operations. More than 15 different regular military exercises and Theatre Security Cooperation
programmes take place under the command’s auspices, and the USA has established so-called co-
operative security locations where equipment and supplies are stored for military emergencies in
10 countries (Schmitt, 2017; Turse, 2015). Increasingly, the US strategy relies on special forces
rather than conventional troops, with Navy SEALs and other special operators working with
African allies on specific missions, such as targeted killings of Al-Shabaab fighters in Somalia and
training Nigerian commandos in the fight against Boko Haram. While no other international actor
can match the unprecedented military footprint of the USA, many, including France, the UK, China
and the EU, have massively increased their military engagement on the continent.
The main benefactors of both development/security assistance and military cooperation are
those states most directly involved in the active fight against violent extremism. Prime examples
are Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia. The latter two have sent troops to fight Islamic militants in
Somalia, and both have engaged in bombings and direct combat within Somali territory. Uganda is
the main contributor to the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Somalia and has received
more troop training from the USA in the last decade than any other country in sub-Saharan Africa
except Burundi, another key troop contributor. The Sahel states are also increasingly trained and
equipped to combat extremist groups in the region, with countries like Mali, Chad, Niger and
Burkina Faso benefitting from substantial military and security assistance, including through the
Trans-Saharan Counter Terrorism Partnership and the annual Flintlock exercise involving African,
US and allied counter-terrorism forces.
Paradoxically, then, despite being embedded within narratives of development and humanitari-
anism, today’s global militarism is in many ways more oriented towards war and active combat
than the militarism of the Cold War. The logic of bipolarity dictated an overriding interest in order
and stability, and strong militaries were tasked primarily with domestic order-making. Political
order, statebuilding and containment of local conflicts remain key objectives, but contemporary
assistance is also centrally focused on defeating violent extremist groups that are perceived as
threats to domestic and international stability. This requires African militaries to be combat ready
and prepared to fight, in defence of development, both within and beyond their own borders.
Untangling this paradox requires an engagement with the concepts of security and securitization,
and approaching today’s global militarism from the perspective of its African articulation shows that
it is crucially linked to the prior securitization of underdevelopment. The gradual merger of develop-
ment and security has transformed poverty from an issue concerning primarily the well-being of the
poor to an issue concerning international stability (Abrahamsen, 2005). This is a social and political
process, performed by donor and recipient states alike. In donor states, the securitization of under-
development and weak, fragile states facilitated the fusion of development and security assistance,
so that increasing portions of development budgets can now be allocated to security activities.11
Contemporary development policies thus state unambiguously and unashamedly that development
assistance must not only reduce poverty but also serve the national security interest of donors. US
President Barack Obama, for example, proudly announced that ‘my national security strategy rec-
ognizes development not only as a moral imperative, but as a strategic and economic imperative’
Abrahamsen 27

(White House, 2010). Similarly, the UK’s aid strategy is entitled ‘Tackling Global Challenges in the
National Interest’, emphasizing that development assistance must be ‘squarely in the UK’s national
interest’ (Department for International Development (DFID), 2015: 3).
In recipient states, the securitization of underdevelopment and poverty is often actively encour-
aged and promoted in the interest of attracting external security assistance. Not only do many states
and their military institutions speak the language of violence arising from poverty, they are also
eager to present domestic insurgent groups as threats not only to their own security but also to inter-
national stability (see Fisher and Anderson, 2015; Hansen, 2013; Jourde, 2007). Indeed, at high-
level continental meetings about conflict and security, it is often striking how little distinguishes the
securitization discourses of African leaders and policymakers from those of Western actors.
The securitization of underdevelopment, in other words, is the condition of possibility for a
global militarism justified in the name of human security and development. This is not to say that
military and security assistance to fight violent extremism is unjustified or politically and morally
wrong, nor that it cannot play a developmental role. Military values are not static, nor are the mili-
tary’s means and justifications of conflict resolution. Today’s militarism is suffused with security
and the values of development, and since the end of the Cold War the military and other security
actors have adopted (and transformed) the discourses and practices of human security and develop-
ment.12 It is precisely this engagement with and endorsement of security that enables military
actors and solutions to occupy such a central place within contemporary politics and society, both
as recipients and as implementers of development assistance. Development actors, in turn, have
helped produce a normative space where military force can be invoked in defence of civilian and
humanitarian ends, and often work side by side with military actors. AFRICOM, for example, has
a senior development adviser from the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) assigned to its staff. As a result, military functions can be conducted in the name of secu-
rity and development rather than with reference to war and martial values, and military force
emerges as part of a larger civilian development enterprise.
Herein lies perhaps the greatest danger of today’s militarism. By fusing development to defence of
the national interest, it risks not simply diverting resources away from poverty reduction towards mili-
tary and security sectors; it also risks strengthening the power and influence of military and security
establishments vis-à-vis other sectors of society, including civilian leaders and politicians, by virtue of
their centrality to issues of development and security. Alternatively, we might see new forms of alli-
ances emerging between political leaders and militaries, where the latter’s influence is increasingly
evident in social and political affairs and where political dissent can be suppressed in the name of
security and stability – by troops that are better trained and better equipped thanks to generous foreign
assistance. The gradual erosion of democracy and the prominence of military officers in public and
political life in many of the top recipients of foreign security assistance, including Ethiopia, Uganda,
Rwanda, Kenya and Chad, might be a first indication that such changes are underway. Unlike during
the Cold War, the military coup might thus no longer be a required route to political power, which can
instead be exercised through alliances, incorporation and gentle reminders. While external actors may
fuel this militarism, and simultaneously be wary of its consequences, the primacy of international
security and stability means that they are unlikely to call too loudly for democracy and freedom. On
this point, at least, today’s global militarism differs little from that of the Cold War.

Conclusion
With the end of the Cold War and the return of democracy in the early 1990s, the study of milita-
rism in international relations ground to a halt. As this special issue demonstrates, it is now back,
although, as this article suggests, today’s global militarism is not untouched by the interregnum.
28 Security Dialogue 49(1-2)

Instead, its key features cannot be captured without reference to security and securitization, the
concepts that for a brief period displaced and overshadowed it.
While there are no clear breaks or radical ruptures between the militarism of the past and that of
the present, militarism is always historically constructed and context specific, shaped by the con-
fluence of global and local actors, norms, ideologies and technologies. By analysing the shifting
modalities of global militarism and its articulation on the African continent, this article shows that
much as militarism remains fuelled by external sources and retains a strong focus on political order
and stability, its contemporary imbrication with security and development gives it a distinct char-
acter and force.
Paradoxically, transformations that initially entailed a critique of militarization and militarism
have ended up according a new importance to security actors and laying the groundwork for new
expressions of militarization and militarism. The securitization of underdevelopment and poverty
served to break down the anti-militarism of development, paving the way for the inclusion of mili-
tary actors as both recipients and implementers of development assistance. At the same time, the
logic and understanding of security has been gradually adopted by military and other security
actors, often in their own institutional interests. Nevertheless, security actors now speak the lan-
guage of human security and perform their activities, including warfare, in the name of security
and development, while development discourse has helped normalize and legitimate the view of
armed force as a path to development, peace and order. It is precisely this logic and the ability to
mobilize the dreams and hopes of development in justification of military activities that have ena-
bled diverse security actors to augment their role and influence in contemporary society and poli-
tics, and their position cannot be understood without reference to their endorsement and
embeddedness within discourses and practices of security and development. Accordingly, we can-
not abandon the study of security and securitization in favour of a focus on militarism and milita-
rization alone. Instead, the two must proceed apace, because contemporary global militarism is
suffused with security and securitization and it is precisely the logic of security and securitization
that gives it its contemporary political force.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Michael C. Williams, Jakkie Cilliers, Gino Vlavonou, and the editors and reviewers for help-
ful comments.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit
sectors.

Notes
1. Kuus (2009) calls for the study of militarism beyond the nation-state, while Bernazzoli and Flint (2009)
demonstrate the need for grounded studies.
2. See Abrahamsen (2017) and Eriksson Baaz and Verweijen (this issue) on the challenges of integrating
Africa into the study of international politics and security.
3. A reminder that militarism is divided along class, racial, ethnic and gender lines.
4. Classic treatments are provided by First (1970) and Mazrui (1976). For a typology of military rule, see
Decalo (1998b), and for a review of the literature see Luckham (1994).
5. Enloe (2004) regards the belief that a state without a military is scarcely modern (and barely legitimate)
as a defining feature of militarism.
6. Onwudiwe (2004: 24) includes a table of justifications for military coups, and tellingly there is no
mention of national security, defence or the threat of war.
Abrahamsen 29

7. Development and security were also linked during the Cold War, but with important differences. In the
past, development assistance was given to allies to demonstrate the superiority of liberal democracy
over communism, and could be regarded as an ideological weapon. Development assistance and military
assistance were separated, however, and the logic of security did not permeate development thinking in
the same manner as today. See Ekbladh (2010).
8. For insightful illustrations, see Frowd and Sandor (this issue).
9. See the SIPRI database for information on military spending: www.sipri.org.
10. The main weapons exporters to Africa are Russia, France, China, the USA and Ukraine, in that order. See
www.sipri.org.
11. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee
has twice (in 2005 and 2016) changed the rules for what qualifies as official development assistance
(ODA) in order to allow more security-related activities to be reported as development spending.
12. One outcome, for example, is a more gender-neutral army that is inclusive of women. According to
Clarke (2008), however, the culture of masculinity has not been challenged by security sector reform.

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Rita Abrahamsen is Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Director of the
Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS) at the University of Ottawa. She is the author (with Michael C.
Williams) of Security Beyond the State: Private Security in International Politics (Cambridge University
Press, 2011) and numerous articles on African security and politics.