The unintended consequences of foreign military assistance in Africa: an analysis of peacekeeping training in Kenya

Peacekeeping training centres in Africa are numerous. These centres are part of broader military assistance programmes provided by bilateral or multilateral donors and are completely funded from outside. The intent is threefold: to improve peacekeeping; to professionalise national defence forces in African states through training and instruction in international norms and to provide areas of socialisation between African militaries in order to foster bonds and forge ties in the hope that the potential for regional conflict will reduce through these elite relationships. This paper argues that few of these intended outcomes are achieved. Using peace support operation training in Kenya and an analysis of organisational functionality it is argued that African militaries reflect the broader socio-political dynamics of the state and are typically patrimonial in nature. By providing patrimonial military institutions with significant external resources such as training centres, foreign donors can actively exacerbate internal patrimonial dynamics. This will, of course, take different forms depending on the nature of the military and the nature of the state. What is common, however, is that foreign military assistance in Africa is subverted for national and usually internal reasons as opposed to the intended and more outward-oriented aims.