British Foreign Policy And The Conflict In Sierra Leone 1991 2001

This book critically examines the content of British policy towards Sierra Leone from the outbreak of conflict there in 1991 to its official conclusion in 2001. It attempts to find answers to why Britain's New Labour government pursued a more proactive policy in Sierra Leone than its Conservative predecessors. This is done by means of traditionalist but especially transformationalist theoretical approaches. Analysis is made of the influence of major international organisations on British policy towards the Sierra Leone conflict as well as the impact of other important states. As foreign policy is not created in a vacuum, analysis is also made of the impact of the domestic setting, especially bureaucratic institutions.

This paper is a case study of the British military intervention into Sierra Leone in 2000. The successful British intervention led to defeat of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), final peace accords, and brought order to a failed state. The paper will explore the following points: what was the British foreign policy and what impact did it have in the decision to intervene; what was the British counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine and was it useful for the forces in Sierra Leone; did the British forces use their own doctrine or was the situation in Sierra Leone unique; why was the intervention successful and what lessons can be drawn? Beyond the scope of this paper is a comparison of United Kingdom (UK) COIN doctrine and current United States (US) COIN doctrine. The focus will be to analyze the UK’s actions against their doctrine, not the doctrine of the US. There is one major assumption for this case study. The paper categorizes the intervention into Sierra Leone as successful. The justification for the assumption is current day Sierra Leone. Instead of a war torn failed state, Sierra Leone has lasting peace, completed disarmament of insurgent forces, ended the large scale human rights abuse, and democratic elections, not coups, determining the leadership of the country.

Based on first-hand experience, the author charts the decade-long civil war that brought Sierra Leone to its knees from 1991-2001. The group spearheading the violence claimed to be freeing the country from corruption but their insurgency killed more than 75,000 people and displaced half the population.

This study by Larry J. Woods and Colonel Timothy R. Reese analyzes the massive turmoil afflicting the nation of Sierra Leone, 1995-2002, and the efforts by a variety of outside forces to bring lasting stability to that small country. The taxonomy of intervention ranged from private mercenary armies, through the Economic Community of West African States, to the United Nations and the United Kingdom. In every case, those who intervened encountered a common set of difficulties that had to be overcome. Unsurprisingly, they also discovered challenges unique to their own organizations and political circumstances. This cogent analysis of recent interventions in Sierra Leone represents a cautionary tale that political leaders and military planners contemplating intervention in Africa ignore at their peril. (Originally published by the Combat Studies Institute)

My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life. “Why did you leave Sierra Leone?” “Because there is a war.” “You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?” “Yes, all the time.” “Cool.” I smile a little. “You should tell us about it sometime.” “Yes, sometime.” This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived. In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.

Argues that some of the least powerful countries masquerade as rights-promoters, paradoxically concealing the rights-violating effects of their patronage rule.

Local and Global Dynamics of Peacebuilding examines the complex contributing factors which led to war and state collapse in Sierra Leone, and the international peacebuilding and statebuilding operations which followed the cessation of the violence. This book presents nuanced and contextually specific knowledge of Sierra Leone’s political and war histories, and the outcomes of the implementation of programmes of post-conflict reforms. It embodies an analysis of the complex challenges involved in aligning international norms and values to local expectations and local priorities, and examines the role of local and global actors and structures in attempts to build a strong state and lasting peace. Using a theoretical framework informed by ‘liberal peace’ philosophy, as well as detailed and nuanced empirical evidence from the field, the book constructs a critical analysis of the contemporary global paradigm for building longer-term peace in war-torn, fractured and fragile societies. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, war and conflict studies, development studies, African politics, and IR/security studies.

Compared with Kosovo and Iraq, the recent Western intervention in Sierra Leone has been largely forgotten. When the State Fails rectifies this, providing a comprehensive and critical analysis of the intervention. The civil war in Sierra Leone began in 1991 and was declared officially over in 2002 after UK, UN, and regional African military intervention. Some claimed it as a case of successful humanitarian intervention. The authors in this collection provide an informed analysis of the impact of the intervention on democracy, development, and society in Sierra Leone. The authors take a particularly critical view of the imposition of neo-liberalism after the conflict. As NATO intervention in Libya shows the continued use of external force in internal conflicts, When the State Fails is a timely book for all students and scholars interested in Africa and the question of "humanitarian intervention."

Africa was a key focus of Britain’s foreign policy under Tony Blair. Military intervention in Sierra Leone, increases in aid and debt relief, and grand initiatives such as the Commission for Africa established the continent as a place in which Britain could ‘do good’. Britain and Africa under Blair: in pursuit of the good state critically explores Britain’s fascination with Africa. It argues that, under New Labour, Africa represented an area of policy that appeared to transcend politics. Gradually, it came to embody an ideal state activity around which politicians, officials and the wider public could coalesce, leaving behind more contentious domestic and international issues. Building on the story of Britain and Africa under Blair, the book, now available in paperback, draws wider conclusions about the role of ‘good’ and idealism in foreign policy. In particular, it discusses how international relationships provide opportunities to create and pursue ideals, and why they are essential for the well-being of political communities. It argues that state actors project the idea of ‘good’ onto idealised, distant objects, in order to restore a sense of the ‘good state’. The book makes a distinctive and original contribution to debates about the role of ethics in international relations, and will be of particular interest to academics, policy-makers and students of international relations, Africa and British foreign policy, as well as anyone interested in ethics in international affairs.