The Lure of Military Corruption: Shady Jets, Ghost Soldiers and Coups

Peter Dörrie

Security, Africa

What happens if you mix some real incentives to bulk up your military with a lot of money and support from external donors.

Of the world’s inhabited continents, Africa has by no means the biggest defense sector. Fifty-four African states are responsible for less than three percent—or about $50 billion—of the world’s military expenditure. But the continent also has experienced the largest increase in military spending, an astronomical 90 percent since 2005.

This by itself isn’t surprising. Conflict in a number of North and Sahelian African countries, and a boom in commodity prices in the years after the financial crisis, swelled the war chests of many resource-dependent governments in the region.

But what happens if you mix some real incentives to bulk up your military with a lot of money and support from external donors like the United States to some of the most authoritarian and secretive governments in the world? You get a lot of corruption, according to the international watchdog group Transparency International.

In its recently published Government Defense Anti-Corruption Index, Transparency International identified Africa as the continent with the highest average risk of experiencing corrupt practices in the defense sector. Of forty-seven countries surveyed, only seven score high enough to be in the Index’s “D Band,” indicating a high risk of corruption. The others are distributed evenly over the “E” and “F” Bands, signifying a very high and critical corruption risk, respectively.

While the index sorts countries in these abstract terms, defense corruption has very real and devastating implications, especially for African countries, Transparency International Project Officer Hiruy Gossaye told War Is Boring.

“Defense corruption is leading to insecurity and instability on the African continent,” Gossaye said. “It weakens the institutional capacity and effectiveness of the armed forces and it repurposes these forces for commercial and predatory ends.”