The COVID-19 pandemic saw armed forces play an important role in the implementation of policies aimed at fighting the spread of the virus, or at alleviating the side effects of COVID-related restrictions. In many countries, they have engaged in humanitarian, policing or medical interventions, sometimes in rupture with their traditional tasks, and sometimes in continuity as was the case for African states that had been affected by Ebola. This report studies the domestic deployment of militaries to manage the pandemic on the African continent and analyzes the COVID-19 crisis as a case study of continuity and change: both within civil-military relations more broadly and within the armed forces in particular. It report focuses on four cases: Sierra Leone by Maggie Dwyer and Osman Gbla; Burkina Faso by Aboubacar Maïga; Uganda by Moses Khisa; and South Africa by Lindy Heinecken. In those four cases, military engagement in the pandemic go from being out of the ordinary, to cases where it followed previously established norms. These case studies provide explanations for these variations, highlighting the importance of history and context in shaping civil-military relationships and the military’s place within the broader security apparatus. It also points to the short and long term impact of the pandemic on the armed forces’ professional identity, and to the vulnerabilities they experienced due to their living conditions and their broad range of tasks.
