International records / OpenAlex research

Undoing military coups in Africa

In assuming political power, bloodily or bloodlessly, the military are throwing off civilian control. They are thus in a very practical way denying the validity of Carl von Clausewitz's well known dictum in his book On War, published in 1832, where he maintains that the 'subordination of the military point of view to the political is ... the only thing which is possible. The lessons of African experience over the last two decades do, however, suggest that long-term political development towards a stable and relatively just society in most cases depends not on subordination of one view to anoth…