“OSAMAGATE”

12 04 2009

I THOUGHT THAT THIS MIGHT BE A GOOD TIME TO REVISIT AN OLD FAVORITE BY MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY. WHEN I TRIED TO ACCESS IT, MY COMPUTER CRASHED, EVERY TIME. I FINALLY HAD TO GET THERE VIA THE “HIDDEN ACCESS” SITE I KEEP RECOMMENDING TO YOU. SOMEBODY DOESN’T WANT US TO READ THIS. (DON’T FORGET AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE’S HAND IN THE BALKANS, NOW THAT HE IS POINT MAN FOR THE DISMEMBERMENT OF PAKISTAN.)

“Now the Taliban will pay a price” vowed President George W. Bush, as American and British fighter planes unleashed missile attacks against major cities in Afghanistan. The US Administration claims that Osama bin Laden is behind the tragic events of the 11th of September. A major war supposedly “against international terrorism” has been launched, yet the evidence amply confirms that agencies of the US government have since the Cold War harbored the “Islamic Militant Network” as part of Washington’s foreign policy agenda. In a bitter irony, the US Air Force is targeting the training camps established in the 1980s by the CIA.

The main justification for waging this war has been totally fabricated. The American people have been deliberately and consciously misled by their government into supporting a major military adventure which affects our collective future.

“OSAMAGATE”

by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa

Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal
Posted at globalresearch.ca 9 October 2001

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Confronted with mounting evidence, the US Administration can no longer deny its links to Osama. While the CIA admits that Osama bin Laden was an “intelligence asset” during the Cold War, the relationship is said to “go way back”. Most news reports consider that these Osama-CIA links belong to the “bygone era” of the Soviet-Afghan war. They are invariably viewed as “irrelevant” to an understanding of present events. Lost in the barrage of recent history, the role of the CIA in supporting and developing international terrorist organisations during the Cold war and its aftermath is casually ignored or downplayed by the Western media.

Yes, We did support Him, but “He Went Against Us”

A blatant example of media distortion is the so-called “blowback” thesis: “intelligence assets” are said to “have gone against their sponsors”; “what we’ve created blows back in our face.”1 In a twisted logic, the US government and the CIA are portrayed as the ill-fated victims:

The sophisticated methods taught to the Mujahideen, and the thousands of tons of arms supplied to them by the US - and Britain - are now tormenting the West in the phenomenon known as `blowback’, whereby a policy strategy rebounds on its own devisers. 2

The US media, nonetheless, concedes that “the Taliban’s coming to power [in 1995] is partly the outcome of the U.S. support of the Mujahideen, the radical Islamic group, in the 1980s in the war against the Soviet Union”.3 But it also readily dismisses its own factual statements and concludes in chorus, that the CIA had been tricked by a deceitful Osama. It’s like “a son going against his father”.

The “blowback” thesis is a fabrication. The evidence amply confirms that the CIA never severed its ties to the “Islamic Militant Network”. Since the end of the Cold War, these covert intelligence links have not only been maintained, they have in become increasingly sophisticated.

New undercover initiatives financed by the Golden Crescent drug trade were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus (controlled by the CIA) essentially “served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia.” 4

Replicating the Iran Contragate Pattern

Remember Ollie North and the Nicaraguan Contras under the Reagan Administration when weapons financed by the drug trade were channeled to “freedom fighters” in Washington’s covert war against the Sandinista government. The same pattern was used in the Balkans to arm and equip the Mujahideen fighting in the ranks of the Bosnian Muslim army against the Armed Forces of the Yugoslav Federation.

Throughout the 1990s, the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was used by the CIA as a go-between — to channel weapons and Mujahideen mercenaries to the Bosnian Muslim Army in the civil war in Yugoslavia. According to a report of the London based International Media Corporation:

“Reliable sources report that the United States is now [1994] actively participating in the arming and training of the Muslim forces of Bosnia-Herzegovina in direct contravention of the United Nations accords. US agencies have been providing weapons made in … China (PRC), North Korea (DPRK) and Iran. The sources indicated that … Iran, with the knowledge and agreement of the US Government, supplied the Bosnian forces with a large number of multiple rocket launchers and a large quantity of ammunition. These included 107mm and 122mm rockets from the PRC, and VBR-230 multiple rocket launchers … made in Iran. … It was [also] reported that 400 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) arrived in Bosnia with a large supply of arms and ammunition. It was alleged that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had full knowledge of the operation and that the CIA believed that some of the 400 had been detached for future terrorist operations in Western Europe.

During September and October [1994], there has been a stream of “Afghan” Mujahedin … covertly landed in Ploce, Croatia (South-West of Mostar) from where they have traveled with false papers … before deploying with the Bosnian Muslim forces in the Kupres, Zenica and Banja Luka areas. These forces have recently [late 1994] experienced a significant degree of military success. They have, according to sources in Sarajevo, been aided by the UNPROFOR Bangladesh battalion, which took over from a French battalion early in September [1994].

The Mujahedin landing at Ploce are reported to have been accompanied by US Special Forces equipped with high-tech communications equipment, … The sources said that the mission of the US troops was to establish a command, control, communications and intelligence network to coordinate and support Bosnian Muslim offensives — in concert with Mujahideen and Bosnian Croat forces — in Kupres, Zenica and Banja Luka. Some offensives have recently been conducted from within the UN-established safe-havens in the Zenica and Banja Luka regions.

(…)

The US Administration has not restricted its involvement to the clandestine contravention of the UN arms embargo on the region … It [also] committed three high-ranking delegations over the past two years [prior to 1994] in failed attempts to bring the Yugoslav Government into line with US policy. Yugoslavia is the only state in the region to have failed to acquiesce to US pressure.5

“From the Horse’s Mouth”

Ironically, the US Administration’s undercover military-intelligence operations in Bosnia have been fully documented by the Republican Party. A lengthy Congressional report by the Republican Party Committee (RPC) published in 1997, largely confirms the International Media Corporation report quoted above. The RPC Congressional report accuses the Clinton administration of having “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base” leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world:

Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission - and more importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia - is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.

(…)

Along with the weapons, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK intelligence operatives entered Bosnia in large numbers, along with thousands of mujahedin (”holy warriors”) from across the Muslim world. Also engaged in the effort were several other Muslim countries (including Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey) and a number of radical Muslim organizations. For example, the role of one Sudan-based “humanitarian organization,” called the Third World Relief Agency, has been well documented. The Clinton Administration’s “hands-on” involvement with the Islamic network’s arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials… the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization … has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. … TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [Washington Post, 9/22/96] 6

Complicity of the Clinton Administration

In other words, the Republican Party Committee report confirms unequivocally the complicity of the Clinton Administration with several Islamic fundamentalist organisations including Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

The Republicans wanted at the time to undermine the Clinton Administration. However, at a time when the entire country had its eyes riveted on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Republicans no doubt chose not to trigger an untimely “Iran-Bosniagate” affair, which might have unduly diverted public attention away from the Lewinsky scandal. The Republicans wanted to impeach Bill Clinton “for having lied to the American People” regarding his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the more substantive “foreign policy lies” regarding drug running and covert operations in the Balkans, Democrats and Republicans agreed in unison, no doubt pressured by the Pentagon and the CIA not to “spill the beans”.

From Bosnia to Kosovo

The “Bosnian pattern” described in the 1997 Congressional RPC report was replicated in Kosovo. With the complicity of NATO and the US State Department. Mujahideen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia were recruited to fight in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort.

Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with “former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain's 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies”.7

The US DIA approached MI6 to arrange a training programme for the KLA, said a senior British military source. `MI6 then sub-contracted the operation to two British security companies, who in turn approached a number of former members of the (22 SAS) regiment. Lists were then drawn up of weapons and equipment needed by the KLA.’ While these covert operations were continuing, serving members of 22 SAS Regiment, mostly from the unit’s D Squadron, were first deployed in Kosovo before the beginning of the bombing campaign in March. 8

While British SAS Special Forces in bases in Northern Albania were training the KLA, military instructors from Turkey and Afghanistan financed by the “Islamic jihad” were collaborating in training the KLA in guerilla and diversion tactics.9:

Bin Laden had visited Albania himself. He was one of several fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in Kosovo, … Bin Laden is believed to have established an operation in Albania in 1994 … Albanian sources say Sali Berisha, who was then president, had links with some groups that later proved to be extreme fundamentalists. 10

Congressional Testimonies on KLA-Osama links

According to Frank Ciluffo of the Globalized Organised Crime Program, in a testimony presented to the House of Representatives Judicial Committee:

What was largely hidden from public view was the fact that the KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart of the “Balkan Route” that links the “Golden Crescent” of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth an estimated $400 billion a year and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for Europe. 11

According to Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence division also in a testimony to the House Judicial Committee:

The U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organization, indicating that it was financing its operations with money from the international heroin trade and loans from Islamic countries and individuals, among them allegedly Usama bin Laden” . Another link to bin Laden is the fact that the brother of a leader in an Egyptian Jihad organization and also a military commander of Usama bin Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict. 12

Madeleine Albright Covets the KLA

These KLA links to international terrorism and organised crime documented by the US Congress were totally ignored by the Clinton Administration. In fact, in the months preceding the bombing of Yugoslavia, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was busy building a “political legitimacy” for the KLA. The paramilitary army had –from one day to the next– been elevated to the status of a bona fide “democratic” force in Kosovo. In turn, Madeleine Albright has forced the pace of international diplomacy: the KLA had been spearheaded into playing a central role in the failed “peace negotiations” at Rambouiillet in early 1999.

The Senate and the House tacitly endorse State Terrorism

While the various Congressional reports confirmed that the US government had been working hand in glove with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, this did not prevent the Clinton and later the Bush Administration from arming and equipping the KLA. The Congressional documents also confirm that members of the Senate and the House knew the relationship of the Administration to international terrorism. To quote the statement of Rep. John Kasich of the House Armed Services Committee: “We connected ourselves [in 1998-99] with the KLA, which was the staging point for bin Laden…” 13

In the wake of the tragic events of September 11, Republicans and Democrats in unison have given their full support to the President to “wage war on Osama”.

In 1999, Senator Jo Lieberman had stated authoritatively that “Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.” In the hours following the October 7 missile attacks on Afghanistan, the same Jo Lieberman called for punitive air strikes against Iraq: “We’re in a war against terrorism… We can’t stop with bin Laden and the Taliban.” Yet Senator Jo Lieberman, as member of the Armed Services Committee of the Senate had access to all the Congressional documents pertaining to “KLA-Osama” links. In making this statement, he was fully aware that that agencies of the US government as well as NATO were supporting international terrorism.

The War in Macedonia

In the wake of the 1999 war in Yugoslavia, the terrorist activities of the KLA were extended into Southern Serbia and Macedonia. Meanwhile, the KLA –renamed the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC)– was elevated to United Nations status, implying the granting of “legitimate” sources of funding through United Nations as well as through bilateral channels, including direct US military aid.

And barely two months after the official inauguration of the KPC under UN auspices (September 1999), KPC-KLA commanders - using UN resources and equipment - were already preparing the assaults into Macedonia, as a logical follow-up to their terrorist activities in Kosovo. According to the Skopje daily Dnevnik, the KPC had established a “sixth operation zone” in Southern Serbia and Macedonia:

Sources, who insist on anonymity, claim that the headquarters of the Kosovo protection brigades [i.e. linked to the UN sponsored KPC] have [March 2000] already been formed in Tetovo, Gostivar and Skopje. They are being prepared in Debar and Struga [on the border with Albania] as well, and their members have defined codes. 14

According to the BBC, “Western special forces were still training the guerrillas” meaning that they were assisting the KLA in opening up “a sixth operation zone” in Southern Serbia and Macedonia. 15

“The Islamic Militant Network” and NATO join hands in Macedonia

Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting in Macedonia (October 2001) in the ranks of self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), are Mujahideen from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Also within the KLA’s proxy force in Macedonia are senior US military advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon as well as “soldiers of fortune” from Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army. 16

Extensively documented by the Macedonian press and statements of the Macedonian authorities, the US government and the “Islamic Militant Network” are working hand in glove in supporting and financing the self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), involved in the terrorist attacks in Macedonia. The NLA is a proxy of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In turn the KLA and the UN sponsored Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) are identical institutions with the same commanders and military personnel. KPC Commanders on UN salaries are fighting in the NLA together with the Mujahideen.

In a bitter twist, while supported and financed by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, the KLA-NLA is also supported by NATO and the United Nations mission to Kosovo (UNMIK). In fact, the “Islamic Militant Network” –also using Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) as the CIA’s go-between– still constitutes an integral part of Washington’s covert military-intelligence operations in Macedonia and Southern Serbia.

The KLA-NLA terrorists are funded from US military aid, the United Nations peace-keeping budget as well as by several Islamic organisations including Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Drug money is also being used to finance the terrorists with the complicity of the US government. The recruitment of Mujahideen to fight in the ranks of the NLA in Macedonia is implemented through various Islamic groups.

US military advisers mingle with Mujahideen within the same paramilitary force, Western mercenaries from NATO countries fight alongside Mujahideen recruited in the Middle East and Central Asia. And the US media calls this a “blowback” where so-called “intelligence assets” have gone against their sponsors!

But this did not happen during the Cold war! It is happening right now in Macedonia. And it is confirmed by numerous press reports, eyewitness accounts, photographic evidence as well as official statements by the Macedonian Prime Minister, who has accused the Western military alliance of supporting the terrorists. Moreover, the official Macedonian New Agency (MIA) has pointed to the complicity between Washington’s envoy Ambassador James Pardew and the NLA terrorists. 17 In other words, the so-called “intelligence assets” are still serving the interests of their US sponsors.

Pardew’s background is revealing in this regard. He started his Balkans career in 1993 as a senior intelligence officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff responsible for channeling US aid to the Bosnian Muslim Army. Coronel Pardew had been put in charge of arranging the “air-drops” of supplies to Bosnian forces. At the time, these “air drops” were tagged as “civilian aid”. It later transpired –confirmed by the RPC Congressional report– that the US had violated the arms embargo. And James Pardew played an important role as part of the team of intelligence officials working closely with the Chairman of the National Security Council Anthony Lake.

Pardew was later involved in the Dayton negotiations (1995) on behalf of the US Defence Department. In 1999, prior to the bombing of Yugoslavia, he was appointed “Special Representative for Military Stabilisation and Kosovo Implementation” by President Clinton. One of his tasks was to channel support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which at the time was also being supported by Osama bin Laden. Pardew was in this regard instrumental in replicating the “Bosnian pattern” in Kosovo and subsequently in Macedonia…

Justification for Waging War

The Bush Administration has stated that it has proof that Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. In the words of British Prime Minister Tony Blair: “I have seen absolutely powerful and incontrovertible evidence of his [Osama] link to the events of the 11th of September.” 18 What Tony Blair fails to mention is that agencies of the US government including the CIA continue to “harbor” Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

A major war supposedly “against international terrorism” has been launched by a government which is harboring international terrorism as part of its foreign policy agenda. In other words, the main justification for waging war has been totally fabricated. The American people have been deliberately and consciously misled by their government into supporting a major military adventure which affects our collective future.

This decision to mislead the American people was taken barely a few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. Without supporting evidence, Osama had already been tagged as the “prime suspect.” Two days later on Thursday the 13th of September –while the FBI investigations had barely commenced– President Bush pledged to “lead the world to victory”. The Administration confirmed its intention to embark on “a sustained military campaign rather than a single dramatic action” directed against Osama bin Laden. 19 In addition to Afghanistan, a number of countries in the Middle East were mentioned as possible targets including Iraq, Iran, Libya and the Sudan. And several prominent US political figures and media pundits have demanded that the air strikes be extended to other countries “which harbour international terrorism.” According to intelligence sources, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda has operations in some 50 to 60 countries providing ample pretext to intervene in several “rogue states” in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Moreover, the entire US Legislature –with only one honest and courageous dissenting voice in the House of Representatives– has tacitly endorsed the Administration’s decision to go war. Members of the House and the Senate have access through the various committees to official confidential reports and intelligence documents which prove beyond doubt that agencies of the US government have ties to international terrorism. They cannot say “we did not know”. In fact, most of this evidence is in the public domain.

Under the historical resolution of the US Congress adopted by both the House and the Senate on the 14th of September:

The president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Whereas there is no evidence that agencies of the US government “aided the terrorist attacks” on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, there is ample and detailed evidence that agencies of the US government as well as NATO, have since the end of the Cold War continued to “harbor such organizations”.

Patriotism cannot be based on a falsehood, particularly when it constitutes a pretext for waging war and killing innocent civilians.

Ironically, the text of the Congressional resolution also constitutes a “blowback” against the US sponsors of international terrorism. The resolution does not exclude the conduct of an “Osamagate” inquiry, as well as appropriate actions against agencies and/or individuals of the US government, who may have collaborated with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. And the evidence indelibly points directly to the Bush Administration.

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Notes

1. United Press International (UPI), 15 September 2001.
2. The Guardian, London, 15 September 2001.
3. UPI, op cit,
4. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, Centre for Research on Globalisation, 12 September 2001, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html.
5. International Media Corporation Defense and Strategy Policy, US Commits Forces, Weapons to Bosnia, London, 31 October 1994.
6. Congressional Press Release, Republican Party Committee (RPC), US Congress, Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base, 16 January 1997, available on the website of the Centre of Research on Globalisation (CRG) at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html. The original document is on the website of the US Senate Republican Party Committee (Senator Larry Craig), at http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm)
7. The Scotsman, Glasgow, 29 August 1999.
8. Ibid.
9. Truth in Media, Kosovo in Crisis, Phoenix, Arizona, 2 April 1999
10. Sunday Times, London, 29 November 1998.
11. US Congress, Testimony of Frank J. Cilluffo , Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime, Program director to the House Judiciary Committee, 13 December 2000.
12. US Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence Division, to the House Judicial Committee, 13 December 2000.
13. US Congress, Transcripts of the House Armed Services Committee, 5 October 1999,
14. Macedonian Information Centre Newsletter, Skopje, 21 March 2000, published by BBC Summary of World Broadcast, 24 March 2000.
15. BBC, 29 January 2001, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1142000/1142478.stm)
16. Scotland on Sunday, Glasgow, 15 June 2001 at http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/text_only.cfm?id=SS01025960, see also UPI, 9 July 2001. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Washington behind Terrorist Assaults in Macedonia, Centre for Research on Globalisation, August 2001, at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO108B.html.)
17. Macedonian Information Agency (MIA), 26 September 2001, available at the Centre for Research on Globalisation at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MNA110A.html
18. Quoted in The Daily Telegraph, London, 1 October 2001.
19. Statement by official following the speech by President George Bush on 14 September 2001 quoted in the International Herald Tribune, Paris, 14 September 2001.

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Richard Bradshaw, “A Review of Mercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations, by Sarah Percy,” Mercenary Matters, February 2009 (continuing Mercenaries and Norms, January 2009)

Chapter 1 of Percy’s Mercenaries, entitled “Norms, Their Influence, and How They Can Be Studied,” provides a useful overview of how scholars supporting various theoretical positions have analyzed issues relating to mercenaries, but unfortunately it bases its own argument in favor of the constructivist viewpoint on inaccurate historical evidence. Percy explains that scholars generally agree about what a norm is but differ over whether and to what degree norms influence the behavior of states. She compares the “rationalist” views of structural realists, who argue that norms “have no independent effect on state behavior,” [1] with the also “rationalist” approach of neoliberals, who regard the role of norms as “limited or instrumental” but that might create a “cost” which a state needs to consider in making a decision.[2] Then she compares these views to those of constructivists who insist that norms “are crucial to explaining politics because they constitute state identity, and therefore interests.”[3] Since the interests of states regarding “the desirability of deploying private force have changed enormously, in ways that cannot be accounted for by material factors,” Percy argues, “norms against mercenary use can help explain how state interests on the question of private force have changed and if they are likely to remain the same.”[4]

According to constructivists, international law “actually reflects norms.” Norms often have an ethical component, and the anti-mercenary in particular “has a strong ethical component.” Norms also “shape what states define as their interests” and “set the rules of the game.”[5] Percy thus rejects the claim of structural realists who insist that states determine their interests by examining the distribution of power in an international system and act accordingly. But when she offers an example to illustrate how norms influence the behavior of states, Percy repeats conventional and inaccurate historical views which no well-read student of the American Revolution would credit. She states that during the American Revolution, the rebels defined their new state as a republic which was “doubly virtuous” because it depended upon a citizen army and it fought against mercenaries. To have used mercenaries “would have been difficult because it would have been deeply at odds with American identity.”[6] In fact, the American rebels began engaging Indian auxiliaries even before the clash at Lexington and Concord, the Continental army employed European soldiers of fortune and included several foreign legions, and citizen-soldier militiamen and provincial troops soon became less important than a standing army increasingly composed of foreigners, paid substitutes, slaves, and other poor and marginal members of colonial societies.[7]

In July 1775, Ethan Allen of Vermont sent a message to the Iroquois in which he promised that if their warriors would join with him “like Brothers and Ambush the Regulars,” he would “Give you Money Blankets Tomehawks Knives and Paint and the Like as much as you say…”[8] On 19 April 1776, George Washington wrote a letter to the president of the Continental Congress in which he asserted “it will be impossible to keep” the American Indians “in a state of neutrality” and so “I submit to congress, whether it will not be better immediately to engage them on our side.”[9] On 28 May 1776, the day after George Washington arrived in Philadelphia for consultation regarding military matters, Congress resolved “that it is highly expedient to engage the Indians in the service of the United Colonies.” On 3 June Washington was authorized to employ two thousand Canadian Indians, and on 14 June the Congress’s commissioners of the northern department were authorized “to engage the Six Nations in our interest on the best terms that can be procured.” In other words, the commissioners were to employ Indians at the best price possible. On 17 June Washington was authorized “to offer a reward of one hundred dollars for every commissioned officer, and thirty dollars for every private soldier of the King’s troops that they should take prisoners in the Indian country on in the frontier of these colonies.”[10]

Nevertheless, with a view of soliciting sympathy for their cause, the Americans decided to address an open letter to the people of Ireland in which they complained that “the wild and barbarous savages of the wilderness have been solicited by gifts to take up the hatchet against us, and instigated to deluge our settlements with the blood of defenseless women and children.”[11]

An early as the 1840s, historian Jared Sparks remarked that:

During the former wars in America between the English and the French, it has been customary on each side to solicit aid from Indians, and employ them as auxiliaries. Such had been uniform practice of the first settlement of the country, and it was to be presumed that the same system would be pursued in the Revolution…[12]

Then, alluding to the ferocity and savagery of the Indians, the Sparks added:

it is no wonder that the policy of seeking their alliance, or even permitting there any, should be regarded by every friend of humanity with unqualified reprobation. Writers of all parties have united in condemning the practice, so unjustifiable in itself, and so hostile to the principles of civilization, while at the same time belligerents of all parties have continued to follow it, even down to the late war [of 1812] between England and the United States….It has been usual in America to represent the English is much the more censurable on this score in the revolutionary war….But such is not the equitable mode of touching on the subject… historical justice must award to the Americans their due share of the blame. [13]

To paraphrase this passage in the language of contemporary international relations theory, despite the existence of a strong norm against employing mercenaries, the Americans used mercenaries from the moment they stepped ashore in Virginia, and continued to do so through the French and Indian Wars, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812. Clearly it was not “difficult” to employ mercenaries even if it was “deeply at odds with American identity.”[14]

Despite the fact that “writers of all parties” were “united in condemning the practice” of hiring mercenaries, which was “so hostile to the principles of civilization,” the establishment and expansion of British colonies in the Americas was assisted, at every stage, by the employment of mercenaries.[15] John Smith of Jamestown fame was “by trade a mercenary, a soldier of fortune,”[16] and even the Pilgrims who established a colony at Plymouth Rock took the precaution of hiring Miles Standish, “the Hero of New England,” as a military contractor before setting sail.[17] Lion Gardiner, an English soldier employed as mercenary by the Prince of Orange, was hired by the Connecticut Company as a military contractor in 1635, and became the first British settler of New York. Captain John Underhill worked as a military contractor for both Massachusetts Bay Colony and for New Amsterdam under the Dutch.[18]

Recently, again, historian Daniel Marston noted that:

The fact that German troops for you as part of the British Army in North America called great consternation amongst the American colonial population and like-minded people in Great Britain. Their presence has historically been given as a reason why the American people dislike and distrust mercenaries. This is a simplistic and somewhat critical argument, especially considering that the American commanders apparently had no qualms about accepting the services of various soldiers of fortune from Europe.[19]

Marston added that some of these European soldiers of fortune, “notably Frederick William Augustus, Baron von Steuben and Guilbert Mottier, Marquis de Layfayette, played instrumental roles in the development of the Continental Army and were accordingly awarded high-ranking positions.” He also noted the existence of several “foreign” legions fighting for the Americans, “including Pulaski’s Legion, Von Heer’s Provost Corps and Brigadier-General Charles Tuffin Armand’s Independent Chasseurs.”[20]

Additionally, once the French officially entered the war as allies of the Americans, the French forces employed considerable number of mercenary troops within their ranks. Nearly one-fifth of the French Army in France and overseas was made up of foreign [mercenary] troops; the famous Lauzon Legion, which served with distinction in the American colonies, was made up of foreigners whose word of command was German.[21]

As for the Revolutionary military officers, in 1777 John Adams complained to his wife Abigail that they were “Scrambling for Rank and Pay like Apes for Nuts.”[22]

[1] J.J. Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security 19, 3 (1994-5): 7, Percy, Mercenaries, 15.

[2] N. Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009?), Percy, Mercenaries, 16.

[3] Percy, Mercenaries, 17, citing M. Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention,” in P.J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identities in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), J.T. Checkel, “The Constructivist Turn in International Relations Theory,” World Politics 50, 2 (1998), 326, and A. Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 21.

[4] Percy, Mercenaries, 17-18.

[5] Percy, Mercenaries, 18-22.

[6] Percy, Mercenaries, 25.

[7] Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington, 3 vols. (Boston: Tappan and Dennet, 1843), III, 141n; Andrew McFarland Davis, “The Employment of Indian Auxiliaries in the American War,” English Historical Review 2 (October 1887): 709-728; J.M. Sosin, “The use of Indians in the war of the American Revolution: a reassessment of responsibility,” Canadian Historical Review 46 (1965): 101-21; Richard S. Walling, “Nimham’s Indian Company of 1778: The Events Leading up to the Stockbridge Massacre of August 31, 1778,” AmericanRevolution.org, n.d., http://www.americanrevolution.org/ind2.html (accessed 26 January 2009); Wilcomb E. Washburn, “Indians and the American Revolution,” AmericanRevolution.org, http://www. American revolution.org/ind1.html; Charles Patrick Neimeyer, America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 21; John Resch, “Continental Army Veterans: From Outcasts to Icons,” Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine, 1 June 2002; Justin Ewers, “The Real Revolution,” U.S. News & World Report, 7 July 2008, 40-42; Robert K. Wright, Jr. “‘Nor Is Their Standing Army To Be Despised’: The Emergence of the Continental Army as a Military Institution,” in Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds., Arms and Independence: The Military Character of the American Revolution (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, for the United States Capitol Historical Society, 1984), 69.

[8] Barbara Graymont, The Iroquois in the American Revolution” (Syracuse, NY: 1972), 68.

[9] Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington, 3 vols. (Boston: Tappan and Dennet, 1843), III, 261-63; Andrew McFarland Davis, “The Employment of Indian Auxiliaries in the American War,” English Historical Review 2 (October 1887): 709-728, at 721.

[10] Quotes from Davis, “Indian Auxiliaries,” 721.

[11] Quoted in Davis, “Indian Auxiliaries,” 722.

[12] Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington, 3 vols. (Boston: Tappan and Dennet, 1843), III, 141n.

[13] Jared Sparks, The Life of George Washington, 3 vols. (Boston: Tappan and Dennet, 1843), III, 141n.

[14] Percy, Mercenaries, 25.

[15] Regarding the motives of the colonists, see Susan Ronald, The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2007).

[16] William L. Shea, The Virginia Militia in the Seventeenth Century (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983), 10.

[17] Susan Martin Miller, Miles Standish: Plymouth Colony Leader (Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2000), 8-11.

[18] Luke, “Captain John Underhill,” 3.

[19] Daniel Marston, The American Revolution, 1774-1783 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2003), 20.

[20] Daniel Marston, The American Revolution, 1774-1783 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2003), 20.

[21] Daniel Marston, The American Revolution, 1774-1783 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2003), 20-21.

[22] Joseph J. Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), 45. Also see Historical Papers and Addresses of the Lancaster County Historical Society (Lancaster, PA: Lancaster County Historical Society, 1918), 115; John K. Robertson and Bob McDonald, “A Brief Profile of the Continental Army,” The Revolutionary War, 1999-2008, http://www.revwar75.com/ob/army1781.htm

Mercenaries and Norms

Richard Bradshaw, “A Review of Mercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations, by Sarah Percy,” Mercenary Matters, 25 January 2009

Sarah Percy’s book claims to be a history of the proscriptive norm against (or general moral objection to) the use of mercenaries. Its argument that “the anti-mercenary norm has restricted state use of mercenaries” is intended to contribute to the theoretical debate about how norms influence the behavior of states and “to provide a practical guide for policymakers.”[1] In terms of international relations theory, it adopts a constructivist approach which emphasizes the importance of socially constructed ideas rather than immutable human nature and thus it criticizes the arguments of realists regarding the reasons for employing citizen-soldiers rather than mercenaries. It is a book with many merits which will be discussed in subsequent posts, but its historical depth and geographical scope are both disappointing and its basic argument is unconvincing. This post provides a critique of the book’s basic aims and arguments.

“Mercenaries,” the book begins, “are part of the fabric of the history of war,” and “as long as there have been mercenaries, there has been a norm against mercenary use.” [2] This may be true, but Percy does not in fact examine the existence of this norm since the earliest objections to the use of mercenaries were expressed, but focuses instead on the evolution of a norm in Europe since the 12th century CE. Taking issue with those who have argued that using mercenaries came to be “considered a moral problem” at the time of the French Revolution or as late as the twentieth century,[3] she argues that the “ethical objection” which “lies at the centre of the norm against mercenaries has been present in essentially the same form from the Middle Ages until today.” Since that time, Percy suggests, there have been “two shifts away from mercenary use,” one between the fifteen and seventeenth centuries CE, and another in the nineteenth century. [4]

What about objections to the use of mercenaries raised by writers since antiquity and in the rest of the world? Percy notes that war has been waged “by soldiers of fortune since classical Greece and Rome,”[5] but she ignores arguments about of the use of mercenaries by Greek and Roman who clearly influenced those with “ethical objections” to the use of mercenaries in Europe ever since. Greek philosophers, orators, playwrights and artists all began a debate about the proper role and character of soldiers which, in turn, influenced Roman writers such as Livy who were such an important influence on Renaissance humanists such as Machiavelli.[6] Any historical study of anti-mercenary norms should at least acknowledge and summarize ideas that Socrates, Plato, Isocrates, New Comedy playwrights such as Menander, Diodorus, Polybius and others expressed about citizen-soldiers and professional troops.[7]

Percy also ignores arguments about the use of mercenaries in other parts of the world. The mandarins of ancient China trained in Confucian classics, the ancient Indian political economist Kautilya, [8] the so-called Indian Machiavelli, and the Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun all discussed the employment of mercenaries.[9] Percy demonstrates no knowledge of the existence of such arguments throughout most of history and most of the world. The depth and breadth of her historical research is disappointing.

For over two thousand years, Chinese mandarins trained in the Confucian classics often shared an ideological preference for conscription of farmers rather than the employment of foreigners to fill the ranks of the Middle Kingdom’s armies, but despite this, they very frequently employed nomadic warriors from their borderlands during times of crisis, or whenever they felt it was necessary, regardless of idealistic norms.[10] Even in the mid-nineteenth century, when Chinese court officials dreamed of raising hundreds of thousands of farmer-soldiers to fight the Taiping rebels, hard-headed realists such as Zeng Guofan realized the need to employ well-trained, well-paid troops rather than temporarily mustered militias, and it was with these professional troops whose loyalty was primarily to their paymasters rather than to the Chinese state, who were most effective in defeating the huge Taiping armies. In cities like Shanghai, merchants and other wealthy notables employed foreign mercenaries to establish what came to be called “The Ever Victorious Army,” which also played an important part in defeating the Taiping rebels.

What impact did the anti-mercenary norm of Chinese mandarins have on the composition of the armies in the nineteenth century? It delayed an effective response to the almost fatal threat to the Taiping army, and it failed to prevent a switch from reliance on almost completely ineffective hereditary soldiers and amateur militiamen to well-paid local or foreign mercenary soldiers. At the turn of the twentieth century, the venerable ‘founding father’ of both Communist China and Taiwan, Sun Yatsen, used money collected from numerous overseas Chinese communities to hire mercenaries to launch numerous attacks on Chinese imperial outposts that he hoped would spark a revolution. After the 1911 Revolution finally toppled the Qing dynasty, Sun Yatsen felt compelled to employ mercenaries once again to establish and maintain a local government in southern China which he hoped to use as a base to unite China again, in the form of a republic. It was only when the Chinese communists finally united the country in 1949-50 and imposed a monopoly on the use of force, that the market for military labor declined sharply in China.

The anti-mercenary norm of Chinese mandarins has never effectively or permanently prevented the use of professional soldiers or mercenaries during crises in Chinese history. When new dynasties won ‘the Mandate of Heaven’ and expanded to impose their monopoly on the use of force over large territories, or when governments face serious rebellions, they frequently used mercenaries. Once empires stopped expanding and stability was achieved, the employment of mercenaries diminished. When empires disintegrated, mercenaries flourished. The fluctuating use of mercenaries in the history of China, a country whose leaders have frequently shared an ideological hostility to the use of mercenaries, supports the view that, when states face military crises, anti-mercenary norms do not prevent the turn to a more realist policy of hiring whoever they can, if need be, to address the challenge at hand. To ignore such evidence and restrict one’s vision to Europe since the 12th century is very problematic, to say the least, for a book making theoretical claims about the impact of norms in international relations.

Percy acknowledges that “this norm against mercenary use has not resulted in the disappearance of mercenaries from the world stage, or even, at any point in history [!!!] an effective formal international agreement limiting their use,” but she argues that this “norm against mercenary use is crucial for our understanding of how states have chosen the type of soldier they would use to compose their armies. Without it, we cannot understand why states used mercenaries less and less,” or “why states eventually insisted upon using only their own citizens to make up their armies.”[11] But did states in general start using mercenaries less and less, and did states ever start using only using their own citizens?

Here again, Percy is clearly focusing narrowly on European states during a very limited time period. Like so many other scholars and pen-pushers, Percy perpetuates the idea that the French Revolution was as a great turning point which saw the replacement of the use of mercenaries by citizen soldiers. In the forward to her book, Lord Patten of Barnes states that “the military trade in flesh” was “abandoned” in the wake of the American and French Revolutions.[12] Percy claims as well that after the French Revolution, “For the first time in at least several hundred years, states began to fight wars using their own citizens exclusively, and foreigners disappeared from the armies of Europe.”[13] In another recent book about mercenaries, William Urban claims that at onset of the French Revolution, “an international class of officers had come to dominate the profession of war. And then, almost overnight, they vanished.” [14]

In fact the use of mercenaries declined in only a few regions of the world in the nineteenth century, notably within western Europe and India,[15] but their employment continued and often increased within the Ottoman Empire,[16] Latin America,[17] Africa,[18] China,[19] North America,[20] and Southeast Asia. Furthermore, as the employment of mercenaries declined within western Europe, thousands of European mercenaries found employment overseas and many European nations employed countless mercenaries to expand their spheres of influence and carve out colonies during the nineteenth century.[21]

It is true that in the century between 1814 to 1914, soldiers stationed in western Europe itself were generally citizens of the countries they served. The famous balance of power managed by Metternich and other European statesmen limited (but by no means eliminated) war in Europe until the outbreak of World War I. But it is misleading to say that the use of mercenaries was suddenly replaced by armies of citizen soldiers after the French Revolution. A few European nations dramatically expanded their territorial domination and economic influence throughout the world during this period, and they did so by employing foreign or non-citizen military manpower - not by restricting the manpower of their armed forces to their own citizens.

Once these European nations imposed a near-monopoly on the use of force in their conquered territories, they usually maintained a relatively small standing army composed in large part of local or other colonial subjects, and the market for military labor – and demand for mercenaries – dramatically declined. This is only one example of a pattern which is very evident in world history, namely that when a great power imposes a virtual (i.e. always imperfect) monopoly on the use of force, competition for political power and military manpower decreases, and thus the market for military labor declines. When this monopoly on the use of force disintegrates, then various contenders for power seek military more manpower to impose their local or imperial hegemony on rivals. [22]

Finally, Percy’s review of the existing literature on mercenaries is particularly disappointing. She claims that “There are only six examinations which make a serious and in-depth attempt to deal with pre-nineteenth-centuries.”[23] She cites only a few of many important studies which focus on Europe[24] and ignores significant studies of mercenaries in antiquity,[25] in Byzantium,[26] in India[27] and in Southeast Asia,[28] not to mention studies of military diasporas,[29] etc. There have in fact been a large number of publications about mercenaries in the last few decades. A simple search for “mercenary troops” on Worldcat.com turns up over 300, some of which are repeats of course, but the following sample of publications about mercenaries prior to the nineteenth century - in many languages - demonstrates why Percy’s review of the literature is so disappointing.[30]

In summary, the historical depth, geographical scope, literature review, and basic theoretical argument of this book are disappointing, but it is still an important book with many merits which will be highlighted, when appropriate, during the discussion of each chapter.

[1] Sarah Percy, Mercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 10-11.

[2] Percy, Mercenaries, 1.

[3] Percy, Mercenaries, 7.

[4] Percy, Mercenaries, 7. Also see 39.

[5] Percy, Mercenaries, 1.

[6] See Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, “Introduction,” in Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), vii-xxii.

[7] On Isocrates, see Isocrates, Panegyric, IV, 64 and 168, Philip, 5.96, Isocrates with an English Translation, trans. and ed. George Norlin (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980); on Aristotle, see Politics, V, 6, and Nichomachaean Ethics, and The Politics of Aristotle trans. Barker (Oxford: 1946); on Demosthenes, see Minor M. Markle, III, “Use of the Sarissa by Philip and Alexander of Macedon,” American Journal of Archaeology 82, 4 (Autumn 1978): 488; on Polybius, see Arthur M. Eckstein, Moral Vision in The Histories of Polybius (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); also see Deno John Geanakopolos, Byzantium: Church, Society and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 329; on mercenaries in general, see Matthew Trundle. “’Epikouroi, Xenoi and Misthophoroi in the Classical Greek World,” Humanities and Social Sciences 16, 2 (October 1998); Plutarch, The Age of Alexander, “Timoleon,” 28; on the depiction of mercenaries in Aristophanes plays, see Lionel Casson, “The Thracians,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (New Series) 35, 1 (Summer 1977): 4

[8] Roger Boesche, “Kautilya’s Arthaśāstra on War and Diplomacy in Ancient India,” The Journal of Military History 67, 1 (January 2003): 9-37; Roger Boesche, The First Great Political Realist: Kautilya and His Arthashastra (Lexington, KY: Lexington Books, 2003), 66; S.D. Chamola, Kautilya: Arthshastra and the Science of Management (Gurgaon: Hope India Publications, 2007), 49. On mercenaries in ancient India, see D. R. Bhandarkar, Lectures on the Ancient History of India from 650 - 325 B. C. (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1994), 144; Radhakumud Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times (New Delhi: South Asia Books, 1999), 165-72; S.D. Chamola, Kautilya: Arthshastra and the Science of Management (Gurgaon: Hope India Publications, 2007), 49.

[9] ʻAzīz ʻAẓmah, Ibn Khaldun: An Essay in Reinterpretation (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2003), 71, 78; Erwin Rosenthal, Ibn Khalduns Gedanken über den Staat, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Staatslehre (Munich and Berlin: R. Oldenbourg, 1932); Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, trans. Franz Rosenthal (London: 1967); Dieter Weiss, “Ibn Khaldun on Economic Transformation,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 27, 1 (February 1995): 33.

[10] “From the eighth century [CE] onward, a long-service, mercenary soldiery distinct from the farming population tended to predominate, even if the scholars sang the praises of the sturdy (and inexpensive) yeomanry of earlier times. Throughout the imperial history of China, an important role was played by specialized units recruited from among non-Han peoples both within and outside the borders of the empire; these included aboriginal infantrymen from the mountains of the south and cavalryman raised from among nomadic peoples of the steppe frontier.” (David A. Graff and Robin Higham, eds., A Military History of China [Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002], 10). Also see Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 25, 124, 177: “Historical Chinese Mercenaries & Merc Companies, Equivalent of European & other Cultures?” China History Forum, 2005-2008, www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2276;

[11] Percy, Mercenaries, 2.

[12] Lord Patten of Barnes, “Forward,” in Sarah Percy, Mercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), v.

[13] Percy, Mercenaries, 95.

[14] William Urban, Bayonets for Hire: Mercenaries at War 1550-1789 (London: Greenhill Books, 2007), 12. The coverjacket of Urban’s book states that “The old-fashioned mercenary was less common” by the mid-1700s, “but he would not disappear until swept away by the volunteer armies of the French Revolution.” Also see the discussion about the French Revolution below.

[15] See subsequent blogs

[16] James J. Reid, Crisis of the Ottoman Empire: Prelude to Collapse, 1839-1878 (Weisbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000); Peter F. Sugar “A Near-Perfect Military Society: The Ottoman Empire,” in L.L. Farar, Jr., ed. War: A Historical, Political and Social Study (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC Clio, 1978), 95-104; Friedhelm Hartwig, “Expansion, State Power and Reform: The Contest for Power in Hadhramaut in the Nineteenth Century,” in William G. Clarence-Smith and Ulrike Freitag, eds., Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s-1960s (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 35-50; Khaled Fahmy, All The Pasha’s Men: Mehmed Ali, his army and the making of modern Egypt (New York: American University in Cairo Press, 1997); John P. Dunn, “Neo-Mamluks: Mercenary talent and the failure of leadership in the army of Khedive Ismail (1863-1879),” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1996; John P. Dunn, “Americans in the Nineteenth Century Egyptian Army: A Selected Bibliography,” The Journal of Military History 70, 1 (2006): 123-136; Richard Hill and Peter Hogg, A Black Corps d’Elite. An Egyptian-Sudanese Battalion with the French Army in Mexico, 1863-1867 (East Lansing, MI: 1994); Gabriel Guemard, “Pelerins singuliers et soldats de fortune,” Bulletin de la société royale d’archéologie d’Alexandrie 8, 27 (1932): 27-52; See Charles Chaillé-Long, My Life in Four Continents, 2 vols. (London: Hutchinson, 1912), I, 65-67; Duignan and Gann, United States and Africa, 146; William G. Clarence-Smith, “Era: an Introductory Survey,” in William G. Clarence-Smith and Ulrike Freitag, eds., Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s-1960s (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 1-18; Amnon Cohen, “The Army in Palestine in the Eighteen Century – Sources of Its Weakness and Strength,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 34, 1 (1971): 36-55; Henry Rosenfeld, “The Social Composition of the Military in the Process of State Formation in the Arabian Desert, Part II,” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 95, 2 (July-December 1965): 174-194.

[17] Alfred Hasbrouck, Foreign Legionaries in the Liberation of South America (New York: Octagon Books, 1969); Eric Lambert, “Los legionaries británicos,” Bello y Londres, Segundo Congreso del Bicentario, 2 vols. (Caracas: 1980-81), I, 355-76; Eric Lambert, Voluntarios británicos e irlandes en la gesta bolivariana, 3 vols. (Caracas: 1983-93); Matthew Brown, “Esclavitud, castas y extranjeros en las guerras de la Independencia de Colombia,” Historia y Sociedad 10 (2004): 109-25; Matthew Brown, Adventuring Through Spanish Colonies: Simon Bolivar, Foreign Mercenaries And the Birth of New Nations (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007); D. A. G. Waddell, “British Neutrality and Spanish-American Independence: The Problem of Foreign Enlistment,” Journal of Latin American Studies 19, 1 (1987): 1-18; John Lynch, Simon Bolívar: A Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 121-30; Donald Roger Bruce, “Irish Mercenary Soldiers in Brazil, 1827-1828,” The Irish Link 3 (1998): 30; Fernando L.B. Basto, Ex-Combatentes Irlandeses em Taperoa (Rio de Janeiro: Editorial Vozes, 1971); C. R. Boxer, “Brazilian Gold and British Traders in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century,” The Hispanic American Historical Review 49, 3 (August 1969): 454-472; Eugenio V. Garcia, “Antirevolutionary Diplomacy in Oligarchic Brazil, 1919-30,” Journal of Latin American Studies 36, 4 (November 2004): 771-796; Peter Singelmann, “Political Structure and Social Banditry in Northeast Brazil,” Journal of Latin American Studies 7, 1 (May 1975): 59-83; Linda Lewin, “The Oligarchical Limitations of Social Banditry in Brazil: The Case of the ‘Good’ Thief Antonio Silvino,” Past and Present 82 (February 1979): 116-146; Francisco Lothar Paulo Lange, Federico Lange: história de um “Resmungão” da Legião Alemã de 1851 no Brasil, Schleswig-Holstein, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Campanha do Uruguai, Colônia Dona Francisca (Joinville) (Curitiba: n.p., 1995); Juvencio Saldanha Lemos, Os mercenários do Imperador: a primeira corrente imigratória alemã no Brasil, 1824-1830 [The mercenaries of the Emperor: the first wave of German immigration to Brazil, 1824-1830] (Porto Alegre: Palmarinca, 1993).

[18] Richard Bradshaw and Ibrahim Ndzesop, “African Armies and Warfare, 1750-1914,” in James H. Overfield, ed., World History Encyclopedia, Volume 15: Age of Revolutions (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2008); Richard Bradshaw and Ibrahim Ndzesop, “Mercenaries, Military Manpower and State-Building in Precolonial Africa,” forthcoming. Also see John Lonsdale, “The European scramble and conquest in African history,” in J.D. Fage and Roland Oliver, eds., The Cambridge History of Africa, Vol. 6, From 1870-1905 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 711; Roland Oliver, “Discernable Developments in the Interior c. 1500-1840,” in Roland Oliver and Gervase Mathew, eds., History of East Africa, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), I, 209-210; David Birmingham, “The forest and savanna of Central Africa,” in John E. Flint, ed., The Cambridge History of Africa, vol. x, c. 1790-1870 (Cambridge: 1976), ch. 7; Richard Gray, A history of the southern Sudan 1839-1889 (Oxford: 1961), 46-69; Joseph C. Miller, “Cokwe trade and conquest in the nineteenth century,” in Richard Gray and David Birmingham, eds., Pre-colonial African trade (Oxford: 1970), 175-201; Philip Curtin, Steven Feierman, Leonard Thompson and Jan Vansina, African History (London: 1978), 339-43, 357-59, 389; John Iliffe, A modern history of Tanganyika (Cambridge: 1979), 62; Aylward Shorter, “Nyungu-Ya-Mawe and the ‘Empire of the Ruga-Rugas’,” The Journal of African History 9, 2 (1968): 235-259; Aylward Shorter, Nyungu-Ya-Mawe: Leadership in the 19th Century Tanzania (Nairobi: 1969); Kevin Shillington, The Colonisation of the Southern Tswana (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985), 140; Clapperton Mavhunga, “Firearms Diffusion, Exotic and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the Lowveld Frontier, South Eastern Zimbabwe, 1870-1920,” Comparative Technology Transfer and Society 1, 2 (2003): 221; Alvin Kienetz, “The Key Role of the Orlam Migrations in the Early Europeanization of South-West Africa,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 10, 4 (1977): 563; K. L. Little, “A Mende Musician Sings of His Adventures,” Man 48 (March 1948): 27; Eugene L. Mendonsa, West Africa: An Introduction to its History, Civilization and Contemporary Situation (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2002), 156; Raymond M. Taylor, “Warriors, Tributaries, Blood Money and Political Transformation in Nineteenth-Century Mauritania,” The Journal of African History 36, 3 (1995): 419; Richard F. Burton, “The Lake Regions of Central Equatorial Africa, with Notices of the Lunar Mountains and the Sources of the White Nile; Being the Results of an Expedition Undertaken under the Patronage of Her Majesty’s Government and the Royal Geographical Society of London, in the Years 1857-1859,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 29 (1859): 13-14.

[19] Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1874 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1980); Edward Allen McCord, The Power of the Gun: The Emergence of Modern Chinese Warlordism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Diana Lary, “Warlord Studies: Review Essay,” Modern China 6, 4 (October 1980); Richard S. Horowitz, “Beyond the Marble Boat: The Transformation of the Chinese Military, 1850-1911,” in David A. Graff and Robin Higham, eds., A Military History of China (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002), 153-174; Kwang-Ching Liu and Richard J. Smith, “The military challenge: the north-west and the coast,” in Kwang-Ching Liu and John K. Fairbank, eds., The Cambridge History of China, Volume 2, Late Ch’ing, 1800-1911, Part 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 202-274; Richard S. Horowitz, “Beyond the Marble Boat: The Transformation of the Chinese Military, 1850-1911,” in David A. Graff and Robin Higham, eds., A Military History of China (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002), 153-174; Richard J. Smith, “Barbarian Officers of Imperial China: Ward, Gordon, and the Taiping Rebellion,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California Davis, 1972; Caleb Carr, The Devil Soldier: The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China (1994); Roger R. Thompson, “Military Dimensions of the ‘Boxer Uprising’ in Shanxi, 1898-1901,” in Hans Van de Ven, ed., Warfare in Chinese History (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000), 288-320; Marie-Claire Bergère, Sun Yat-sen, trans. Janet Lloyd (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998); Jonathon Fenby, Chiang Kai-Shek: China’s Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003); Daniel S. Levy, Two-Gun Cohen: A Biography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997).

[20] Gene A. Smith, Filibusters and Expansionism: Jeffersonian Manifest Destiny, 1800-1821 (Tuscaloosa: 1997); Robert E. May, Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). Charles H. Brown, Agents of Manifest Destiny: The Lives and Times of the Filibusters; Frederic Rosengarten, Jr. Freebooters Must Die! The Life and Death of William Walker, the Most Notorious Filibuster of the Nineteenth Century; Laurence Green, The Filibuster: The Career of William Walker; Harris Gaylord Warren, The Sword was Their Passport: A History of American Filibustering in the Mexican Revolution; Hermann B. Deutsch, The Incredible Yanqui: The Career of Lee Christmas (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1931); “General Lee Christmas, a Dumas Hero in Real Life; How a Visit to an Oculist Changed Him from a Humdrum New Orleans Engineer to an Adventurer and Soldier of Fortune in Honduras,” New York Times, 15 January 1911.

[21] Richard Bradshaw, “Mercenaries: 1750-2000,” in Peter Sterns, ed., Encyclopedia of Modern World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Richard Bradshaw and Ibrahim Ndzesop, “African Armies and Warfare, 1750-1914,” in James H. Overfield, ed., World History Encyclopedia, Volume 15: Age of Revolutions (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2008); David Killingray and David Omissi, eds., Guardians of Empire: The Armed Forces of the Colonial Powers (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999); Gayl D. Ness, and William Stahl, “Western Imperialist Armies in Asia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 19, 1 (January 1977): 2-29; Alfred Hasbrouck, Foreign Legionaries in the Liberation of South America (New York: Octagon Books, 1969); H. L. Wesseling, The European Colonial Empires 1815-1919, trans. Diane Webb (Harlow, UK: Pearson Education, 2004); Douglas M. Peers, ed., Warfare and Empire: Contact and Conflict Between European and non-European Military and Maritime Forces and Cultures (Aldershot: Variorum, 1997); Karl Hack and Tobias Rettig, Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 2006); Timothy Parsons, “‘Wakamba Warriors are Soldiers of the Queen’: The Evolution of the Kamba as a Martial Race, 1890-1970,” Ethnohistory, 48? (1999):xx-xx; David Killingray, “Guarding the Extending Frontiers: Policing the Gold Coast, 1865-1912,” in David Anderson and David Killingray, eds., Policing the Empire: Government, Authority and Control, 1830-1940 (Manchester: 1991); Timothy H. Parsons, The African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Service in the King’s African Rifles, 1902-1960 (Portsmouth, NH: 1999); Timothy H. Parsons, “African Participation in the British Empire,” in Philip D. Morgan and Sean Hawkins, eds., The Oxford History of the British Empire: Black Experience and the Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 257-285; Robert Foran, The Kenya Police, 1887-1960 (London: 1962); John McCracken, “Coercion and Control in Nyasaland: Aspects of the History of a Colonial Police Force,” Journal of African History 28 (1986):127-47; J. Malcolm Thompson, “Colonial Policy and the Family Life of Black Troops in French West Africa, 1817-1904,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 23, 3 (1990):423-453; S.C. Upkabi, “West Indian Troops and the Defence of British West Africa in the Nineteenth Century,” African Studies Review 17, 1 (April 1974):133-150; Myron J. Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Senegalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991); A. Flamant, La Force Publique de sa naissance à 1914: Participations des militaries à l’histoire des premières années du Congo (Brussels: Institut Royal Colonial Belge, 1952; Shaw, “Force Publique, Force Unique,” Ph.D. diss., Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1984; Lt.-Col. E.V. Jenkins, A History of the King’s African Rifles, formerly known as the Uganda Rifles (Entebbe: Government Press, 1912); W. Lloyd-Jones, King’s African Rifles (London & Bristol: Arrowsmith, 1926); Hubert Moyse-Barlett, The King’s African Rifles: A study in the military history of East and Central Africa 1890-1945 (Aldershot: Gale and Polden, 1956); Christopher Owen, The Rhodesian African Rifles (London: Leo Cooper, 1970); Myron Echenberg, “Slaves into Soldiers: Social Origins of the Tirailleurs Sénégalais,” in Paul E. Lovejoy, ed., Africans in Bondage: Studies in Slavery and the Slave Trade (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986); David Killingray, “Imagined Martial Communities: Recruiting for the Military and Police in Colonial Ghana, 1860-1960,” in Carola Lentz and Paul Nugent, eds., Ethnicity in Ghana: The Limits of Invention. London: 1999); Anthony Clayton and David Killingray, Khaki and Blue: Military and Police in British Colonial Africa (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1989); Kenneth Gandar Dower, The King’s African Rifles in Madagascar (Nairobi: East African Command, n.d.).

[22] Bradshaw, “Mercenaries: 1750-2000.”

[23] Percy, Mercenaries, 2.

[24] She cites John McCormack, One Million Mercenaries (London: Leo Cooper, 1993), and K.A. Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries: 1: The Great Companies (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001) as two books “which make a serious and in-depth attempt to look at pre-nineteenth century mercenaries,” (2), which suggests that the following studies concerned with pre-nineteenth mercenaries do not qualify as serious: W.M. Reger, “In the service of the Tsar: European mercenary officers and the reception of military reform in Russia, 1654-1667,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997; John Schlight, Monarchs and Mercenaries: A Reappraisal of the Importance of Knight Service in Norman and Early Angevin England (Bridgeport, CT: 1968); John Miller Gilbert, Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1980); R. A. Stradling, The Spanish Monarchy and Irish Mercenaries: The Wild Geese in Spain, 1618-68 (Portland, OR: Irish Academic. 1994); Christopher Gravett and Christa Hook, Norman Knight AD 950-1202 (Oxford: Osprey, 1993); John Marsden, ; William Caferro, Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press, 1998); William Caferro, John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth-Century Italy (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press, 2006); Kenneth M. Sutton, Catalan Domination of Athens, 1311-1388 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948); Jep Pascot, Les almugavares: Mercenaires Catalans du moyen age (1302-1388) (Brussels: 1971); M.E. Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy (London: The Bodley Head, 1974); Reinhard Baumann, Landsknecht: Ihre Geschicte und Kulture vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Dreißigjährigen Kreig (Munich: 1994); Seven Isaac, “The Problem with Mercenaries,” in Donald J. Kagay and I.J. Andrew Villalon, eds., The Circle of War in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge: 1999), 100-110; John Marsdon, Galloglas: Hebridean and West Highland Mercenary Warrior Kindreds in Medieval Ireland (Edinburg: Tuckwell Press, 2003); M.G. McLaughlin, The Wild Geese: The Irish Brigades of France and Spain (London: 1980); M. Murtagh, “Irish Soldiers Aboad, 160-1800,” in T. Bartlett and K. Jeffery, A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); I. Ross Bartlett, “Scottish Mercenaries in Europe, 1570-1610: A Study in Attitudes and Policies,” Critical Improv, 1-10, http://www.criticalimprov.com; (and see below)

[25] Serge Yalichev, Mercenaries of the Ancient World (London: Constable, 1997); Gunter L. Seibt, Griechische Söldner im Achaimenidenreich (Bonn: Habett, 1977); Alan Richard Schulman, “Kings, Chronicles and Egyptian Mercenaries,” Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar 5 (1983); Henry George Fischer, “The Nubian Mercenaries of Gebelein during the First Intermediate Period,” Kush: Journal of the Sudan Antiquities Service 9 (1961): 44-80; William A. Ward, Two Unrecognized Hupsu Mercenaries in Egyptian Texts (Kevelaer: Verlag Butzon & Bercker, 1980), etc.

[26] Sigfús Blöndal, The Varangians of Byzantium. An Aspect of Byzantine Military History, trans., revised and rewritten by Benedikt S. Benedikz (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), cf. Walter Emil Kaegi Jr., “Review of The Varangians of Byzantium, by Sigfús Blöndal.” Speculum, 56, 1 (January 1981): 99-100.

[27] Jozef J. L. Gommans, Horse-traders, mercenaries and princes: the formation of the Indo-Afghan empire in the eighteenth century (1993); Jozef J. L. Gommans, The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, c. 1710-1780 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999); Dirk H. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy: the ethnohistory of the military labour market in Hindustan, 1450-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); S. N. Gordon, “Scarf and Sword: Thugs, Marauders and State Formation in Eighteenth Century Malwa,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 6 (1969): 403-430.

[28] Michael W. Charney, “Arakan, Min Yazagi, and Portuguese Mercenaries: the Relationship between the Growth of Arakanese Imperial Power and Portuguese Mercenaries on the Fringe of Mainland Southeast Asia, 1517-1617,” Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio University, 1993.

[29] Grant G. Simpson, The Scottish Soldier Abroad, 1247-1967 (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers; Savage, MD: Barnes & Noble, 1992);

[30] Matthew Glozier, Marshal Schomberg, 1615-1690, ‘the ablest soldier of his age’: International Soldiering and the Formation of State Armies in Seventeenth-century Europe (Brighton; Portland, OR; Sussex Academic Press, 2005); Matthias Rogg, Landsknechte und Reisläufer: Bilder vom Soldaten: ein Stand in der Kunst des 16. Jahrhunderts. Krieg in der Geschichte, Bd. 5. (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2002); Paul Schmitthenner, Das freie Söldnertum im abendländischen Imperium des Mittelalters [Free Soldiers during the…Middle Ages] München: Beck, 1934); Jep Pascot, Antoine-Pierre-Marie-François-Joseph Lévis-Mirepoix, and Joan Oliver, Els almogàvers: l’epopeia medieval dels catalans, 1302-1388 (Barcelona: Edicions Proa, 1972); Jep Pascot and Joan Oliver, Els almogàvers: l’epopeia medieval dels catalans (Barcelona: Proa, 1995); Thédorit Foudras, Les Belges au Mexique; récits et histoires militaires (Bruxelles: Sacré-Duquesne, 1869); Hans Jacob Barstad, Om Normænds deltagelse i det danske hjelpekorps i Irland og Flandern, 1689-1697 (Oslo: I kommisjon hos J. Dybwad, 1928); Gilbert John Millar, Tudor Mercenaries and Auxiliaries 1485-1547 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980); Christos Nicolas Stephanides, “Mercenaries in History and the Modern Era,” M.A. Thesis, Southwest Missouri State University, 2004; Matthew Glozier and David Onnekink, War, Religion and Service: Huguenot Soldiering, 1685-1713 (Burlington, VT: Aldershot, 2007); Gráinne Henry, The Irish Military Community in Spanish Flanders, 1586-1612 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992); Seán Duffy, The World of the Galloglass: Kings, Warlords and Warriors in Ireland and Scotland, 1200-1600 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007); George B. Clark, The Irish Soldier in Europe, 1584-1815 (Bethesda, MD: Academic Press, 2002); Stephan Selzer, Deutsche Söldner im Italien des Trecento (Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, Bd. 98. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2001); Peter Blastenbrei, Die Sforza und ihr Heer: Studien zur Struktur-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte des Söldnerwesens in der italienischen Frührenaissance. Heidelberger Abhandlungen zur mittleren und neueren Geschichte, n.F., Bd. 1. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1987); Jack Cagill, Mercenary of the Gods: Memoirs of a Greek in Service to Judah and Egypt (Claremont, CA: Regina, 2004); Allan J Kuethe, Juan Marchena Fernández, Lyle N McAlister, Soldados del rey: el ejército borbónico en América colonial en vísperas de la independencia (Castelló de la Plana [Spain]: Universitat Jaume I, 2005); Anna Chiara Fariselli, I mercenari di Cartagine (La Spezia: Agorà, 2002); Masaya Suzuki [鈴木眞哉], Sengoku teppō, yōheitai: tenkabito ni sakaratta Kishū Saikashū [戦国鉄砲・傭兵隊: 天下人に 逆らった紀州雑賀衆] (Tōkyō: Heibonsha, 2004); Hisashi Fujiki [藤木久志,] Zōhyōtachi no senjō: chūsei no yōhei to doreigari [雑兵たちの戦場: 中世の傭兵と奴隷狩り](Tōkyō: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1995); Paolo Petta, Stradioti: soldati albanesi in Italia, sec. XV-XIX. Lecce: Argo, 1996); Steven W. Isaac, “The military role and social context of mercenaries during the reign of Stephen,” M.A. thesis, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 1993.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 18:35 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
2 Responses to “Mercenaries and Norms”

1. ibrahim Says:
3 February 2009 at 14:28

I think mercenaries, as any other social category have been debated upon and have existed wherever humans have lived and will continue to be present where wars are fought. Percy’s argument is simply an expression of popular thinking on mercenaries.
Good courage for the blog.
2. Mercenaries in the American Revolution « Mercenaries and Military Manpower Says:
10 February 2009 at 16:07

[...] Norm in International Relations, by Sarah Percy,” Mercenary Matters, 10 January 2009 (continuing Mercenaries and Norms, January [...]

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