Hi all,
I've been working away on the PhD thesis and have developed a number of guidelines for creating or recreating indigenous armies in a post conflict, post intervention environment.
I'm not sure whether I've missed something obvious or whether I've got something wrong, so thoughts from older heads with more wisdom would be much appreciated.
Does this list sound right -
Preparatory considerations
The first area is preparatory considerations before the process gets underway.
*The first is the state of peace and war in the country, which will have a dominant effect on the environment in which reconstruction takes place.
*army reconstruction not just into a broader SSR programme, but within civil institutional redevelopment of a wider nature still.
*Third, national security and defence planning needs to be incorporated into wider national development documents.
*Fourth, the OECD guidelines on SSR and repeated experience indicates the need for an overall army strategic and budgeting plan. The South African example of making the responsibilities of the government to the armed forces clearly understood, including making available sufficient resources, is a good one to follow.

Army reconstruction process
*First, Southern African experience shows the need to set realistic, rather than unobtainable, transition goals within the armed forces.
*Second, if foreign models must be utilised, they should not conflict. Zimbabwe shows the difficulty of applying differing systems (British and North Korean) in the same army.
*Third. retraining the entire new force may not be necessary; officers and NCOs only may be sufficient.
*Fourth, the army itself when being reconstructed should be designed to be all-inclusive, to avoid factional dissatisfaction. As shown by the crisis in East Timor, internal tensions need to be carefully managed until they can be resolved.
*Fifth, the creation of a reserve force should be carefully considered. Such a force might employ those people who would benefit from having an occupation to avoid them causing trouble, but are unsuitable for the regular army.
*Sixth, after individual and unit training, major exercises need to be scheduled to maintain skills and keep soldiers busy.
*Seventh, logistics, administration and maintenance need particular attention. This applies doubly when a force is being transformed from a guerrilla into an institutionalised army.
*Eighth, automatic transferral of sophisticated bureaucratic procedures and computer/information systems should be resisted. Cf. 10 Division British advisors '..it is better that they be allowed to adopt the elements of our systems that suit their needs,' SWJ article on problems in Iraqi Army intelligence, and my personal experience in East Timor
*Given the need for large numbers of advisors in teams like ETTs and MiTTs, consideration needs to be given to ways to improve the prestige of advisor assignments.
*Care should be taken to restrain pressure for higher quantities of new army personnel over higher quality personnel.
*U.S. private contractors such as DynCorp, PAE and new Protection Strategies Inc. seem to be best suited to U.S. ‘train and equip’ type reconstruction efforts. Eg MPRI in Nigeria, yet, DynCorp in Liberia handled a complex programme well.
*U.S. legal restrictions which prohibit U.S. funds from being spent on non-U.S. equipment can hamper acquisition of cheaper, less sophisticated equipment. It also requires a potentially long supply line back to the United States.

Comments and violent disagreement very welcome.