In near term, containment may be the name of the game in Mali
If you’re following the news on Mali, you’ve no doubt seen the most recent developments in the political crisis in Bamako in which the military junta “encouraged” or “facilitated” the resignation of PM Cheikh Modibo Diarra on Tuesday. (For thorough roundup of analyses and reactions to this incident, I would refer you here).
Two months ago, I wrote a post called “UN inches closer to approving ECOWAS intervention in Mali” and I thought I’d add some additional insights to it in light of recent developments.
In recent months, there have been no fewer than a gajillion (to use an analytical term) reports of ECOWAS drafting a plan for intervention and the UNSC telling them they’re on the right track, but not quite there. Amidst reports that a military intervention is inevitable, some differences have come to light vis-à-vis how the international community should approach said intervention.
- France favors swift approval by the UNSC of ECOWAS’ most recent intervention plan – a process complicated by the fact that Captain Sanogo has consistently been opposed to foreign intervention, and has successfully removed one of the key figures calling for such an intervention - PM Diarra.
- The United States has been more cautious in its support, favoring a dual-phase intervention that commences in the south with the training of the Mali Armed Forces (MAF) that would ideally complement (an actual, rather than cosmetic) political transition in Bamako. The second phase would then involve a mandate for military intervention to reconquer the north.
The way I see it, the United States’ reticence to throw unconditional support behind an ECOWAS-led intervention is primarily influenced by two factors.
- The first is the legacy of the arguably haphazard intervention in Libya that did not consider the broader regional implications of military intervention. I sense little appetite on the part of the United States to be held responsible for endorsing an ECOWAS intervention if it goes north and exacerbates the situation, or fails outright.
- To understand the second factor, you really need to take a closer look at the lessons of the African Union intervention in Somalia. In particular, the United States touts the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) as a potential model for an ECOWAS-led intervention in Mali. Notably, AMISOM came into being because of a regional and international demand signal for such an intervention force in Somalia. However, it was continually plagued with trying to determine how to achieve its objectives when troop contributions and funding were either unpredictable or altogether not forthcoming. As a result, it was only four and a half years into its mandate and over $385 million USD later that it started to see success. I think that although the U.S. sees AMISOM as a model for African-led conflict resolution supported by the international community, it simply lacks the time or the money to make the same mistake – in spite of a similar demand signal for intervention in Mali. Hence the requirement for extensive planning for concept of operations, troop commitments, and a resourcing plan prior to a mandate for intervention.
I think there’s a general consensus that Mali is a festering sore in the Sahel and that someone needs to do something about it, but the means and modalities are still TBD. In the mean time, I don’t foresee U.S. boots on the ground – at least the kind of boots you or I would even be aware of (wink, wink). But I would not be surprised if the U.S. approach to northern Mali is containment. Like in Somalia and the broader Horn of Africa, I see this as an approach in which the U.S. focuses on ensuring that the activities of AQIM, Ansar Dine, and MUJAO are confined to northern Mali and do not spread to Algeria, Niger, or Mauritania. I could also see this approach utilizing kinetic means (i.e., drone strikes) to disrupt terrorist operations in northern Mali, as well as non-kinetic means (i.e., public diplomacy programs) focused on countering violent extremism in Niger and Mauritania.
Until the political situation in Bamako becomes less unstable, the U.S. and European allies can agree on an approach to intervention, and ECOWAS can get boots on the ground (perhaps not until late 2013), I think containment is going to be the name of the game in northern Mali.
UN inches closer to approving ECOWAS intervention in Mali
Last week, the situation in Mali received some attention at the UN Security Council, which resulted in the council adopting Resolution 2071. However, if you look closely at the wording of the resolution, you’ll see that we’re still a ways from an ECOWAS-led military intervention in Mali.
You may recall that back in July, UNSC passed Resolution 2056 which expressed the council’s readiness to “further examine the request of ECOWAS once additional information has been provided regarding the objectives, means, and modalities of the envisaged deployment and other possible measures.” Later that month, the ECOWAS Technical Assessment Mission (TAM) that had been assembled to develop a roadmap for the restoration of Mali’s territorial integrity presented its findings to Mali’s Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra. ECOWAS Chiefs of Defense Staff (CHoDs) met in August and September – presumably to develop in greater detail a concept of operations (CONOPs) for an intervention in Mali, which according to Resolution 2056 would be a prerequisite for a UN resolution sanctioning such an intervention force. The CHoDs developed a three phase CONOPs for an ECOWAS Standby Force Mission in Mali (MICEMA) that would:
- Secure the transitional government institutions in Bamako;
- Train and reorganize the Malian Armed Forces; and
- Commence military operations to retake the north.
ECOWAS proposes that the force strength of MICEMA would be approximately 3,245 soldiers, of which, the majority would come from Nigeria (694), Togo (581), Niger (541), and Senegal (350). Unfortunately, I do not have visibility of the current status of the Malian Armed Forces, so I do not know how many troops might be available to work with the ECOWAS force for Phase III.
Like Resolution 2056 before it, Resolution 2071 again stops short of providing ECOWAS with a mandate for intervention. Instead, the Security Council asks the Secretary General to provide the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS with military planners to assist in efforts to respond to requests made by the transitional government in Mali for an intervention force, and asks the Secretary General to submit a report within 45 days that would include the “means and modalities of the envisaged deployment, in particular the concept of operations, force generation capabilities strength and support financial costs.”
Notice UNSC’s request for additional details on force generation capabilities and financial costs. If we, for a second, look across the continent at the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), in its recent resolution on Mali, the Security Council knowingly or unknowingly identified two key weaknesses that constrained AMISOM’s ability to be effective for the majority of the five and a half years it has been in Somalia. Thus, before it receives the blessing of a UN mandate, ECOWAS must provide not only a concept of operations, but must also demonstrate that it has incorporated future force generation and financial costs into its planning – especially if the intervention ends up being more complex than anticipated.
So, given what we know about the continuing development of plans for military intervention in Mali, here’s a few questions to consider:
- How does an end to the transitional government and the return to constitutional rule fit into the equation? Clearly, national elections are impossible while the north remains outside of Bamako’s control, but there is simultaneous pressure for elections before military action. However, because the north is outside of Bamako’s control, it would not be able to participate in elections, which would then run the risk of making the de facto separation of the country more tangible. Talk about a Catch 22.
- To what extent are the transitional government in Mali, the Malian Armed Forces, and ECOWAS on the same page vis-à-vis the three phase CONOPs for MICEMA? Although the transitional government requested foreign support to recapture the north, it has wanted that support to be restricted to the provision of equipment, intelligence, and logistics, and has resisted the deployment of foreign troops. (For a more thorough analysis of the government’s balancing act on foreign intervention, I refer you to a post by Alex Thurston)
- Will Algeria and Mauritania play constructive, ambivalent, or spoiler roles in Mali? Algeria and Mauritania are not members of ECOWAS, but they are still key players in regional security. Algeria is in favor of a negotiated solution, in part because it is concerned about potential spillover from an ECOWAS intervention (See Peter Tinti’s excellent article on Algeria’s northern Mali policy). Meanwhile, Mauritania has ruled out military intervention in Mali because it’s too complex and they don’t have the solution. These countries may not sign on for an ECOWAS intervention, but they could play a constructive role by increasing surveillance and patrols of their own borders with Mali to cut off the supply of arms and manpower to the armed groups (Ansar Dine, MUJWA, AQIM, MNLA, etc) that currently occupy the northern part of the country.
- What’s the timetable on intervention? This I am not sure of, although I doubt that ECOWAS would get boots on the ground in Mali before the end of 2012. A more important question to me, however, is how long might an intervention last, and is there a realistic chance that it may be taken over by the AU or UN? Your guess is as good as mine.
Key questions for African-initiated intervention force for eastern DRC
On August 7th and 8th, International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) heads of state met to discuss the deployment of an international force to fight the M23 rebel movement that has been active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) North Kivu region since April of this year. While they did not end up reaching a consensus on an intervention force, I still thought I’d attempt to think through the kind of questions that would need to be answered to establish such a force.
- What would the mission be? Like the current discussions the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is having about a regional intervention force for Mali, it will be essential for regional stakeholders to articulate what their objectives are and what their concept of operations might be in order to attain said objectives. Will they be focusing on fighting M23, or will they also be addressing instability caused by the Raia Mutomboki? Would this force attempt to address the underlying causes of the ongoing conflict in North Kivu, which could be a long-term commitment that would surpass a purely military intervention? Would this force focus on protecting civilians while allowing the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC in French) to deal with rebel groups? Starting to answer these types of mission-oriented questions would be a prerequisite for obtaining African Union (AU) and United Nations (UN) mandates, which could facilitate international support – which gets to my next question.
- Who would pay for this deployment?Troop-contributing countries (I’ll get to who they might be in a minute) would need to determine whether they can afford to pay the salaries of the units they would deploy, the use of (or acquisition of) contingent-owned equipment during the deployment, the transport of military assets to the eastern Congo, and the maintenance of these assets in the field. (I’m sure I forgot something, but you get the picture.) If troop-contributing countries cannot foot the bill, then the AU, UN, European Union (EU), United States would need to be willing and capable of providing financial assistance – either on a bilateral basis or on a multilateral basis – which gets to my next question.
- What framework would be used for an intervention force? The UN already has just under 20,000 military and police personnel as part of the UN Organization and Stabilization Mission in the DRC(MONUSCO), but it is possible that the UN (and the AU for that matter) are overtasked, both globally and in the DRC itself. Therefore, we might be looking at a sub-regional organization taking the lead akin to what ECOWAS is attempting to do in Mali. Unlike the situation in Mali, however, the DRC is not a member of a sub-regional organization that has a functional security component with a precedent for regional military intervention. The DRC is a member of both the Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC in French) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and these sub-regional organizations are supposed to have regional brigades that would fall under the African Standby Force (ASF). However, I don’t know whether the SADC Standby Force Brigade (SADCBRIG) or its CEEAC equivalent, the Central African Multinational Force (FOMAC in French), would be willing and capable of leading an intervention force. Therefore, if there is no sub-regional organization that has an established military component is able to take the lead, then how would this intervention force be comprised?
- Who would the players be? Since we don’t know whether a sub-regional organization or a multilateral coalition of countries would intervene in the DRC, it’s difficult to ascertain which countries could be part of this notional force. But since the ICGLR is talking about such a force, we’ll start with their members: Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan (not sure if South Sudan is a member), Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. If I were compiling an intervention dream team from these members, I would want Angola, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda on my team. Why these and not the others? Off the top of my head, these countries have reasonably professional militaries with proven warfighting capabilities, are active in AU and UN peacekeeping operations (with the exception of Angola), and have countries stable enough that deploying soldiers abroad would probably not inhibit their armed forces from addressing other national security threats. That said, many of these countries have baggage in the DRC as a result of their involvement in the 1998-2003 civil war (Angola, Rwanda, and Uganda), or more recently, alleged support for M23 (ahem…Rwanda). Also, would these countries even be interested in intervening? I would say Rwanda would because of the threat it perceives from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Angola’s participation would depend on the extent to which its security is affected by events on the opposite side of the Congo, as well as the extent to which the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA in Portuguese) feels more comfortable keeping the military at home in case there is instability surrounding this month’s elections or to contain additional protests by civil war veterans. And while I don’t think Kenya has baggage in the DRC, I doubt that instability in North Kivu is compelling enough to deploy the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) there when their focus is really on Somalia. Thus, the militaries that might be the most capable of fighting M23 in North Kivu may either fail to be perceived as a neutral force or their countries lack a compelling reason to get involved. As a result, an intervention force might have to look further afield to get troop contributors or make do with less capable forces.
So I guess the bottom line is that I don’t think an intervention force will come to fruition for the eastern Congo due to some of the issues I’ve raised above.
Calls Continue for Military Intervention in Mali
In June, the African Union (AU) Peace & Security Council called upon the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to endorse the deployment of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Standby Force to ensure the security of the transitional institutions; restructure and reorganize the Malian security and defense forces; and restore State authority over the northern part of the country and combat terrorist and criminal networks. In response, the Security Council passed Resolution 2056 (2012) this past Thursday, but stopped short of authorizing an ECOWAS force to intervene in Mali. Instead, the Security Council expressed its readiness to “further examine the request of ECOWAS once additional information has been provided regarding the objectives, means and modalities of the envisaged deployment and other possible measures.” In other words, the UN has not ruled out endorsing military intervention in Mali with a UN mandate, but if it is to do so at some point in the future, it needs some sense that ECOWAS has thought through this rather complicated affair.
And the Security Council has a point. Amid concerns that Mali’s north may become the “next Somalia” or the “Afghanistan of West Africa,” groups affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) (Ansar Dine and MUJWA – Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa) continue to hold territory – including major cities in the north. Meanwhile, the transition from military to constitutional rule in the south has largely failed, and there are few indications that the political vacuum that exists in Bamako will be resolved any time soon. These concurrent crises make a military intervention of any kind very complex.
Nigeria, Niger, and Senegal have pledged to provide most of the 3,300 troops that ECOWAS hopes to deploy. Their initial mission would be to bolster Mali’s armed forces and stabilize political institutions, and turn to retaking the north if ongoing negotiations with Tuareg rebels in Burkina Faso fail. However, they may not even get that far. Persistently opposed to foreign intervention, coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo has requested that Mali’s army receive foreign support – but not foreign troops – to restore Mali’s territorial integrity. But the small problem with this is that, at least for the United States, it is technically illegal to allocate security force assistance when a military has seized power by unconstitutional means. Furthermore, giving into Sanogo’s wishes means the international community would be, in essence, sanctioning his unconstitutional seizure of power, while diminishing its leverage to get him out of the picture. It’s a game of chicken – with each side seeing how bad things up north can get before the other gives in.
While the UN mulled authorization of an ECOWAS intervention this week, about 2,000 protesters demonstrated in Bamako, calling for a military intervention in the north. According to Al-Jazeera, a leader of a northern citizens’ collective was quoted as saying “If the army doesn’t want to go to war, then give us the means to liberate our territory!” Mali’s National Assembly joined in, issuing a statement calling for the “restoration of territorial integrity,” and calling on the Malian people for “implacable resistance to the occupation and boosting solidarity by all possible means.”
At least in rhetoric, the Malian army is on board with restoring the country’s territorial integrity. Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra conducted a review of the army in Ségou in early June, and military preparations were observed in Sévaré, which is just south of the de facto border of Azawad and what remains of Mali. Yet, just like before the coup, the armed forces will be unevenly matched in the fight for the north. In fact, one can argue that they are worse off than before – still lacking the training, equipment, and air support that contributed to their inability to defeat the Tuareg rebels before the coup. Except now, in addition to being cut off from security force assistance from foreign partners, it faces a plethora of armed groups – some of which possess arms not only from Libya, but also from the stockpiles abandoned by the Malian army as it fled south in late March/early April.
In closing, I would highly recommend reading two great sources on political/military intervention in Mali. The first is “Why Mali’s Path to Peace Must Start in the South” by Todd Moss. This is a brief post written about two weeks ago that lays out several helpful assumptions about Mali’s distinct but inter-related crises, and offers a sequenced approach to addressing these crises. It’s well-thought out and well-argued, and gets at some of the difficult issues that need to be resolved in order to improve the situation in Mali. The second is “Intervening in Mali: West African Nations Plan Offensive against Islamists and Tuareg Rebels” by Andrew McGregor. The most helpful parts of this article are where the author analyzes the likely current capabilities of Mali’s army, gives an overview of the various armed groups that are proliferating in northern Mali (aside from AQIM, MUJWA, and the MNLA), and offers a nascent concept of operations for how Mali would go about recapturing the north – and how foreign military support might fit into these plans.
Maybe ECOWAS isn’t the solution to Mali’s political crisis
After last month’s “transition” to civilian rule, the military junta’s statements undermining the spirit of said transition, the subsequent arrests of key political, military, and business leaders, and this week’s attempted counter-coup in Mali, it occurred to me that perhaps ECOWAS isn’t capable of providing a solution to Mali’s political crisis. Sure, ECOWAS was able to put a civilian face on what essentially remains a military regime, but it is increasingly clear that Interim President Dioncounda Traoré and Interim Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra are the heads of the interim government, but the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State (CNRDRE) is the neck.
But if ECOWAS is unable to solve the political crisis in Bamako (which is a necessary precondition for solving the crisis of territorial integrity in the north), what’s the next step? My international security bias came out when I tried to think through which international organizations might be capable of coercing the CNRDRE to return to the barracks. What about the African Union? No, they’re too busy with Somalia and the Sudans. What about the United Nations? No, they’re too busy with Syria et al. Then it occurred to me that because of my background, I might be thinking about it all wrong. What if the solution to Mali’s political crisis lies inside Mali – particularly within civil society? (This may be a no-brainer to most people, but again, my focus is security: death, destruction, world domination, etc).
Not knowing much about the chances of a domestic backlash to the CNRDRE leading to the military’s marginalization and the true transition to civilian rule, I posted the following question as a comment on Bruce Whitehouse’s post “Fears, foreigners, and falsehoods”:
One thing that’s starting to occur to me is that ECOWAS appears to have no teeth in its dealings with the CNRDRE. Does that mean that… it may ultimately fall to civil society to get them to return to the barracks? I can’t get a good sense of the balance of support for/opposition to the CNRDRE, but do you think there’s a threshold the junta will cross that would get the population to apply pressure on them?
I’ve copied Bruce’s response below because I think he highlights some important points:
For now I’d say the junta still has significant popular support at least in Bamako, strong enough for it to withstand pressure from both Malian civil society and ECOWAS. Many ordinary Bamakois have zero faith not only in their political class but in their political institutions too, which in their view have never served the people’s needs. Hence the idea of throwing out the whole state apparatus and starting over from scratch is something they find appealing. Especially after the events of this week, and given that nobody here supports an ECOWAS intervention, it won’t be easy to sideline Captain Sanogo in the weeks and months to come.
I do think, however, that there are two interrelated sources of pressure on the junta now from the population. One, Malians are starting to get the impression that junta leaders are uninterested in addressing pressing national problems, and are only concerned with shoring up their own power. Two, Malians are growing impatient with the junta’s lack of action in addressing Mali’s de facto partition. The army’s primary responsibility is to protect the nation’s territorial integrity, yet since early April it has been exclusively focused on protecting the junta and arresting its enemies. If these trends continue, the CNRDRE will find itself in trouble.
Therefore, if the CNRDRE continues to prioritize staying in control and Mali remains de facto partitioned, domestic resistance to the junta could emerge. However, the downside of this pathway is that we don’t know how long it will take for the junta to wear out its welcome in Bamako, or whether civil society would actually be more effective at pressuring the junta to stand down than ECOWAS has been to date. Regardless of these political issues getting resolved, the longer the government and military ignore the situation in the north, the more difficult it will be to reassemble what was once the Malian state.
