DBWI: Never fight a landwar in Africa: An essay I need help on

Yeah, I know asking for help on homework isn't encouraged here, but hear me out first. My international political science teacher is making a deal with me: if I can write a good enough essay on a subject of my choice from the Cold War, I can take the zoom-path and finish the class a few weeks early, so that I can go to one of the Army training schools later this fall and get back before Christmas. And I really, really want to take the jungle course in Liberia, so I can visit relatives still over there once I finish...

Anyways, I thought I'd do mine on the African Wars, including but not limited to the Algerian War and its shockwaves in the region. For one thing, there's a good deal of information and documentation (and, unfortunately, propoganda), and I also have relatives who live on the continent who were stationed in Liberia and decided to stay.

But I also need some more sources, and I wouldn't say no to maps. But what I'd really like is some life-stories anyone might have, or some extra political analysis of the times and the aftereffects. You know what I mean.

Anyone mind helping me?
 
Your best focus for the African Wars is going to be depth, not scope. You can read a dozen books and write of Frances actions from Algeria to Lybira and only scratch the surface. To me the more interesting aspects will be not the FLN fighting and loosing in the streets of Algiers, or African manned Soviet T-54's, and AK-47's out gunning Italians, the British or Americans near Tunisa, but instead the intial stages which lead up to Soviet help.

Focus on things like the IRA training PFLN fighters from the fall of the FLN to the outright guerilla tactics used. Include the falling out of course which forced the Algerians to seek Soviet help in arming them, but its one of those things were many will point to the need for independence causing the African issues. From my point of view the best method is finding just why things happened the way they did. In this case, at least from my reading of the period, if not for Irish advisors pushing attacking French cities and Algerian commanders disagreeing the war may have shifted drastically out of Algerias favor in the early years.

As this is AH start your essay with WI. WI Algeria attacked civilian targets in the late fifites? That right there brings up so much about what can and cannot happen by any who know the period it starts you on the right track.
 
Geez. Not another attempt to get us to do your homework. The last guy claimed his dad had some strange disease affecting his immun system, I think he claimed he got it in Africa.

Anyway, The wars that had the biggest effect on the Cold War involved either the US or the Soviets so focus on them.
 
If you're interested in exploring the subject of Algeria, I'd recommend the film The Battle of Algiers. Not only is it a good primer on the situation and an accurate depiction of the French presence there, it manages to fairly evenhandedly depict the two sides - i.e. numerous FLN atrocities are shown in addition to those committed by the pieds-noirs. It was also influential in its own right due to its depiction of urban guerrilla tactics...if I remember correctly, Andreas Baader (of Baader-Meinhof fame) cited it as his favorite film.

And besides all that, it's a very entertaining movie too.
 
If you read Portuguese, I'd suggest their colonial wars of the 1960s and 70s, if only because they're different.

Or the Rhodesian Bush War, which is English language but I doubt you can get a great deal of useful first-hand information outside of Salisbury (or 'Harare', as I believe it is now called).

Both could be studied apropos UN sanctions, decolonialisation, Cold War Africa etc.


I would think there's a fair deal of stuff about the SA Border Wars which would be quite fun, with a direct Cold War resonance because of the proxy campaigns being fought: covert Western support via Israel in spite of sanctions, long-range raids to destroy rebel camps, E German and Cuban advisors, SAAF Mirages vs Angolan/Mozambiquan MiGs, tank battles, etc.
 
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