How NOT To Stage A Military Coup

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

The best treatise on how NOT to stage a military coup has to be what was written by General Heinz Guderian in his autobiography - Panzer Leader. In enumerating the reasons why he declined to join the failed coup plot against Hitler in 1944, he tells us that nothing should be left to chance in the planning. Panzer Leader is a great book to read itself, but below, is just an excerpt relating particularly to what the plotters did wrongly in 1944 - essentially everything: 

“In the first few weeks I was fully occupied in getting the machine in running order again. I had no time to spare for the contemplation of other problems. Matters which today seem important to the men involved in them, I hardly noticed. I was so busy that I was quite unaware of the day-to-day happenings other than those at the front. My new colleagues and I worked late into the night in our efforts to save the front. 

What were the actual results of the attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20th?

The man who was to be killed was in fact slightly wounded. His physical condition, not of the best beforehand, was further weakened. His spiritual equipoise was destroyed for ever. All the evil forces that lurked within him were aroused and came into their own. He recognised no limits anymore. 

If the assassination was intended seriously to affect Germany's governmental machine, then the most important officials of the Nationalist-Socialist regime should also have been eliminated. But not one of those was present when the bomb exploded. No plans had been made for the removal of Himmler, Goering, Goebbels or Bormann to name only the most important. The conspirators made no attempt to ensure they would be able to carry out their political plans in the event of the assassination succeeding.... 

.... From every point of view the results of the attempted assassination were frightful. For myself I refuse to accept murder in any form. Our Christian religion forbids it in the clearest possible terms. Apart from this religious reason, I must also say that neither the internal or external political situation was conducive to a successful coup d'etat. The preparations made were utterly inadequate, the choice of personalities to fill the principal roles incomprehensible. The driving force had originally been Dr. Goerdeler, an idealist who believed the coup d'etat could be carried out without the assassination... 

Dr. Goerdeler had also decided on the choice of the majority of the people destined by the conspirators to hold office in the new government. He had drawn up lists of names in this connection which, through his own carelessness, fell into the hands of the Gestapo. The character of Colonel-General Beck, who was to have been Head of the State, I have already described at sufficient lengths. His behaviour on 20th July proved that my previous opinion of him was correct. Field Marshal von Witzleben was a sick man. He hated Hitler with a burning hatred, but lacked the determination necessary to carry out a military putsch in such critical and difficult circumstances..."

Notes:

Passage taken from Panzer Leader, the Autobiography of General Heinz Guderian - master of the Blitzkrieg and father of modern tank warfare - commanded the German XIX Army Corps as it rampaged across Poland in 1939 (and France in 1940).

General Heinz Guderian, Commander German 19th Army Corps. Picture Credit: Wikipedia.

Book Review. A Great Perhaps? Colombia: Conflict and Convergence.

“Always remember that the most important thing in a good marriage is not happiness, but stability” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombian Author.

Myself with two of the authors - Dickie Davis and David Kilcullen - at the book launch in London.

On 16 May 2016, I attended the A Great Perhaps? London Book Launch at the Royal United Services Institute, Whitehall. I did not manage to engage in the actual discussion myself because, up to then, my knowledge of Colombia was very limited. But this has since changed after I managed to finish reading this book in a record 4 days, despite my other commitments. I now know enough to have a competent discussion on Colombia, as this book has illuminated a part of the globe that was previously dark to me. 

The book is very readable (and accessible) even to a non-academic readership. I have sometimes read books that are quite useless to the policy-maker as they are laden with high sounding academic premises and analyses that have no relation with reality, the type that is often referred to by the shorthand - “ivory tower speculation.” This book avoids that pitfall. The authors have military backgrounds in counterinsurgency campaigns such as the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan and, therefore, manage to get the balance right between academic premise and practicality. A Great Perhaps? thus succeeds in its main stated aim, that is, to furnish the policy-maker with actionable intelligence insofar as it explains the dynamics of Colombia’s conflict, and what lessons can be drawn from them by African governments.

The whole of government approach (Defence, Development, Diplomacy) is emphasized as the solution to Colombia’s problems, and the book finds endorsement from African leaders such as Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya), Donald Kaberuka (African Development Bank), and Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria). I presume they have read the book, Obasanjo certainly, for he wrote the foreword and was involved in the project. Lessons learnt from Afghanistan and Iraq have proved what should have been obvious all along, that: even a military with an annual budget of over $700 billion may not win against a rag tag militia. Military power alone does not solve conflict, attention has to be paid to the political and socio-economic issues as well if success is to be attained. This is the important lesson that comes from this book for the policy-maker.

But, dismayingly, the book also highlights that there are people known as ‘conflict entrepreneurs’ who may have no interest in peace because they benefit from the war economy. These conflict entrepreneurs can be found in the government as well in the insurgencies and will not be enticed by the prospects of peace. A further disheartening point is that even if peace is negotiated successfully in Colombia, it may actually sow the seeds of the next conflict. From reading this book, the advice I would give to any African countries is that, if they can help it, they should never open the door to war, as once war starts, it has logics of its own which defy human control.

The main weakness of this book is that although it mentions the 'dual economy’ in Colombia, the racial differences, the need for land reform, the marginalisation of indigenous people, human rights abuses by the government and other genuine grievances, the authors were hosted by the Colombian government and the book is essentially written from the point of view of the government. The story of the poor, the marginalised, and the disenfranchised who fight on the side of FARC is not given its own voice. But this is excusable because these authors are former military men and advise “legitimate” governments all over the world. This defect in their book can be easily corrected by picking up the works of FARC sympathisers, to which I am certain there is no law against. 

David Kilcullen et al (2016). A Great Perhaps? Colombia: Conflict And Convergence. London: C. Hurst & Co. Publishers.

My copy, signed by two of the authors.

Zimbabwe's Coming Civil War: A Cadmean Victory

Great Zimbabwe, the ruins near Masvingo where Zimbabwe draws its name from. Picture Credit: Great Zimbabwe University.

"Make us enemies of every people on earth, but save us from civil war" - Lucan: Bellum Civile, c. 48

I attended a discussion at Oxford University on reforming the security sector in Zimbabwe, and the general gist of the discussion led me to believe that "reform" was actually a euphemism for "weakening the security services." A respected academic no less, said to me, in confidence; "the problem in Zimbabwe is how to get arms of war to the general population." That's what he said to me.

Well, history is philosophy teaching by examples. The Security Sector Reform discussion I attended was held before the examples we now have of Syria, Yemen and Libya. What these examples have incontrovertibly shown us is that a civil war can only result in a Cadmean Victory - a victory purchased with one's own ruin.