Military Advisors and Missions, 1815-2005 From Mercenaries to Privatization

Nations seeking to develop and improve their military forces have often sought the advice of foreigners. Before 1815, military advice from abroad generally took the form of mercenaries, slaves, and former enemy troops pressed into service. However, with the rise of the modern nation state, the advent of the industrial revolution, and the accompanying professionalization of armies and governments, nations desiring military modernization and improvement began seeking more formal, professional advice to develop their military forces. This edited volume presents a number of historical case studies of military advisors and/or their missions in order to provide clear examples of the functioning, motives and evolution of foreign military and naval advising in the modern era. These are intended to show the evolution of foreign military advising from ill-organized mercenary units, to professional, government-sponsored teams driven by a desire to cultivate political and economic influence, to Cold War tools for pursuing ideological aims, nation building, and modernization, to post-Cold War elements of alliance integration. Finally, the book highlights the increasing present-day role of private corporations, some of which provide complete military forces, thereby bringing the evolution of foreign military advising full circle. This book will be of interest to students of military history, civil-military relations, peacekeeping, security studies and political science in general.Stoker, Donald is the author of 'Military Advisors and Missions, 1815-2005 From Mercenaries to Privatization', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415770156 and ISBN 0415770157.