Abstract

Fifty-eight years after the independence of most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the continent remains the site of chronic armed conflict. The State is weak and subject to patrimonial practices of its resources. The army, long under-equipped by political elites suspicious of the military, seeks by violence to improve the professional condition of its personnel, triggering civil wars. Dependent on each other, the State and the Army in Africa are progressing together: progress in the management of the res publica (public affairs) reinforces res militaris (the military thing). To underestimate these factors is to perpetuate the African civil wars.