Play as · WW2 1939 · L1 · Independent African Republic

Liberia - 1939

Liberia in 1939 is one of only two independent African republics (alongside Ethiopia, currently Italian-occupied) - independent since the 1847 declaration that ended the American Colonization Society administrative period and produced the constitutional-political framework substantially modeled on US institutions. Population about 1.5M, with the Americo-Liberian descendant minority (about 5% of the population, descended from the post-1822 ACS-resettled free African-Americans) holding substantial political-and-economic dominance through the True Whig Party governance that has been continuous since 1869. Governed by President Edwin Barclay (in office since 1930). The strategic identity is the Americo-Liberian Atlantic-coast republic with the substantial Firestone Tire and Rubber Company plantations (the largest private rubber-producing operation in the world, established under the 1926 concession agreement), the post-1939 looming wartime US engagement that will produce the Roberts Field airbase establishment and the broader US-Liberian strategic-cooperation framework, and the substantial historical-political relationship with the United States.

Starting position

The Liberian Frontier Force in 1939 is about 2,000 active personnel - small relative to the substantial territorial extent and the indigenous-population administrative challenges, oriented toward border defense, internal-security operations including the substantial indigenous-population pacification campaigns that the post-1920s True Whig administrations have continued, and the limited regional-cooperation engagement. Equipment is light. The Firestone rubber plantations near Harbel constitute one of the principal Atlantic strategic-economic assets - the World War 2 Allied rubber-supply situation will substantially elevate the strategic-significance after the post-1942 Japanese conquest of the Southeast Asian rubber-producing territories. The Roberts Field airbase (constructed by Pan American Airways under US-government contract starting in 1942) will become the principal Atlantic-crossing transit-point for US wartime air-traffic.

What turns the campaign

What Liberia under Barclay (and successor President William Tubman from 1944) wants is the True Whig political-institutional continuity preserved through the wartime political-economic pressures, the Firestone plantation production preserved at the level the substantial post-1942 Allied-strategic-rubber-supply requirements will demand, the looming wartime US engagement institutionalized through the bilateral cooperation that will substantially restructure the US-Liberian relationship (the post-1942 Defense Areas Agreement, the post-1944 declaration of war on the Axis, the broader strategic-cooperation framework), and the substantial Atlantic strategic-positioning preserved as the principal foreign-policy asset. What Liberia fears is a German-aligned strategic-economic pressure on the Atlantic positioning (the Battle of the Atlantic context will substantially elevate the strategic-relevance of the Liberian coast), an indigenous-population political-administrative crisis that the True Whig governance has been continuously managing, and a Firestone-related labor-or-political crisis that compromises the principal external-economic relationship.

Signature challenge