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The collapse of Western-supported Afghan forces in mid-2021 emphasizes how difficult building whole armies can be. The Liberian experience 2004–2009 holds relevant lessons. After the civil war ended, the US State Department engaged two private military contractors to recreate a new Liberian army from the ashes. But scholarship so far on the Liberian army reconstruction process has been mixed, partially obscuring some of the core truths of the program. On reflection, the reasons for the very mixed results appear to be, first, that the idea of SSR itself is flawed, which is partially why “Security and Justice programming” is rising in prominence—local ownership in such armies is shared upwards through a multi-faceted patronage chain; second, that the Liberian state never had any meaningful history of military professionalism; and that creating an entire army was far more complicated than the usual tasks assigned to private contractors. The complete absence of any experienced leadership in the first months was devastating.

Why did the 2004–09 Liberia SSR Program not succeed in creating an accountable and effective army?