As the colors flapped under the overcast sky on this February day, Ziankahn returned to his seat next to Johnson Sirleaf and the outgoing army chief, Maj. Gen. Suraj Alao Abdulrrahman, a tall Nigerian man whose bright green uniform was weighed down by colored medals and other regalia. A lone medal hung from the left breast of Ziankahn’s jacket.

Ziankahn, 42, joined the military in 2006, three years after the war’s end, and with training from the United States has risen quickly to head one of the world’s youngest armies. Johnson Sirleaf appointed Abdulrrahman amid concerns that a Liberian would be too entangled by the various factions that fought in the war; Ziankahn’s rise marks the latest step in the army’s efforts to reinvent itself.

Thirty-four years ago, behind the walls of these barracks, on a stretch of sand beside the Atlantic Ocean, 13 top government officials were tethered to poles and sprayed with machine gun fire by soldiers who staged a coup. President William Tolbert was killed in the executive mansion. The executions precipitated the army’s descent into violence, and it was deemed a warring faction during the civil war, which claimed more than 250,000 lives. After the war, the army was disbanded.

In 2005 the United States and the Liberian government called for the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) to be rebuilt from scratch. The U.S. has spent more than $300 million on the effort, relying on the private military company DynCorp to recruit and train Liberian soldiers. In 2009, DynCorp’s contract ended, and U.S. military mentors took over.

Today the AFL numbers just under 2,000 men and women, a small fraction of its size during the war. Analysts say that while the army is a professional force, it may be too small and weak to protect the country. As the U.S. draws down its financial support, questions remain about whether the money spent to rebuild the AFL has been used wisely.

“In many respects, this long, 10-year process has been successful in creating, I think, for the first time in Liberia’s history, a military that is well regarded, that is respectful of authority, that is popular with the people,” says J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and author of “Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State.” But, he adds, “the military force that Liberians can afford on their own is not likely to be large enough or sufficiently well equipped to do much good should they face a real, conventional threat. However, even a small force, especially if it is disciplined and nimble, can cause mischief.”

Liberia has avoided relapsing into violent conflict, even though many analysts expected it to do so within a few years of the war’s end. Here in the capital, there are visible signs of change: new slick apartment complexes and tall commercial buildings, paved roads, neat rows of trees in the city’s center and new electricity lines that deliver the most expensive public electricity in the world. The country’s security remains fragile, amid reports of endemic police corruption and mob and gender-based violence. A U.N. peacekeeping force of 5,700 still operates in the country. And while there have been changes in Monrovia, Liberia remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with the majority of the population living on less than a dollar a day.

As the colors flapped under the overcast sky on this February day, Ziankhan returned to his seat next to Johnson Sirleaf and the outgoing army chief, Major General Suraj Alao Abdulrrahman, a tall Nigerian man whose bright green uniform was weighed down by colored medals and other regalia. A lone medal hung from the left breast of Ziankhan’s jacket.

As the colors flapped under the overcast sky on this February day, Ziankhan returned to his seat next to Johnson Sirleaf and the outgoing army chief, Major General Suraj Alao Abdulrrahman, a tall Nigerian man whose bright green uniform was weighed down by colored medals and other regalia. A lone medal hung from the left breast of Ziankhan’s jacket.