I did a quick scan read of this monograph and found it well worth the effort for a more detailed examination. At first blush, it certainly mirrored my own studies and experiences in Africa. In Sudan (1984) as a FAO trainee I spent 4 months as a student in the Sudanese Staff College. The war down south was again heating up and we had a handful of southern officers in our class. The tension between them and the northern Arab students was palpable; the latter made it worse when in studying COIN as taught by the Brits, the Arabs clearly advocated ethnic cleansing. US efforts to stear the Sudanese away from resuming open warfare and professionalizing their military also failed. We "sold" them a company of 10 M60A3 tanks and they wanted to open up all the spare parts boxes and power packs literally on the desert. We also sold them 3 or 4 F-5s including one 2-seat trainer; all were smoking holes within a year as they immediately tried to use them as they arrived.

But the classic bottomless pit of military assistance was the Forces Armees Zairoise (FAZ) or Farce Armees Zairoise as I called them. Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, Egypt, the ROK, the PRC, and the US spent untold billions of dollars trying to make an effective army out of the FAZ. We all failed. Miserably. I can safely say that the FAZ never won a fight against anyone who could fire back unless they--the FAZ--were reinforced by non-Congolese. They were disastrous as a COIN element; left uncontrolled they could convert whole regions to anti-government forces. We sponsored them on a peacekeeping mission in Chad where they devoted themselves to smuggling back goodies on US airframes. We 'advised" them in the abortive 1975 invasion of Angola; they beat feet back to the Congo as soon as the Cuban 122s found the range. And with French encouragement, the former government of Rwanda asked them to help fight the RPF after the 1990 invasion. The FAZ immediately started raping and pillaging the locals, leading the Rwandans to ask them to leave.

Folks say you should dance with the one that brought you. That metaphor somewhat applies to the issues surfaced in this study. You cannot always pick your ally; often circumstances do it for you, as was the case of the West and the Soviets in WWII. Other times, however, you have to be prepared to see what exactly you are getting into, something many US policy makers and operators failed to do in the Congo. The same parameters apply to countries involved in GWOT. Minimally, you must know with whom you are dancing.

Best
Tom