Senior Army Research Articles

THE DOMESTIC ROLE OF THE US ARMED FORCES IN THE WAR ON DRUGS IN 1971–1991

This paper examines the involvement of the US Armed Forces in performing domestic functions in the course of the War on drugs, the government’s long-running campaign to combat drug trafficking and drug use. The article traces the process of the gradual expansion of the military roles in supporting civilian law enforcement agencies. The author describes the growing scope of tasks related to border control, drug smuggling interdiction and disruption of trafficking routes. The article identifies the peculiarities of political decision-making in the adoption of a new function for the army. In particular, it describes the reasons that led lawmakers to adopt amendments to the basic law that historically limited military’s involvement in law enforcement, the Posse Comitatus Act. It finds that, in the context of the growing role of the armed forces in the War on drugs, the implementation of new tasks was often not supported by the Army's senior command and officer corps. Although the US military eventually took over command of operations on the southern borders, improving command and control, while technically strengthening other agencies, the overall success remained questionable. Methods of smuggling drugs across the border were constantly evolving, and the cartels’ ability to counter high-tech capabilities was improving. Today, the theoretical combination of these methods with the targeted sabotage activities of the aggressor country creates new risks for Ukraine’s security sector. This threat raises the question of expanding the possible involvement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in supporting the activities of the State Border Guard Service. At the time of writing, the issue of strengthening control of the southern border remains at the center of the political agenda in the USA, the article additionally reveals the historical context and significance of this problem for American society. It is proved that when involved in countering a new non-military threat to national security, effective reorganization of the Armed Forces to fulfill new tasks requires a balanced political approach and a reasonable distribution of military assets. Keywords: national security, border security, internal threat, internal security, armed forces, management system, drug trafficking

Memory, Trauma and Partition: Reading Sunanda Sikdar’s Dayamoyeer Katha

In recent years the scholastic emphasis on the refugee narratives, which conventionally focused on the loss of lives, homes and resources, is now reimagined as stories of survival and resurrection of people deprived of their homes. Nostalgia for a lost homeland often takes centre stage in refugee narratives. To be physically severed from a space internalised as the safest eternal abode and start afresh is a daunting task. Anchita Ghatak’s translation of Sunanda Sikdar’s Dayamoyeer Katha, A Life Long Ago narrates the life events of Dayamoyee, who chooses to revisit her past, deciding to write about the first ten years of her life in the East Pakistan village of Dighpait following the death of Majamda, a Muslim brotherly figure who sells his cows to come and meet her in India. The return to her childhood’s blissful land unearthed several hidden memories that brought the politics of religion, caste, class, and gender to the forefront. Without paying attention to her aunt’s continuous warnings not to mingle with the Muslim neighbours, Daya found it possible to eat, touch, and have fun with them in her childlike innocence. As the refugees arrive at Dighpait, her aunt remains unwilling to equate them with the native Muslim folk, the ‘bhoomiputra, the “sons of the soil”. Besides the narrator, we also have Snehalata, Daya’s aunt, her foster mother and a child widow. As she narrates how she grieved over the withdrawal of fish and other materialistic pleasures from her daily life rather than her young husband’s demise, we are reminded of the unfair austerity imposed on them in contrast to the elderly widowers who had no restrictions and even remarried occasionally. Characters like Modi bhabi, the woman who lost her mind as her childhood companion Suresh Lahiri left for Hindustan; Mejobhabi, wife of Khalek, who had to be ‘modernised’ to join her husband, now a senior army officer in Pakistan; Sudhirdada, the effeminate male whose murder portrays a show of power in the village, and Gouri, an instance of widow-remarriage needs scholarly attention. The novel further mentions Daya’s mother, the headmistress of a school in Hindustan, and Anita, a leading actress opposite Kishore Kumar, thus representing the educated, empowered women. The very moment of Daya deciding to write about her past is auspicious; it is the moment of finding one’s voice, of illuminating the horrors of the past, and the moment of triumph and healing. Dipesh Chakraborty mentions two aspects of memory: “the sentiment of nostalgia” and the “sense of trauma”, which pervades Dayamoyee’s narrative, but for her, it is equally therapeutic. The proposed paper looks forward to understanding Daya’s notion of her lost motherland and childhood and how the marginalised gender conceptualises home and rootedness. It proposes to analyse the politics of remembering, forgetting and retelling the stories from the point of the female subaltern who consciously buried her past and later chose to speak up, and in the process, portrayed a realistic picture of women during partition.

Quantifying a State's Reputation in the Strategic Competition and Crisis Wargame for the Center for Army Analysis

The Center for Army Analysis (CAA) developed the Strategic Competition and Crisis (SC2) wargame to capture how modern military competition operates in today’s world. The CAA tasked our interdisciplinary team with developing a more robust, well-rounded reputation model for quantifying a state’s reputation based on another state’s perspective using each of our respective specialties within systems engineering, defense and strategic studies, and operations research. The team leveraged tools within the Systems Decision Process (SDP) to quantify the theoretical, intangible concept of reputation. Research began with a qualitative value model based on expert stakeholder analysis and a literature review. The team then identified value measures to build a swing weight matrix that produced a reputation score for each state from another state’s perspective. The concept of swing weighting incorporates prioritized value measures while accounting for variance in the raw data that is used to aggregate a score for each country’s reputation level. That score, alongside an enhanced Game User Interface (GUI), can now be integrated into the existing SC2 wargame to provide a more complete, narrative experience that charts player decisions throughout the game and educates senior Army leaders on how to effectively leverage military activities towards achieving strategic goals.

Translating Public Health Recommendations Using the Army Design Methodology.

The U.S. Army employs over 470,000 active duty soldiers throughout the world. Although the Army also employs hundreds of public health professionals, public health recommendations are often not framed in ways that are readily actionable to senior Army leaders. This case study shows how public health findings were translated into actionable recommendations using the Army Design Methodology (ADM) and subsequently implemented by installation leadership. Following a perceived increase in suicides at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, in 2019, installation leadership requested that the U.S. Army Public Health Center conduct an epidemiological consultation. A mixed-methods approach was used to gather qualitative and quantitative data. The ADM was used to translate the findings and provide actionable recommendations for senior Army leaders. Many recommendations were implemented within a year of the report's release and included modifications to gym facilities, dining halls, and sleeping areas. Key improvements included the installation of $900,000 worth of new gym equipment in existing physical fitness facilities, increasing the basic daily food allowance by 44% to facilitate the purchase of healthy options, and the installation of blackout blinds in all barracks to ensure more restful sleep during times of peak sunlight. The ADM is well understood by senior Army leaders. Use of the ADM in future military-specific public health studies could ensure a more effective uptake and implementation of public health recommendations.

Nigerian Soldiers On The War Against Boko Haram

Abstract This study explores two main questions: What are the experiences of soldiers who have fought against Boko Haram? What can these experiences teach us about the seeming incapacity of the Nigerian military to defeat Boko Haram? Six major themes are explored. These are perspectives on the mission, morale of troops, military equipment and weapons, suicide and murder–suicide among troops, intelligence leaks, and relationships of troops with the Civilian Joint Task Force, an extralegal militia. Soldiers’ discourses on the mission against Boko Haram reveal three overlapping dimensions. First, there are suspicions about the sponsors and political godfathers of Boko Haram. This suggests a belief that Boko Haram is a conspiracy involving the government and top brass of the military. Second, the patronage system involved in deployment into key positions on the war front. Third, participants believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged because it is a moneymaking machinery for the political and military elites. The evidence suggests that availability of weapons varies by unit and the agency of commanders—their networks and influence within the military and willingness to disobey orders from superiors if their demands are not met. This situation produces radically variegated wartime experiences among troops. Non-commissioned soldiers believe senior commissioned officers perpetrate intelligence leaks and are responsible for the protracted war. Senior Army Generals interviewed in this study support this perspective. The study has major policy implications for successful operations against Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin area and the broader war against terrorism in the Sahel.

МАТЕРИАЛЫ КОЛЛЕКЦИИ ГЕРОЕВ СОВЕТСКОГО СОЮЗА В ЦГА МОСКВЫ: УЧАСТНИК ВЕЛИКОЙ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ ВОЙНЫ Л.А. БУТКОВ

The work introduces into scientific circulation the documents (autobiography and memoirs) from the personal file of L.A. Butkov, the Soviet Union Hero; his dossier being deposited inside the collection of Soviet Union Heroes (the Central State Archives of Moscow, F. P-8682). If the autobiography is an extremely formalized text, the memoirs mentioning the author’s hatred towards the Nazi invaders are written in easy language, reflecting the impressions of those ordinary fighters who, to a large extent, won the Great Patriotic War. The title of the Soviet Union Hero was awarded to the company commander of the 164th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 55th Guards Rifle Division of the 56th Guards Army senior lieutenant L.A. Butkov on May 16, 1944, for his distinction in the Kerch-Eltigen military operation. The company was the first to land on the shore occupied by the enemy and managed to hold the bridgehead, ensuring the successful landing of the entire division. During the battle, the company commander personally destroyed the machine gun with the gunners and 11 more enemy soldiers. The documentary collection, which holds L.A. Butkov’s file, was collected after the war by the Institute of Party History of the MC and MGK VKP(b), headed by the director of the Institute G.D. Kostomarov

Columbia in the Nation’s Service: Warner Burke and the Education of U.S. Army Leaders

In 1969, Columbia University banned Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) from campus. In 2004, Teachers College’s Warner Burke, a senior professor of psychology and Army officer veteran, saw an opportunity to close this civil–military gap. Burke partnered with West Point to educate West Point cadets’ primary leader developers, its 36 company tactical officers, through hosting them annually in a world-class Master of Social-Organizational Psychology. In 2010, Burke welcomed the Army Fellows program to campus, bringing in one or two senior Army officers a year to study under his mentorship. Since Burke courageously showed the way, Columbia has welcomed ROTC back to campus and now boasts the largest numbers of veteran students in the Ivy League. Most recently, Burke built a third program, this one to educate critical Army leaders who historically did not have access to elite higher education, its noncommissioned officer corps.

Pale Dawn of Democracy: Post Ziaul Haq political developments and 1988 Elections in Pakistan

The death of Pakistans Chief of Army Staff and President, General Ziaul Haq, with several senior army officers in a plane crash in August 1988 ushered Pakistan in utter chaos and uncertainty. Though his successors in power positions ruled in favor of democracy, the elections were heavily influenced to in favor of pro-establishment parties and against PPP and its leader Benazir Bhutto. The policies adopted and actions taken by the holders of Constitutional offices and prime state institutions subjected the country to political fragmentation. The present study takes stock of the political developments taking place from the death of General Ziaul Haq till the formation of the new political governments in the Center and provinces in December 1988.

Enemy within the State: The Pathology of Boko Haram Insurgency, Military Corruption, and Fallacy of Arms Procurement in Nigeria

ABSTRACT This article analyses the nexus between Boko Haram insurgency and military corruption under the political regime of former President Goodluck Jonathan (2010–2015). The article considered general theories that inform the nature of political system that provides opportunity for patronage politics with its implication on national security. The article further investigates the clandestine temperament of military expenditure and the role of political office holders and senior army personnel in defense corruption. There are two main findings. First, the major subterfuge employed for diversion of arms procurement funds was channeled through alliance formation between the political elites, the serving and retired top military officers. Second, the persistent Boko Haram revolt has been a concealed boulevard for diversion of state resources into private coffers; therefore, ensuing the reign of terror to be more tougher, lengthened and unconquerable due to secretive benefits associated with defense expenditure enjoyed by political and military cabals in Nigeria.

Competency of the Infantry Troops of the Nepalese Army in Disaster Response

Although the Nepalese Army’s regular infantry troops are the tools of disaster response their competency at times becomes questionable. Their disaster response’s soft skill knowledge, technical skill knowledge and preparedness activities along with the perception of senior army officers have been analyzed. As per the result the disaster response competency of such troops needs improvements. The organization should focus on competency building activities. Besides, the perception of senior army officers is positive and convincing towards disaster response engagement.

El reformismo militar de Carlos III: mito y realidad

In this contribution we proceed to make a critical analysis of the military reforms that drove Carlos III throughout his reign. To do this, on the one hand, a vision of them by placing them in the context of the entire century arises and, secondly, trying to answer two questions. The first focuses on answering whether during his reign was modified or not the reward system in the military career to reach the highest echelons of generalship, that is, if “enlightened principles” such as merit, study or training scientific and technical were or were not vectors that governed the promotion of general officers. The second seeks to analyze whether or not Carlos III rewarded the senior army with the highest distinction granted, the titled noble, who served him in the arms race.

Five Myths about Our Future

ABSTRACT: The Army, and many of its professionals, still behave far too much like they are leading, and serving, in little more than a government bureaucracy. To advance the implementation of the new doctrines, old myths must be destroyed. That is the purpose of this article and the next by Dr. Pfaff, to expose the myths as the falsehoods they are and replace them with correct, motivational understandings. ********** In a recent and quite prescient US Army War College publication, Changing Minds in the Army: Why It Is So Difficult and What to Do about It, two faculty members explain a core issue of Army leaders--the ability to re-evaluate personal frames of reference when confronting new information: Unfortunately, shattering or unlearning frames of reference is an action that is easy to espouse, yet incredibly difficult to execute. The authors note one convention senior leaders can use to assess their frames successfully is a red team charged with a direct, yet tactful, challenge. When presented within a culture of trust created by the leader, the team's ability to speak truth effectively to those in power is greatly enhanced. (1) Similarly, Dr. Tony Pfaff, the War College's new professor of the Army Profession and Ethic, and I have collaborated to confront commonly held myths that can rightly be understood as specific frames of reference senior Army leaders, indeed all Army professionals, need to change. This article focuses on incorrect frames of reference still held three years after The Army Profession doctrine was implemented. (2) In each case these frames, these myths, are almost incompatible with the institution's doctrine, thus hindering not only the timely implementation but also the desirable influence on the effectiveness of the Army and its professionals. The Army is and will always be a military profession--not true. The Continental Congress created the US Army in 1775 from the colonial militias and then placed it within a new Department of War before the end of our Revolution against the British crown. (3) It is thus fair to say that since its establishment the US Army has always been a government bureaucracy. Accordingly, since the end of the War of Independence and the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, both the Congress and the executive have continued to exercise their Constitutional powers to treat the Army just like every other federal bureaucracy. The institutional character and behavior of government bureaucracy, therefore, has been and will be the US Army's default setting. Turning now to the Army's professional status, which was attained by cohort during various periods of the institution's history, the creation of branch schools, consistent terms of service, and promotions by merit rather than patronage slowly professionalized the officer corps during the mid to late-nineteenth century; the noncommissioned officer corps by World War II. (4) But professionalizing the Army did not cause its character of origin--government bureaucracy--to go away. Bureaucracy remains in the background and constantly creates tension within the profession. So the Army is uniquely an institution of dual cultures in which only one culture can be dominant at a given time and Army leaders determine through their daily leadership at each location whether the dominant culture is that of the profession or of the default bureaucracy. (5) Since becoming a profession, the US Army's degree of professionalization has ebbed and flowed. The most recent decline of culture and ethos of profession occurred during the late-Vietnam War period and the morph into bureaucratic behavior caused immense loss of trust by the American people. But trust, with both internal Army ranks and external citizens, is the currency that legitimizes professions and it is ever perishable. In Western democracies, the client--in this case the American people--gets to determine if an institution is treated as a venerated profession meriting the autonomy necessary to do its expert work. …

Arguments About the Dictatorship

term modern dictatorship can be found in classic works of political thought, including The Politics of Aristotle, the Republic of Plato, Leviathan of Hobbes, and The Social Contract of Rousseau, much of analysis of modern political science generally (implicitly) based on concept of legitimate authority of Max Weber.Classification of authoritarian political institutions: authoritarian political non-development; authoritarian political development. To switch from non-democratic regimes, dictatorship to democracy, thong usually politicians often use three methods to switch, that is: innovation, reform and social revolution. All three methods are three different category to only three modes of creating change in different levels.In summary, dictatorship is political regime formed in social terms too speed up modern capitalism. That in that political power was centralized in nature. It appeared in historical conditions when that bourgeois nationalism is still weak and forces of democracy are not yet strong enough to have ability to organize and operate a democratic Government. To solve task of socio-economic urgency put country escape crisis and prevent risk of incurring a social revolution, gender-related political chop-a-z bu, thong is often about senior army officers began tough actions as military coup, declared emergency page status or martial law to organize construction of a centralized power structure.

Making Sense of "Long Wars" — Advice to the US Army

Most military institutions that experience success or failure in war will seek to understand their recent history so they can make sense of it, and learn intelligently from it. The process is never easy or straightforward; indeed, it is often fraught. Those inside the institution have positions and reputations to defend; those outside it--often anxious to level critiques--may not have enough knowledge to offer sophisticated and informed analyses, or may be so determined to build a good story around goats and heroes they miscast the events and offer far more heat than light. Analyses of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have come in every possible form: journalists' accounts were first on the scene, but they were followed quickly by those of think-tank analysts, academics, defense intellectuals, official historians, and memoir writers. Each of these has its own weaknesses and strengths. Many have echoed the frustration felt by the American people--frustration driven by a belief that while the US seemed to invest extraordinary amounts of time, blood, and treasure in these campaigns, we have little to show for them. The US Army had the biggest investment--and thus the biggest stake--in the long wars. It is unsurprising, then, that the Army should be the service most buffeted by the experience and the institutional effort to make sense of it. After all, the senior leaders of the US Army must continue to hold the trust and confidence of the American people, and justify the resources invested in the organization. They must learn from and adapt to past experience even as they look forward to a future that arrives with unforgiving speed. They must fight ongoing budget battles, maintain force readiness, keep up with new technologies, plan for new weapons systems, and educate personnel even as they try to process and absorb the recent past. Adding to the difficulty of this task is the fact that, of all the services, the Army may have the greatest challenge when it comes to predicting the future and getting ready for it. In many ways, the Army is the utility infielder of the US military: because it can never be sure exactly what the nation will ask of it, it must be prepared to perform a wide range of tasks well. It must be able to transform itself from Retriever to Rottweiler, and back again, quickly and seamlessly. As an institution, the Army is not averse to introspection and self-analysis. But like all institutions, it is susceptible to the pathologies that stem from cognitive bias and sensitivity to criticism. At one moment senior leaders may ignore that which is painful; the next moment they may over-react to it. Similarly, they may miss moments of success that deserve capture and amplification. At present, the Army seems to be in a phase not dissimilar to the one it entered after Vietnam: it does not study the hard problems and failures deeply enough, and it overlooks and forgets the things that deserve positive acknowledgment and reinforcement. As the Army works through its own analyses of the long wars, and responds to external critiques, it must discern which problems were internal, which were external, and which emerged due to frictions and pathologies along the ever-challenging civil-military fault line. While the Army must understand and take responsibility for the ways it contributed to unsatisfactory outcomes, its leaders must recognize these failings were located inside a broader national security framework that must be addressed comprehensively. Simply put, the Army operates within a civil-military system in which both parties are responsible for failure and success. One can hardly argue, for instance, the flawed assumptions embedded in the Bush 43 decision for regime change in Iraq in 2003 stemmed principally from a failure of strategic thinking inside the Army. One can and should argue senior Army officers might have found more effective ways to ask probing questions about the direction of events, and about the theory of victory operative in the minds of those who were driving the decision for war. …

Maximizing the U.S. Army’s Future Contribution to Global Security Using the Capability Portfolio Analysis Tool (CPAT)

Recent budget reductions have posed tremendous challenges to the U.S. Army in managing its portfolio of ground combat systems (tanks and other fighting vehicles), thus placing many important programs at risk. To address these challenges, the Army and a supporting team developed and applied the Capability Portfolio Analysis Tool (CPAT) to optimally invest in ground combat modernization over the next 25–35 years. CPAT provides the Army with the analytical rigor needed to help senior Army decision makers allocate scarce modernization dollars to protect soldiers and maintain capability overmatch. CPAT delivers unparalleled insight into multiple-decade modernization planning using a novel multiphase mixed-integer linear programming technique and illustrates a cultural shift toward analytics in the Army’s acquisition thinking and processes. CPAT analysis helped shape decisions to continue modernization of the $10 billion Stryker family of vehicles (originally slated for cancellation) and to strategically reallocate over $20 billion to existing modernization programs by not pursuing the Ground Combat Vehicle program as originally envisioned. More than 40 studies have been completed using CPAT, applying operations research methods to optimally prioritize billions of taxpayer dollars and allowing Army acquisition executives to base investment decisions on analytically rigorous evaluations of portfolio trade-offs.

Сибирский Вавилон: шведские узники в начале XVIII в.

The article is devoted to the history of Swedes in Siberia from their capture in 1709 until their release after the signing of a peace treaty in 1721. The analysis is based on memoirs, diaries and literary works as well as documents from the Tyumen State Archive. The article examines the way in which the prisoners preserved their identity in exile. The Lutherans’ hostility towards the Russian Orthodox Church followers and those of their compatriots, who decided to join it, increased the prisoners’ religious isolation. The paper also considers their inclusion into cultural life and their interest in other groups of people by whose side they spent over a decade. There was an urgent issue connected with starting and leading a family life. Given the shortage of Lutheran brides in Siberia, the prisoners had to develop appropriate marriage strategies. As a result, many widows became involved in a new relationship immediately after the death of their husbands. Most interfaith marriages broke up and the Russian Orthodox wives were abandoned together with their children in Russia after the peace treaty of 1721 and the return of the prisoners to their homeland. The community of the Swedes was formed by more than 75 colonies dispersed throughout the country. They were mostly located in three regions, i. e. Central, Volga and Western Siberia. The colonies were associated with the Field Commissariat established in Moscow and ten administrative offices for prisoners of war. Senior army officers and aristocrats were settled in the capital and its suburban monasteries; most of the rank and file and junior officers worked in factories and shipyards. The most educated groups of officers resided in the Asian part of Russia, organizing the most active and successful colony in Tobolsk. Religion became the backbone and axis around which their community life concentrated, allowing the prisoners to accept their destiny and preserve their identity. The prisoners themselves initiated the establishment of institutions necessary for a full-fledged religious life in exile. They established congregations and groups to discuss religious issues, arranged places to conduct public services, as well as schools for both their children and people who wanted to nurture their spirituality. Stories of the Old Testament turned out to be the most appropriate for the prisoners’ sentiments. Captivity and exile to Siberia were perceived by many as punishment for their sins, similar to the Old Testament Babylonian captivity and deliverance, eventually leading to purification and spiritual growth. This helps explain why during captivity, many officers not only received religious education, but also took active part in the Christianization of the peoples of Siberia and described their indigenous religions. Such a goal gave their stay in Siberia a deep sense of universal meaning, helping them overcome the hardships of captivity and exile, while hoping to eventually return to their homeland.

In the shadow of power: civil–military relations and the Tunisian popular uprising

This study examines the relative unknown strategic decisions inside the ‘black box’ of Ben Ali's authoritarian regime under stress, and questions the broader narrative claiming that the fall of his regime was mainly the result of the mass uprising. Making use of new primary and secondary material, the author argues that the demise of the autocratic ruler was caused by the failure of the regime's controlling strategies due to the defunct communication among key security figures that represented its coercive apparatus: military, ministries of Defense and Interior, and different domestic security organisations. Indeed, the dysfunctional intra-regime dynamics were responsible for the outcome of the popular uprising, not the number of the demonstrators across the country. In this regard, Ben Ali's departure was the unintended outcome due to his misreading of the civil–military relations, as well as his own ambiguous perception of the military as a protector and potential threat that led to a lack of loyalty on the side of senior army officers. His departure was not the result of a deliberate decision or a coup d’état, per se, but rather the consequence of miscommunication between representatives from different bodies in the security establishment. In addition, the article shed lights on the role the military played in securing the country's political transition during the immediate aftermath of the dictatorship's fall.

Red Army Generals Repressed during the Soviet-German War, 1941–1945, Part 2: The Western and Northwestern Axes, July–September 1941

One of the most sordid and obscure aspects of the Soviet-German War, 1941–1945, involved the repression of Red Army senior officers, who, in Stalin's eyes, failed to fulfill their duties to the Motherland. This article, the second part in a multi-part series, exploits hitherto secret archival documents to ‘raise the veil of secrecy’ from this tragic aspect of the war, which took its greatest toll of senior Red Army military leaders during the disastrous Barbarossa campaign in the summer and fall of 1941.

Saints and Sinners: George Guthrie

Who says exams are getting easier? Born on 1 May 1785, the prodigious George Guthrie passed the entrance examination of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800 when he was just 15 years old. While today's teenagers may struggle to find a local youth club that has survived the coalition government's cull, by the time Guthrie joined the College he was practically an old hand at surgery, having been apprenticed to a senior army surgeon since the tender age of 13.

Uganda's civil courts and the administration of military justice : an appraisal of their jurisprudence on selected issues

The last two decades stand out as the most important period in Uganda's history as far as civil courts' engagement with issues of military justice is concerned. In this period, Uganda's civil courts have handled many cases concerning the administration of military justice more than in any other epoch. Key among these cases include: Attorney General v Major General David Tinyefuza, Brigadier Henry Tumukunde v The Attorney General & Electoral Commission, Joseph Tumushabe v Attorney General, Attorney General v. Joseph Tumushabe, Uganda Law Society and Jackson Karugaba v Attorney General, Uganda Law Society v The Attorney General, Attorney General v Uganda Law Society, Dr Kizza Besigye & Others v Attorney General, Uganda Law Society v Attorney General, and Major General James Kazini v Attorney General. A key observation about many of these cases is that they involve senior army officers/former senior army officers challenging their prosecution by the military justice system as essentially persecution by Government for their critical views. This is for instance true of the Tinyefuza case, the Tumukunde case, the Kazini case and the cases involving Rtd Col Dr. Kiiza Besigye.