Military Advising and Assistance: From Mercenaries to Privatization, 1815–2007 (review)

Ongoing military activities in Afghanistan and Iraq have given academics, policymakers, and practioners cause to investigate the role of foreign military advisors in modernizing the armed forces of client states. Professor Donald Stoker adds to this inquiry by arguing that today’s foreign military advising missions are the result of an ongoing evolutionary process beginning in the early nineteenth century. To demonstrate change over time, Stoker uses thirteen historical case studies (chapters) as “clear examples of the functioning, motives, and evolution of foreign military and naval advising in the modern era” (p. i). Each chapter, written by experts, demonstrates why a particular government sought foreign military assistance, the reasoning behind foreigners agreeing to provide such support, and the variables that affected mission success or failure. The result is a readable and informative book that achieves its aim.

Stoker’s introduction explains that the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 marks the beginning of modern foreign military assistance. The subsequent rise of the nation-state and industrialization caused governments to seek military professionalization to counter security threats. As national armed forces grew in size, lethality, and complexity, individual or small groups of mercenary advisors were unable to provide adequate instruction. Instead, powerful nation-states supplied larger and more formal foreign advising groups, often with economic or military strings attached. This pattern continued until the early 1990s, when profit-driven privatized companies entered the post-Cold War foreign advising marketplace. Corporations offered expert military instruction to clients for a fee but also with less strings. In comparing the obvious and obscure motives behind this evolution from mercenary to nation-state to corporation-based foreign advisors, Stoker groups the various post-1815 missions into six broad categories (modernization, nation-building, economic penetration, ideological goals, counterinsurgency, and corporate profit) that the subsequent book chapters serve to illustrate.

Stoker intends for this book to appeal to academics, policymakers, and practioners. Therefore, it is a true amalgamation of “ivory tower” analysis and practioner “lessons learned” that can be disconcerting to some readers. Initial chapters contain case studies written by historians scrutinizing Mehmed Ali’s Egypt from 1815–1848 and Chile’s armed forces from 1810–2005, as well as political scientists and strategists who evaluate missions in twentiethcentury Poland, the Soviet Union, South Korea, French Algeria, and South Vietnam. Those cases feature solid, academic work based extensively upon primary source documents. The last two chapters concerning Afghanistan and Iraq also feature primary source documents and substantial academic rigor. A few chapters (Cold War counterinsurgency, advising in Colombia, training an Afghani tank force, and USMC/Iraqi operations in Fallujah), are more personal recollections with few scholarly citations. The private insights are very useful, however, for they offer access into the often impenetrable world of United States government foreign policy and serve to enlighten readers as to how policy was interpreted and ultimately executed on the ground.

Stoker’s book is a welcome addition to a sparse collection of works on foreign military advising. The select bibliography will be especially useful for scholars. Cass Military Studies, however, has unfortunately priced this book for library or institutional use.