Rethinking conflict on the African battlefield

Africa is the most conflict-prone continent in the world. From the civil war raging in Sudan to the killing fields of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the terrorist hotbeds from the Sahel in the west to Somalia in the east and Mozambique in the south – violence plagues Africa’s citizens and governments.

What is clear from these escalatory spirals of carnage is that existing responses – both African and foreign – are simply not working.

The African Union’s much-vaunted African Security Architecture built on the effective functioning of Regional Economic Communities’ acting as first responders to trouble in their region has been a dismal failure.

We are witnessing the unravelling of the Economic Community of West Africa States as former members of the bloc have withdrawn to form their own Alliance of Sahel States bloc.

Meanwhile, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has failed dismally in its interventions in both Mozambique and the DRC.

Similarly, failure has bedevilled the plethora of foreign interventions from multiple external actors – including the French, Russians, Türkiye, the US, China, the various Gulf States and the United Nations.

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Indeed, based on the magnifying conflict trajectories one could well argue that the situation is far worse now than before the intervention began.

This failure could well be the result of donor-driven agendas at military transformation and the instilling of a military doctrine which scarcely speaks to the uniqueness of the African battlefield.

Often, American and European military training programmes seek to create clones of their armed forces on a continent with a different political and economic reality and a hugely disparate military culture.

It is in this context that General Eeben Barlow sets out his highly innovative approach to conflict – and especially that plaguing the continent in the form of asymmetric warfare.

He details his theories and practice in his book, Composite Warfare: The Conduct of Successful Ground Force Operations in Africa.

His approach has been informed by his 40 years experience as a front-line officer and CEO of the most successful private military company in the world – Executive Outcomes.

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Barlow describes “composite warfare” as a “…proven, intelligence-driven, whole-of-government approach that integrates multiple domains of warfare such as land, air, sea, intelligence, information and cyberspace, along with the pillars of state to achieve a desired national strategic outcome”.

The revised and expanded 2025 edition of Composite Warfare speaks to African conditions and arose out of the author’s successful engagement across a myriad African battlefields.

It is bottom-up, it is flexible and speaks to offensive, defensive and containment strategies.

Moreover, the whole-of-government approach speaks to the reality of more comprehensive approaches to address much of the insurgencies scarring African nations, where a military approach needs to be combined with both better governance and economic development.

The author demonstrates the mastery of his subject by effortlessly straddling strategic, operational and tactical concepts.

To the uninitiated on the complexity of the African theatres of conflict, there are case studies and maps and figures which clarify the concepts deployed.

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One of the great strengths of the book lie in its ability to simplify complex strategic phenomenon and therefore will be ideal to be used as a prescribed text for every military college.

Another great advantage of the book is the logical sequence in which it was structured. It is lear to me that the author took tremendous care in setting out the context of the African battle space, providing much-needed background on the nature of conflict and war in Africa.

Parts II and III then take the reader through conventional and unconventional manoeuvres covering such diverse areas as the advance, the attack the defence, armed antigovernment conflicts, guerrilla warfare and the planning of counter-anti-government operations.

Part IV, comprising five chapters, focuses on compositive warfare operations.

It is in this chapter where one vividly sees how the whole-of-government approach works in practice from the principles of composite warfare to unconventional mobile operations and the African pillars of war, to structuring ground forces for composite warfare operations, as well as reflections on how to respond to issues of stability in Africa’s fragile and failed states.

The numerous appendices, some never before published, add to the value of this work. This book is a tour de force and with it, Barlow has cemented his reputation as Africa’s best strategic studies thinker and practitioner. Will policymakers listen to the sage words of Eeben Barlow?

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