Lawrence Freedman
In an illuminating book, published earlier this year, political scientist Adam Casey explored the issue of whether the US government had been able to use arms sales to sustain friendly but authoritarian regimes during the Cold War years. His conclusion was that by and large they had not had that effect. The US model assumed the need for armies to be independent of government, so the support flowed to the military who often then went on to mount coups. As interesting was the second part of his argument. The Soviet Union’s model for military assistance was quite different. It reflected a preoccupation with regime stability and the need to keep the army subordinate to prevent coups. Soviet support often included special units tasked with protecting the leaders of the regime, a vanguard party to spread its power, and suppression of popular dissent. The regimes so supported tended to survive longer - although their armies were more prone to corruption and lost effectiveness.
A recent article in the RUSI journal by Jack Watling and Nina Wilén on strategic realignment in the Sahel region of Africa fits Casey’s analysis remarkably well, providing another example of how much modern Russia is still influenced by past Soviet practice. In this case it was France that was caught out by coups in countries where it had been providing direct and substantial military assistance. As the new juntas broke with France, Russia achieved a strategic realignment by stepping in with military support of its own. There were precedents in Africa. One going back to the Cold War, examined by Casey, was the catastrophic rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam who came to power in Ethiopia in a 1974 coup and was soon backed by Soviet and Cuban advisors helping him develop a new internal security apparatus to crush any opposition, as well as fight insurgents. He lasted until the end of the Cold War in 1991, despite presiding over a disastrous famine in the mid-1980s.
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