Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms: From Institutional Proliferation to Institutional Exploitation 9781138543980, 9781351005333

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This edited volume is one of the very few publications which offers a crossinstitutional perspective on rapid response instruments which is largely missing in the literature. The book critically examines the many limitations rapid response is facing in practice without forgetting its importance for more effective international crisis response. It is a book which rightly deserves a place in the bookshelf of anyone interested in the intricacies of international crisis response. Malte Brosig, Associate Professor, University of the Witwatersrand This book provides a remarkably comprehensive overview of rapid response mechanisms, earning a place on the bookshelf of anybody interested in contemporary peace operations. The first chapters provide detailed, up-to-date analyses of the trajectory of policy initiatives in the African Union, the European Union, NATO, and the UN, similarly structured to facilitate comparison. Critically, however, the book also highlights that these organizations typically interact—not always positively, and sometimes in “dysfunctional competition”—in responding to contemporary crises, and that ad hoc arrangements have been common alternatives to the effective deployment of formal rapid response mechanisms. Katharina Coleman, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia Multilateral rapid military responses are often called for in conflict situations around the globe, yet always prove problematic. They require coordination of a considerable number of political and military actors at various levels, including interplay among international organizations such as the UN, NATO, the European Union and the African Union. By combining a common interorganizational approach with a wide range of in-depth case studies, the contributors to this pioneering volume manage to uncover factors that hamper as well as facilitate rapid multilateral interventions. A veritable tour de force! Christer Jönsson, Professor Emeritus, Lund University Among the key questions for any military response are: what goes where, how big, and how fast? Speed saves lives when responding to crises. Curiously, rigorous studies of rapid response mechanisms are limited. This volume fills the gap. It provides a comprehensive, comparative approach to the topic from a list of top scholars in the field. Experts, practitioners, and students alike should read it. It is destined to be the key text on the topic for some time to come. Adam Lupel, Vice President, International Peace Institute

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Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms

The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times of crisis are largely similar. This book is the first comprehensive and comparative contribution to explore and identify the key factors that hamper and enable the development and deployment of multinational rapid response mechanisms. Examining lessons from deployments by the AU, the EU, NATO, and the UN in the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia, and counter-piracy in the Horn of Africa, the contributors focus upon the following questions: Was there a rapid response to the crises? By whom? If not, what were the major obstacles to rapid response? Did inter-organizational competition hinder responsiveness? Or did cooperation facilitate responsiveness? Bringing together leading scholars working in this area offers a unique opportunity to analyze and develop lessons for policy-makers and for theorists of inter-organizational relations. This work will be of interest to scholars and students of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, legitimacy and international relations. John Karlsrud is senior research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), and received his Ph.D. at the University of Warwick. He has been a Fulbright fellow at the Center on International Cooperation, New York University (NYU), and a visiting fellow at the International Peace Institute, New York. John works on peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and humanitarian issues. Books include The UN at War: Peace Operations in a New Era (Palgrave, 2018), Norm Change in International Relations (Routledge, 2016), and The Future of African Peace Operations: From the Janjaweed to Boko Haram (Zed Books, 2016, co-edited with Cedric de Coning and Linnea Gelot). Yf Reykers is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Previously, he was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Leuven International and European Studies Institute at KU Leuven, Belgium, where he also obtained his Ph.D. in 2017. He has been a visiting scholar at the Center on International Cooperation at NYU and at Aarhus University. His research focuses on multinational military operations. He studies issues relating to the accountability of military interventions, rapid response mechanisms, and inter-organizational relations. His work has been published in journals such as Contemporary Security Policy, European Security, International Peacekeeping, and Parliamentary Affairs.

Global Institutions Edited by Thomas G. Weiss The CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA and Rorden Wilkinson University of Sussex, Brighton, UK About the series The “Global Institutions Series” provides cutting-edge books about many aspects of what we know as “global governance.” It emerges from our shared frustrations with the state of available knowledge— electronic and print-wise, for research and teaching—in the area. The series is designed as a resource for those interested in exploring issues of international organization and global governance. And since the first volumes appeared in 2005, we have taken significant strides toward filling conceptual gaps. The series consists of three related “streams” distinguished by their blue, red, and green covers. The blue volumes, comprising the majority of the books in the series, provide user-friendly and short (usually no more than 50,000 words) but authoritative guides to major global and regional organizations, as well as key issues in the global governance of security, the environment, human rights, poverty, and humanitarian action among others. The books with red covers are designed to present original research and serve as extended and more specialized treatments of issues pertinent for advancing understanding about global governance. And the volumes with green covers—the most recent departure in the series— are comprehensive and accessible accounts of the major theoretical approaches to global governance and international organization. The books in each of the streams are written by experts in the field, ranging from the most senior and respected authors to first-rate scholars at the beginning of their careers. In combination, the three components of the series—blue, red, and green—serve as key resources for faculty, students, and practitioners alike. The works in the blue and green streams have value as core and complementary readings in courses on, among other things, international organization, global governance, international law, international relations, and international political economy; the red volumes allow further reflection and investigation in these and related areas. The books in the series also provide a segue to the foundation volume that offers the most comprehensive textbook treatment available

dealing with all the major issues, approaches, institutions, and actors in contemporary global governance—our edited work International Organization and Global Governance (2014)—a volume to which many of the authors in the series have contributed essays. Understanding global governance—past, present, and future—is far from a finished journey. The books in this series nonetheless represent significant steps toward a better way of conceiving contemporary problems and issues as well as, hopefully, doing something to improve world order. We value the feedback from our readers and their role in helping shape the on-going development of the series. A complete list of titles can be viewed online here: https://www.routledge. com/Global-Institutions/book-series/GI.

Global Governance and China (2018) edited by Scott Kennedy The League of Nations (2018) by M. Patrick Cottrell The British Media and the Rwandan Genocide (2018) by John Nathaniel Clarke UNHCR as a Surrogate State (2018) by Sarah Deardorff Miller Global Trends and Transitions in Security Expertise (2018) by James G. McGann Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (2018) edited by Claudia Fuentes Julio and Paula Drumond The Use of Force in UN Peacekeeping (2018) edited by Peter Nadin Sovereign Rules and the Politics of International Economic Law (2018) by Marc D. Froese Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms From Institutional Proliferation to Institutional Exploitation edited by John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers

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Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms From Institutional Proliferation to Institutional Exploitation

Edited by John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers; individual chapters, the contributors The right of John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 9781138543980 (hbk) ISBN: 9781351005333 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

List of tables List of contributors Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: Rapid response mechanisms—strengthening defense cooperation and saving strangers?

xi xii xvi xviii

1

JOHN KARLSRUD AND YF REYKERS

1 Tools in a toolbox: The African Union’s repertoire of mechanisms for addressing peace and security on the continent

18

LINDA AKUA OPONGMAA DARKWA

2 EU Battlegroups: From standby to standstill

41

YF REYKERS

3 The NATO Response Force: Bellwether of NATO’s commitment to regional deterrence

57

JENS RINGSMOSE AND STEN RYNNING

4 United Nations rapid reaction mechanisms: From SHIRBRIG to a UN Vanguard Force

75

JOACHIM A. KOOPS AND ALEXANDRA NOVOSSELOFF

5 Multinational rapid response forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Another example of winning battles, but losing the peace? THOMAS MANDRUP

92

x

Contents 6 Rapid response and inter-organizational competition: Four international organizations, two key states, and the crisis in the Central African Republic

115

MARTIN WELZ

7 Tangled up in glue: Multilateral crisis responses in Mali

133

JOHN KARLSRUD, NATASJA RUPESINGHE AND DENIS M. TULL

8 EU–NATO inter-organizational relations in counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa

155

˘ AND MARIANNE RIDDERVOLD RUXANDRA-LAURA BOȘILCA

9 Conclusion: Military rapid response—from institutional investment to ad hoc solutions

177

JOHN KARLSRUD AND YF REYKERS

Index

190

Tables

5.1 Timeline of rapid reaction mechanisms in the DRC, 1960–2018 6.1 Timeline of international interventions in the CAR, 1997–2017 7.1 Timeline of international responses to the crisis in Mali, January 2013–March 2018 8.1 Timeline of international counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa, 2007–2018

95 119 140 158

Contributors

Ruxandra-Laura Boșilca˘ holds a Ph.D. in political science from the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, in co-supervision with the ARENA Centre for European Studies. Previously, she was a research fellow at the University of Bologna, Cardiff University, and Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). Her main areas of research include European Union (EU) foreign and security policy, policy-making in the EU, NATO and transatlantic relations, and maritime security with a focus on piracy and organized crime. Linda Akua Opongmaa Darkwa (Ph.D.) is a senior research fellow at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy, Accra, Ghana, currently on leave and serving as the coordinator of the Training for Peace Secretariat, a Norwegian capacity support program to the African Union (AU) Commission. Her research interests are in the areas of peace and security with a particular focus on the implications of global security paradigms on regional and local processes of governance, human rights, development, and security. Her contribution to this volume is written in her personal capacity. Joachim A. Koops is dean of Vesalius College of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), research professor of policy at the VUB’s Institute for European Studies, and director of the Global Governance Institute (GGI), Brussels. In 2009, he served as the lessons learned advisor for the Standby High Readiness Brigade for UN Operations (SHIRBRIG). Recent publications include The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (Oxford University Press, 2015, with Norrie MacQueen, Thierry Tardy, and Paul D. Williams), The Palgrave Handbook of Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics (Palgrave, 2017, with Rafael

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Biermann), and “Europe’s Return to UN Peacekeeping?” (a special issue of International Peacekeeping, 2016, with Giulia Tercovich). Thomas Mandrup is an extraordinary associate professor at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and associate professor at Royal Danish Defence College, Denmark. His main research focus is within the field of African security governance, with a specific focus on African peace missions, the African Peace and Security Architecture and military transformation. He received his Ph.D. in international relations in 2007 from the University of Copenhagen, for a dissertation entitled: “Africa: Salvation or Despair? A Study of the Post-Apartheid South African Government’s Use of the Military Tool in Its Foreign Policy Conduct from 1994 to 2006.” He has recently been appointed editor of the South African Journal of Military Studies. From 2016 to 2017 he headed the African section of a large EU-funded project, Horizon 2020, on EU conflict management. Alexandra Novosseloff is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the International Peace Institute in New York. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Paris–Panthéon-Assas (Paris 2). Her area of expertise lies in the field of international organizations, the United Nations (UN) Security Council, peacekeeping, and the relationship between the UN and regional organizations. Dr Novosseloff is also a non-resident fellow at the NYU Center on International Cooperation, a research associate at the Centre Thucydide in Paris, and a senior expert at the Peace and Security Section of GGI in Brussels. She is also a freelance photographer interested in post-conflict areas. Marianne Riddervold is full professor in political science at the Norway Inland University of Applied Sciences, senior fellow at the Institute of European Studies at UC–Berkeley, and a guest researcher at NUPI. Riddervold studies EU foreign and security policy, maritime security, transatlantic relations, EU integration, and international relations. She has published extensively on these issues in various journals and books. Riddervold’s most recent publications include The Maritime Turn in EU Foreign and Security Policies: Aims, Actors and Mechanisms of Integration (Palgrave, 2018), and “Transatlantic Relations in Times of Uncertainty: Crises and EU–US Relations” (a special issue of the Journal of European Integration, 2018, with Akasemi Newsome).

xiv List of contributors Jens Ringsmose is the director of the Institute for Military Operations and the vice-dean for research at the Royal Danish Defence College. He is also a professor at the Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy. His main research areas include NATO and contemporary armed conflict. Dr Ringsmose was a visiting scholar in 2009 at NATO’s Defence College in Rome, and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC, in 2013. He has published in journals including Survival, International Politics, Contemporary Security Policy, European Security, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Global Affairs, and Cooperation and Conflict. Natasja Rupesinghe is a Research Fellow in the Peace, Conflict and Development Group at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). She has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and French from the University College London, and a master’s degree in Conflict Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her areas of research include UN and AU peace operations, particularly on issues related to civilian protection, as well as the emergence, organization and dynamics of insurgent groups in Africa. Sten Rynning is professor of international relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Southern Denmark, where he also heads the Centre for War Studies. From 2015 to 2016 Sten was a member of the official Norwegian Afghanistan Commission, and of the advisory group to Ambassador Peter Taksøe-Jensen’s official review of Danish foreign policy. He sits on the board of the Danish Atlantic Treaty Association; the advisory board of the Danish Defence College; and the editorial board of the European Journal of International Security, International Affairs, and the Journal of Strategic Studies. He was a visiting scholar at NATO’s Defence College in Rome in 2012, at the American University’s School of International Service in the spring of 2017, and he was president of the Nordic International Studies Association from 2011 to 2015. Sten is also the author of numerous books and articles on NATO and European security, as well as military operations and defence transformation. Denis M. Tull is currently a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM) in Paris, on leave from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg. His areas of research include

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Africa’s international relations, military intervention, UN peacekeeping, and armed conflict and statebuilding in the Sahel and Central Africa. His papers have been published in International Security, International Peacekeeping, African Affairs, and the Journal of Modern African Studies, among others. Martin Welz is senior researcher at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Prior to that he was a visiting professor at the FriedrichSchiller-University in Jena, Germany. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Konstanz in 2011. He has published widely on the African Union, peace operations, inter-organizational relations, and conflict management in Africa, in such journals as African Affairs, International Affairs, International Peacekeeping, Global Governance, and Third World Quarterly. His book Integrating Africa: Decolonization’s Legacies, Sovereignty and the African Union was published by Routledge in 2013.

Acknowledgments

The idea of bringing together experts on military rapid response mechanisms was first raised in May 2016 during the European Union in International Affairs conference in Brussels. It was a striking observation that at a time when the African Standby Force had just been declared ready for deployment, when the EU was outlining a new foreign and security policy strategy but had repeatedly failed to respond to emerging crises, when NATO was revitalizing its rapid reaction capacity by developing a spearhead force, and when China had pledged standby forces in support of UN peacekeeping, academics had still not joined forces to identify common obstacles to rapid deployment. After having gathered a group of international experts to draw lessons on shared obstacles; and enablers of the institutionalized rapid response capacities of the AU, EU, NATO, and UN for a Special Forum in Contemporary Security Policy, we wanted to further explore the inherent inter-organizational nature of military rapid responses. During the 11th Pan-European Conference on International Organizations in Barcelona in September 2017, organized by the European International Studies Association, the idea for editing a volume on this increasingly pressing topic for the Routledge Global Institutions Series was born. We owe thanks to several people who made this edited volume possible. A special word of gratitude goes to the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University, and in particular to Jim Della-Giacoma, for making possible our research stays during the autumn of 2015. It was in this stimulating environment that the first seeds of a fruitful cooperation were planted. We are grateful to Hylke Dijkstra, editor of Contemporary Security Policy, for being the first to see the value of this comparative effort on rapid response forces and for providing us with the opportunity to guest-edit a Special Forum. We would also like to thank Thomas G. Weiss and Rorden Wilkinson,

Acknowledgments

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the series editors of the Routledge Global Institutions Series, and Nicola Parkin, senior editor at Routledge, for their immediate and continuous enthusiasm for our idea, and very helpful comments and suggestions throughout the process. Furthermore, we are grateful to our host institutions, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and the Leuven International and European Studies Institute at KU Leuven. We are particularly thankful to NUPI for financial support during the finalization of this volume. A word of praise also goes to Martin Burke and Bård Drange for their support in the final editing and indexing of this volume. In addition, throughout the process we have received insightful comments and suggestions from the chapter authors as well as a range of colleagues and policy officials, which helped us greatly in developing and strengthening the argument of this volume.

Abbreviations

A2/AD ACIRC ADF AFISMA AFISMA-CAR AHSG AMISOM APSA AQIM ASF AU AUC BBC BINUCA BONUCA CAR CEN-SAD CGPCS CIS CJSOR CMCC CMF CSDP CSIS CTF-150 DFS

Anti-access, Area Denial African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis Allied Democracy Forces African-led International Support Mission in Mali African-led International Support Mission in the CAR AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government AU Mission in Somalia African Peace and Security Architecture Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb African Standby Force African Union AU Commission British Broadcasting Corporation UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the CAR UN Peacebuilding Support Office in the CAR Central African Republic Community of Sahel-Saharan States Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia Communications and Information Systems Combined Joint Statement of Requirements Continental Movement Control Centre Combined Maritime Forces EU Common Security and Defence Policy Center for Strategic and International Studies Combined Task Force 150 UN Department of Field Support

Abbreviations DPKO DRC ECCAS ECOWAS EDI EEAS EFP ERDC ERI ESDP EU EUCAP EUFOR RD Congo EUISS EUNAVFOR EUTM FARDC FC-G5S FDLR FIB Finabel FOC FOMUC G5S GGI HIPPO I4S ICGLAR IFFG IRF IRTC LRA MDB MICOPAX MINUSCA

xix

UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations Democratic Republic of Congo Economic Community of Central African States Economic Community of West African States European Deterrence Initiative European External Action Service Enhanced Forward Presence Enhanced Rapidly Deployable Capacity European Reassurance Initiative European Security and Defence Policy European Union EU Capacity Building Mission EU Force in the Democratic Republic of Congo EU Institute for Security Studies EU Naval Force EU Training Mission Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joint Force of the G5 Sahel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda SADC Force Intervention Brigade European Army Interoperability Center Full Operational Capability Central African Economic and Monetary Community Multinational Force Group of Five for the Sahel Global Governance Institute High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations International Security and Stabilization Support Strategy International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Initial Follow on Forces Group Immediate Response Force International Recommended Transit Corridor Lord’s Resistance Army Multi-Domain Battle ECCAS Peace Consolidation Mission in the CAR UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the CAR

xx

Abbreviations

MINUSMA MISCA MNJTF MNLA MONUC MONUSCO MSCHOA NAC NATO NRF NSC OAS OAU OHQ ONUC OSCE OUP PCRS PESCO POC PSC PSO RAP RCI-LRA RDL REC RM RMCC RRF RRM SACEUR SADC SHAPE SHIRBRIG STCDSS TCC UDF

UN Multidimensional Mission for Stabilization in Mali AU Mission in the Central African Republic Multinational Joint Task Force Movement national pour la liberation de l’Azawad UN Mission in the DRC UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC Maritime Security Centre–Horn of Africa North Atlantic Council North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO Response Force NATO Shipping Centre Organization of American States Organisation of African Unity Operational Headquarters UN Operation in Congo Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Oxford University Press Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System Permanent Structured Cooperation Protection of Civilians AU Peace and Security Council Peace Support Operation Readiness Action Plan Regional Cooperation Initiative for the Elimination of the LRA Rapid Deployment Level Regional Economic Community Regional Mechanism Regional Movement Control Centre Rapid Response Force Rapid Response Mechanism NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Southern African Development Community Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Standby High Readiness Brigade for UN Operations Specialized Technical Committee on Defence Safety and Security Troop-Contributing Country Ugandan Defence Forces

Abbreviations UN UNEPS UNSAS VJTF WFP

United Nations UN Emergency Peace Service UN Standby Arrangement System Very High Readiness Joint Task Force World Food Programme

xxi

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Introduction Rapid response mechanisms—strengthening defense cooperation and saving strangers? John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers

   

Background to military rapid response Rapid response and inter-organizationalism Aims and structure Conclusion

Delays cost lives. Guided by this widely accepted premise, organizations such as the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have invested heavily in the development and operationalization of military rapid response mechanisms over the past two decades. Even at the United Nations (UN), the idea of creating a rapidly deployable standby force for peacekeeping gained momentum with the Chinese pledge of an 8,000strong standby force during the UN General Assembly in 2015.1 Moreover, maintaining international peace and security has become a matter of burden-sharing, increasing the relative importance of regional arrangements as complements to the UN. Military rapid response mechanisms are generally understood as troops that are on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame.2 Despite the institutional proliferation in the field of military rapid response, the overall track record of the existing multinational mechanisms within the AU, EU, and NATO remains disappointing. While the EU Battlegroups have been operational for about a decade, they are still awkwardly awaiting their first deployment. Meanwhile, the African Standby Force (ASF) has struggled for years to reach full operational capability, and although the AU has deployed missions to a range of countries, this has been realized as a function of member-state political will rather than the African Standby Force itself. The revitalization of the NATO Response Force (NRF) with a spearhead capacity has somewhat disguised the alliance’s difficulties in finding sufficient troops. While the Standby High Readiness

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Brigade (SHIRBRIG) has been at the disposal of the UN for facilitating rapid deployment, it was dissolved more than a decade ago. These failures to deliver have led to a situation in which ad hoc responses, on a national basis or through coalitions of the willing, seem to prevail in cases of imminent threats to peace and security. The French-led interventions in Mali (2013) and the Central African Republic (CAR, 2014) are striking examples thereof. The Multinational Joint Task Force confronting Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region (since 2015) and the Joint Force of the Group of Five Sahel (since 2017), although not necessarily rapid response forces, are similar illustrations of this increased “ad hocism”. Nonetheless, calls for the further development of rapid response mechanisms are still being voiced politically. The 2016 EU Global Strategy and the subsequent agreement on Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) once again expressed a commitment to tackle the obstacles that have hindered EU Battlegroup deployment. NATO’s deployment of multinational battalions on Europe’s eastern borders in turn seems to enhance the alliance’s readiness to respond quickly to any (Russian) threat. The revival of the NATO Response Force seems to go hand in hand with the alliance’s return towards its original mandate, shifting the focus to deterrence of (near) peers from attacking its borders. In addition, the African Standby Force was declared operational in January 2016 and continues to receive financial, equipment, training, and technical support from partnering organizations and member states, including, but not limited to, the EU and the UN. And in his September 2015 declaration, former UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon even welcomed “African Union efforts to fully operationalize the African Standby Force and the commitment by the European Union to engaging European Union Battlegroups, where appropriate, for crisis management.”3 Meanwhile, he expressed support for the idea of creating a UN Vanguard Force, an idea which was raised in the report of the High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (HIPPO) in June that year.4 Does this mean that we are finally witnessing a breakthrough in the development of multinational rapid response mechanisms, or is this yet another chapter in their largely fictional existence? This book offers one of the first comprehensive and comparative contributions on military rapid response mechanisms to date. Unfortunately, scholarly literature on rapid response mechanisms remains rather fragmented. Many of the obstacles faced by these organizations are largely similar, confronting them with the same difficulties in case

Introduction

3

of urgent crises. In that sense, the lack of efforts to bring together academics working on these various response mechanisms has clearly been a missed opportunity.

Background to military rapid response In 1996, drawing lessons from the Rwanda genocide, the late UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote in The Peacekeeping Prescription: “Rapid response is vital, particularly from a preventive perspective, because in cases like Rwanda, the conflict’s worst effects are often felt in its earliest stages. A rapid response is thus essential if we are effectively to limit the range, extent and momentum of a conflict.” He added that “a rapid response means more than simply examining or diagnosing the problem early. It means establishing an adequate presence on the ground as quickly as possible.”5 In 2000, the “Brahimi Report” echoed this concern by emphasizing the importance of “rapid and effective deployment.”6 Although the report’s recommendation targeted peacekeeping operations and arguably considered a deployment within 60–90 days as rapid, its underlying logic about ensuring that “credibility and political momentum”7 are not lost, applies to all sorts of crisis management operations. One and a half decades later, in June 2015, HIPPO still stressed similar concerns, stating in its report that “slow deployment is one of the greatest impediments to more effective peace operations.”8 In addition, academics seem to agree that a rapid intervention is indispensable, both for saving lives in distant conflicts and for deterring (near) peers at a region’s borders. However, to date few comparative efforts have been undertaken to understand the factors that can hamper or enable a multinational military rapid response. Speed of deployment of a military or comprehensive response is commonly treated as one of the key factors affecting operational effectiveness, legitimacy, and stability. The most notable attempt at providing a comparative assessment of rapid responses is Heidi Hardt’s Time to React,9 in which she measured and compared the response rates of several regional organizations (the AU, the EU, the Organization of American States, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) in the period 1991–2009. She highlights that the speed of an international organization’s response to a request for intervention is not so much determined by “how much brute force and financing it has,”10 but rather by the strength of personal relationships, social networks, and norms, which make information flow more efficiently within these organizations.

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Although Hardt investigated the speed of negotiation in each of these organizations, focusing mainly on issues related to the bureaucratization of decision-making, her finding that, among the organizations studied, “the African Union has a track record of responding more quickly to crises than the European Union,”11 triggers interest. Yet, she moved her focus beyond the formal, institutionalized mechanisms, in order to show the importance of informal negotiations and relationships. In addition, her study includes not only military, but also civilian and multidimensional interventions. Despite the general recognition about the added-value of military rapid responses, there is still much debate about who should undertake such rapid reaction missions. For instance, in their analysis of regional responses to the 2000 coup in the Solomon Islands, Alex Bellamy and Paul Williams argued that the Australian-led multinational coalition facilitated “a more rapid deployment than could have been organized by a formal institution lacking a standing or rapid deployment force,” thereby referring to the UN.12 Meanwhile, they equally stressed that these ad hoc non-UN arrangements come with risks of undermining international peace and security. In recent years, similar regional ad hoc coalitions have been deployed to respond to crises in the CAR, the Lake Chad Basin, and Mali, to mention just a few. Together with increased institutional proliferation in the field of military rapid response, these questions about who should undertake action become all the more pressing. With this volume, we aim to add to this still scarce literature on rapid response to crises. In particular, we provide a comparative study of military rapid response mechanisms by combining an institutionalist analysis of the mechanisms in the AU, EU, NATO, and UN (in Chapters 1-4) with an assessment of multinational operations in practice (Chapters 5–8). Rapid response mechanisms, and multinational interventions in general, necessitate close military cooperation and interoperability between several countries. As such, the gradual institutionalization of rapid response mechanisms is an expression of elevated political cooperation and integration at the sub-regional, regional, and global levels. Meanwhile, the general lack of deployment of these mechanisms also shows the limits to the political will at these levels to deploy formal mechanisms.

Rapid response and inter-organizationalism The increasingly dense web of international and regional organizations in international security has been one of the principal subjects of

Introduction

5

inquiry in international relations, whereby a central assumption has been that institutional proliferation has led to increasing interdependence. The growing security and defense integration within each of the aforementioned organizations is a clear example thereof. The same goes for investments made in rapid response arrangements within these international and regional frameworks. As the creation or further development of rapid response mechanisms is high on the agenda of the AU, EU, NATO, and UN, military rapid response has inherently become an inter-organizational matter, much like all other phases in the conflict management life cycle. Despite many authors having addressed inter-organizational relations in the area of security between the EU and NATO,13 but also between the EU and the UN,14 NATO and the UN,15 or between the UN and the AU,16 the inter-organizational aspects of military rapid response mechanisms remain largely unaddressed. To date, little effort has been made to bring these rapid response mechanisms together, leading to a knowledge gap in terms of shared problems and obstacles.17 Moreover, as their geographical or functional mandates often overlap, these organizations increasingly have to operate side-by-side in the conflict theater, leading to questions about effective coordination. While inter-organizational relations are present in the entire crisis management cycle, the institutional proliferation in rapid response mechanisms implies that questions of cooperation and competition between these organizations are an increasingly relevant concern in the phase of military rapid response. Effective cooperation and coordination are not only crucial for actual rapid deployment, but are also viable for guaranteeing the effectiveness of rapid responses. A systematic assessment is warranted in order to draw conclusions about the dynamics of resource dependence, duplication or overlap, and ultimately even about inter-organizational cooperation, competition, and rivalry in the domain of military rapid response. For these reasons, this volume is situated within the literature on inter-organizationalism, which deals with “understanding the character, pattern, origins, rationale, and consequences of such relationships.”18 Inter-organizationalists not only devote considerable attention to explaining the formation of cooperation partnerships between organizations, they also address the potential for rivalry, by stressing the importance of geographical or functional overlap and forum-shopping. But inter-organizationalism is still in dire need of more systematic comparison and empirical enrichment, as highlighted by Rafael Biermann and Joachim Koops in their authoritative Palgrave Handbook on Inter-Organizational Relations.19 Although a growing field of study,

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there are relatively few empirical analyses available in the literature on inter-organizational relations, leaving us in the dark about the dynamics and consequences of inter-organizational overlap, resource dependence, and member state commitments. This is remarkable, as it is generally accepted that “the proliferation of international organizations entails increasing interplay and overlap.”20 As Chapters 1–4 of this volume illustrate, the domain of military rapid response is one of those fields in which this proliferation has grown, given the many recent developments within the AU, EU, NATO, and UN. Scarce resources Much of the work in the field of inter-organizationalism has been driven by the assumption that international organizations “require resources for goal attainment, autonomy, and survival.”21 This expectation, which is at the core of Resource Dependence Theory, equally applies to the domain of military rapid response. Each international or regional organization that aspires to have a credible, deployable, and effective military rapid response capacity is in need of sufficient military personnel, doctrinal guidance, equipment, financial means, and command and control structures. Yet, for the organizations addressed in this volume, their dependence upon member states’ voluntary commitments of (already scarce) defense resources inherently creates uncertainties. The effects of this uncertainty on these organizations’ capacity to actually rapidly deploy troops, as well as on the interorganizational dynamics of military rapid response in-theater, have to date hardly been studied. In its purest form, resource dependence is assumed to serve as “one of the most frequent stimuli for cooperation,” as organizations experience “the need to access material or immaterial resources other organizations hold.”22 The logic builds on Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald Salancik’s work,23 according to which international organizations can be expected to cooperate and coordinate in order to minimize uncertainty about resources. At the same time, resource dependence equally comes with a potential for a competition for scarce resources.24 With organizations operating in largely similar domains, such as military rapid response, and with overlapping memberships that might make them dependent upon the political and financial commitments of the same member states, competition over resources and credibility is unavoidable. This is a problem that is particularly pressing for rapid response, as most of these mechanisms require forces with a particular

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expeditionary mindset. Although many authors have pointed to the problem of resource commitment in relation to each of the rapid response mechanisms discussed in this volume, the lack of effort to bring these insights together leaves us in the dark about the interorganizational dynamics that come with the proliferation of rapid response mechanisms. In addition, scholars within the field of resource dependence often tend to discard alternative explanations for cooperation or competition between organizations in the field of crisis management. One often rejected explanation is the presence of hegemonic interests and pressures.25 The interests and decision-making hegemony of lead nations is, however, a potentially important explanation for the (non)deployment of military rapid response forces and the likelihood of cooperation (or competition) in the conflict theater. As most of the institutionalized rapid response mechanisms build upon unequal financial, material, and political burden-sharing principles, the presence or absence of lead or framework nations is likely to be a key explanatory factor for deployment. In addition, a certain “volatile hegemony” might shape decisionmaking within the organizations addressed in this volume, as their rapid response mechanisms operate on the basis of standby rosters, whereby the decision to deploy is first and foremost dependent on the willingness of the standby nation to actually make its troops available for deployment. Institutional preferences and prioritization of resource commitments by large member states are furthermore crucial determinants of effective cooperation between organizations in the field. Comparison of the effects of these dynamics is warranted and will therefore also add to the state of the art in theorization about resource dependence in crisis management. Many potential questions hence remain unanswered when it comes to the resources upon which each of these organizations have built their rapid response mechanisms. For instance, given that these mechanisms depend on member states’ defense budgets and military means, is it advisable to construct an entirely new rapid response mechanism at the UN level?26 Or should the UN rather consider outsourcing this to the AU, EU, and NATO? Does the revitalization of the NATO Response Force affect prioritization of resource commitment among European member states? Does the shared acknowledgment of the need for deployable rapid response mechanisms between these organizations also serve as a driver of resource exchange? Has the AU sufficient financial means to present the African Standby Force as a credible rapid response mechanism?

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Institutional overlap The presence of military rapid response ambitions in the AU, EU, NATO, and UN not only raises questions about resource commitment. One also wonders to what extent these mechanisms duplicate efforts, as they all have a similar purpose. The inter-organizational context in which these rapid response mechanisms operate go beyond the problem of “domain similarity,” which is a term used for organizations that operate in a similar policy domain. Domain similarity, as it is commonly called in management and sociology, mainly covers functional and geographic overlap between organizations.27 Scholarly literature on inter-organizational relations has therefore highlighted the need to also study overlap in terms of membership and resources.28 Although many scholars have in recent years addressed the issue of “overlap” in inter-organizational relations,29 systematic empirical assessment of its effects remains scarce. Given the shared concern about the need for credible and deployable rapid response mechanisms between the aforementioned organizations, overlap is likely to be present in several forms and it can be assumed to affect the deployment of each of these mechanisms. Throughout this volume, it will be shown that the current regional rapid response mechanisms are characterized by overlap in policy areas, general functions, mandates, membership and problem areas, which again raises several questions. For instance, are the EU Battlegroups and the NATO Response Force complementary mechanisms or do they rather compete with each other? What are the consequences of differences in scope and objectives? The NRF is primarily set up for self-defense, while other mechanisms are explicitly tasked to save strangers, such as the AU African Standby Force and the UN Vanguard Force. Similar questions can be asked regarding the African security arrangements. The increasing prevalence of ad hoc coalitions may undermine the long-term commitment to the African Standby Force. Can these mechanisms effectively operate side-by-side or do they rather compete for resources and credibility? And as already mentioned, on a global level, is there a need for a UN rapid response capacity, given the existence of rapid response mechanisms in the AU, EU, and NATO? From mutual cooperation to dysfunctional competition What ultimately connects much of the studies in the quickly expanding field of inter-organizationalism is the debate over whether resource

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dependence and overlap lead to inter-organizational cooperation or competition. On the one hand, inter-organizational cooperation is commonly understood as processes of policy coordination or the adjustment of policies with the aim of producing joint benefits.30 On that understanding, it can serve as a driver of institution-building, sharing best practices, burden-sharing, and specialization. On the other hand, inter-organizational competition can be seen as a form of rivalry between organizations, which is most likely to occur “when organizations expand into other’s domains and scenarios of institutional choice and forum shopping arise.”31 With the AU, EU, NATO and even the UN having repeatedly confirmed their commitment to (further) develop a capacity to rapidly intervene, the ultimate question is hence whether or not these mechanisms can effectively operate side by side. The UN HIPPO underscored the need for a “division of labour based on respective comparative advantage” between the AU and the UN,32 and this mantra applies similarly to the relationship with the EU and NATO. As demonstrated in the case studies in Chapters 5-8 of this volume, international organizations deploy international interventions that coordinate, cooperate, and compete in conflict settings. Instead of labeling these interventions as examples of either cooperation or competition, this volume aims to shift away from a binary approach. The reality of international interventions, and of providing military rapid responses in particular, is much more complex. In fact, these practices can be classified on a spectrum, ranging from mutual cooperation and synergy at one end of the scale to dysfunctional competition at the other. In order to capture this complex reality, we develop four categories: (1) mutual enhancement, (2) fruitful cooperation, (3) mutual hampering, and (4) dysfunctional competition. By doing so, it is possible to provide more systematic insights into many of the benefits and problems that occur in policy domains characterized by a proliferation of international actors. This includes forum-shopping and ad hocism as well as the inter-organizational dynamics before, during, and after the deployment of rapid response mechanisms and other conflict instruments maintained by these international organizations. While the literature on inter-organizational relations, and the resource dependence strand of theorization in particular, have hitherto strongly emphasized how cooperation is likely to increase the legitimacy of international organizations,33 this new typology can serve as a heuristic device to also identify the delegitimizing or effectiveness consequences of inter-organizational competition. We define these four categories as follows:

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Mutual enhancement is defined as inter-organizational cooperation according to the principle of comparative advantage, with flexible and dynamic burden-sharing between organizations, enabling effective use of material, human, and financial resources to reach stated objectives, contributing to intra- and inter-organizational learning and cooperation, positively affecting the legitimacy of the organizations involved. Fruitful cooperation is defined as inter-organizational cooperation with elements of inter-organizational dysfunction, competition and overlap, but where stated objectives are reached with an acceptable level of use of material, human, and financial resources, positively affecting the legitimacy of the organizations involved. Mutual hampering is defined as inter-organizational competition with significant evidence of ineffectiveness, intra- and interorganizational dysfunction, competition and overlap, and where there is significant expense of material, human, and financial resources with limited or no impact on stated objectives, negatively affecting the legitimacy of the organizations involved. Dysfunctional competition is defined as competition with significant evidence of ineffectiveness, intra- and inter-organizational dysfunction, competition and overlap, and where the expense of material, human and financial resources has a negative impact on the stated objectives, negatively affecting the legitimacy of the organizations involved.







The case studies in Chapters 5-8 of this volume show that there may be a temporal element to the categories above. The period after the Cold War was marked by increased optimism as well as opportunity for member states to use multilateral organizations, in particular the UN, to engage in civil wars (and even NATO found a way to reorient itself). Richard Gowan and Stephen Stedman argue that the post-Cold War international order has promoted UN-led mediation and peacekeeping as the “standard treatment” of civil wars.34 The relative success of this treatment has led other regional and sub-regional organizations to set up similar mechanisms, leading to a proliferation of tools in the international peace and security toolbox. The proliferation of international organizations in the domain of rapid response inherently also comes with the possibility of forumshopping, particularly when membership overlaps.35 Forum-shopping is generally understood as “strategies where actors select the international venues based on where they are best able to promote specific policy preferences, with the goal of eliciting a decision that favors their

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36

interests.” This can have both advantages and disadvantages. We argue that not only does institutional proliferation increase the chances of forum-shopping, it also prepares the ground for increasing ad hocism in international relations, using the institutional constructs of rapid response mechanisms without setting political or economic precedents. In that sense, the findings of this book can also be interpreted as a critical addition to the perhaps overly optimistic resource dependency assumption that “two IOs will cooperate well when both perceive that each other’s resources are essential and non-substitutable and gauge their dependence to be similar.”37 The institutional proliferation in rapid response, and in crisis management more broadly, has led to a plethora of alternative frameworks which are substitutable. This sense of overlap might in fact contain more drivers of competition than of cooperation, as these mechanisms all depend upon the commitment of their member states to put their troops in harm’s way or to carry the bulk of the political and financial costs. Ad hoc coalitions are, in that sense, an often-overlooked alternative in the literature on interorganizational relations, as they can build upon the training efforts and doctrinal experience of the institutionalized alternatives. The case studies in this book will provide deeper empirical insights on the issues of resource dependence, forum-shopping, and ad hocism.

Aims and structure This volume consists of two sections. In Chapters 1–4, we gather insights from four organizations: the AU, EU, NATO, and UN. In Chapter 1, Linda Darkwa discusses the ongoing development of the African Standby Force. She highlights the challenges ahead in terms of financial support and doctrinal development, while pointing to the need to better align political interests at the sub-regional and the AU Peace and Security Council level. In Chapter 2, Yf Reykers discusses the standstill of the EU Battlegroups, analyzing the key obstacles to deployment over the past decade. Although the history of the Battlegroups looks disappointing, he nonetheless identifies several benefits and assesses how the renewed drive towards EU defense integration and cooperation might reflect upon the Battlegroups in the near future. Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning review the NATO Response Force in Chapter 3. They posit that while the NRF was for many years a qualified failure, the alliance’s rapid response mechanism is off to a fresh beginning. The renewed Russian threat and a recommitment of the Allies to contributing forces have reinvigorated NATO, although the authors equally acknowledge the need to further upgrade the NRF.

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Finally, in Chapter 4 Joachim Koops and Alexandra Novosseloff reflect upon the challenges, failures, and partial successes of creating a UN Vanguard Force. In an attempt to draw lessons for the creation of a future UN rapid response capability, they look into the strengths and weaknesses of the Standby High Readiness Brigade. They conclude that a UN rapid response mechanism will only be successful if it is geared towards effective and mutually reinforcing partnerships with regional and sub-regional standby arrangements, thereby once again highlighting the importance of inter-organizational cooperation. To foster comparison, Chapters 1–4 are structured around the same topics: origins of the rapid response mechanism, key features, obstacles, and future prospects. This includes a discussion of the genealogy of each of these mechanisms, as well as the changing contextual factors (political, financial, etc.) and doctrinal frameworks during their existence. By analyzing the rapid response mechanisms’ main obstacles, demonstrated by some empirical or historical examples, each of these chapters provides a solid basis to peek into the future. The authors pay particular attention to dimensions of inter-organizational cooperation and competition, highlighting how this can benefit or hinder future development and deployment, ultimately attempting to set the expectations right for each organization’s rapid response mechanism. In addition, throughout their chapters, the authors reflect on, amongst others, evolving threats such as terrorism and violent extremism and discuss how this will or has impacted the conceptualization of the mechanisms. Although the multinational rapid response mechanisms discussed in Chapters 1–4 have hardly ever been put into practice, there is still much to learn from past or ongoing crisis management operations. Regional arrangements and mechanisms are increasingly important and prominent building blocks in the global peace and security architecture. The AU, EU, and NATO have all engaged in some form of cooperation and in sequenced deployments with the UN, and often also with each other. In Chapters 5–8 of this volume, the contributors therefore look at multi-organizational interventions in four case studies situated on the African continent: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the CAR, Mali, and counter-piracy off the Horn of Africa. These cases are not necessarily examples of rapid responses per se; but lessons can be drawn from these cases for the further development and future deployment of rapid response mechanisms. To achieve this, the chapters drill further down into the experiences of rapid, sequenced, and parallel deployment. In doing so, they examine inter-organizational cooperation, coordination, and competition. Each of the four cases stands out for the multitude of international actors that have been, or

Introduction

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still are, present in the field, raising questions about inter-organizational relations and the effects on responsiveness. In Chapter 5, Thomas Mandrup offers a case study of the DRC, sketching out the inter-institutional dynamics in perhaps the most heavily discussed African conflict area. He pays particular attention to the lessons that can be learned from the recent Force Intervention Brigade. In Chapter 6, Martin Welz moves the focus to the crisis in the CAR between 2013 and 2014, offering striking insights into an equally impressive number of international interventions. In Chapter 7, John Karlsrud, Natasja Rupesinghe, and Denis Tull edge their way through the plethora of international interventions in Mali since 2012, which is described as one of the most complex mission areas today. They assess the sequenced and parallel deployments to Mali of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the AU, the UN, and the EU, as well as those of neighboring states and France. In Chapter 8, Ruxandra Boșilca˘ and Marianne Riddervold provide insights into the impressive deployment of flotillas in the Indian Ocean, including by the EU and NATO, in the international fight against piracy off the Horn of Africa. Again for reasons of comparison, the case studies in Chapters 5–8 focus on the following questions: Was there a rapid response to the crises? By whom? If not, what were the major obstacles to rapid response? Did inter-organizational competition hinder responsiveness? Or did cooperation facilitate responsiveness? It is not surprising that in general it has been difficult to find evidence of translating interorganizational cooperation into practice, although there is no lack of cooperation agreements at the headquarters level and inter-organizational coordination arrangements in the field. However, the chapter authors apply our four categories as ideal types rather than marks on a scorecard. It is interesting to note that in all four cases there is evidence of all these ideal types: mutual enhancement, fruitful cooperation, mutual hampering, and dysfunctional competition. Chapter 9, the volume’s conclusion, applies the topics and questions utilized by the authors in Chapters 1–8 to draw lessons from the cases for further development and future deployment of multinational rapid response mechanisms, and to provide some prudent recommendations for strengthening inter-organizational cooperation.

Conclusion The book describes the development of multilateral rapid response mechanisms, an important facet of the increasingly thick interlacing

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web of global and regional institutions that have evolved since the end of the Second World War, and in particular in the post-Cold War era. The rich institutional analysis provided in Chapters 1–4, combined with insights into how international organizations and their member states in practice deploy international interventions that coordinate, cooperate, and compete in conflict settings, provide fertile material for analysis, conclusions, and recommendations that are relevant to policy-makers and academic scholars alike. The proliferation of security mechanisms has nurtured complex interdependence between states.38 However, as Chapters 5–8 of this volume demonstrate, the increasing tendency to selectively draw upon the capacities and capabilities built up by these rapid response mechanisms may signal an era of increasing ad hocism in international security, where the institutional constructs, but not end products are used—i.e. interoperable forces, a common culture, mainstreamed training, doctrine and guidelines, but not the formal deployment of, for example, the EU Battlegroups. We further develop each of the chapters’ findings in the final chapter of the book. In building our argument, we follow the rational-choice institutionalist logic in which rational states are assumed to only use international organizations “when the value of these functions outweighs the costs, notably the resulting limits on unilateral action.”39 We also draw upon on and further develop earlier work on forumshopping among international regimes,40 highlighting that this may signal a new era of institutional exploitation as it provides greater flexibility for member states when they decide when and how to pursue their national interest.

Notes 1 China announced the formal registration of the force with the UN in September 2017. See Xinhuanet, “China Registers 8,000 Standby Peacekeepers at UN,” 28 September 2017, www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-09/ 28/c_136645953.htm. See also Joachim A. Koops and Alexandra Novosseloff, “United Nations Rapid Reaction Mechanisms,” Chapter 4 in this volume. 2 The exact length of the time frame naturally varies from organization to organization: e.g. the EU has no time limit on the planning phase, but the first troops should be on the ground within 10 days after the European Council has decided to deploy. 3 United Nations, The Future of United Nations Peace Operations: Implementation of the Recommendations of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, Report of the Secretary-General, UN document A/70/ 357-S/2015/682, 2 September 2015, para. 31.

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4 UN, Uniting Our Strengths for Peace: Politics, Partnership and People, Report of the High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN document A/70/95–S/2015/446, 16 June 2015. 5 Kofi Annan, “The Peacekeeping Prescription,” in Preventive Diplomacy: Stopping Wars Before They Start, ed. Kevin M. Cahill (New York: The Center for International Health and Cooperation, 1996), 184. 6 UN, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN document A/55/305-S/2000/ 809, 21 August 2000, 14–16. 7 Ibid., 15. 8 UN, Uniting Our Strengths for Peace, 50. 9 Heidi Hardt, Time to React: The Efficiency of International Organizations in Crisis Response (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 10 Ibid., 198. 11 Ibid., 30. 12 Alex J. Bellamy and Paul D. Williams, “Who’s Keeping the Peace? Regionalization and Contemporary Peace Operations,” International Security 29, no. 4 (2005): 189. 13 Nina Græger and Kristin M. Haugevik, “The EU’s Performance with and within NATO: Assessing Objectives, Outcomes and Organisational Practices,” Journal of European Integration 33, no. 6 (2011): 743–757, https://doi.org/ 10.1080/07036337.2011.606698; Jolyon Howorth, “EU–NATO Cooperation: The Key to Europe’s Security Future, European Security 26, no. 3 (2017): 454–459, https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2017.1352584; Joachim A. Koops, “Theorising Inter-Organisational Relations: The ‘EU–NATO Relationship’ as a Catalytic Case Study,” European Security 26, no. 3 (2017): 315–339, https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2017.1352583; Hanna Ojanen, “The EU and Nato: Two Competing Models for a Common Defence Policy,” Journal of Common Market Studies 44, no. 1 (2006): 57–76; Ingo Peters, “The OSCE, NATO and the EU within the ‘Network of Interlocking European Security Institutions’: Hierarchization, Flexibilization, Marginalization,” in OSCE Yearbook 2003 (Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003), 381–402, https://ifsh.de/file-CORE/documents/yearbook/ english/03/OSCE_Yearbook_2003.pdf; Caja Schleich, “NATO and EU in Conflict Regulation: Interlocking Institutions and Division of Labour,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 12, no. 2 (2014): 182–205, https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14794012.2014.900970; Simon J. Smith and Carmen Gebhard, “EU-NATO Relations: Running on the Fumes of Informed Deconfliction,” European Security 26, no. 3 (2017): 303–314, https://doi.org/10.1080 /09662839.2017.1352581; and Johannes Varwick and Joachim A. Koops, “The European Union and NATO: ‘Shrewd Interorganizationalism’ in the Making?” in The European Union and International Organizations, ed. Knud Erik Jørgensen (London: Routledge, 2009), 101–130. 14 Malte Brosig, “The Multi-Actor Game of Peacekeeping in Africa,” International Peacekeeping 17 (2010): 327–342, https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312. 2010.500142; Bruno Charbonneau, “What Is so Special about the European Union? EU–UN Cooperation in Crisis Management in Africa,” International Peacekeeping 16, no. 4 (2009): 546–561, https://doi.org/10. 1080/13533310903249110; Alexandra Novosseloff, “Options for Improving EU-UN Cooperation in the Field of Peacekeeping,” in The EU, the UN and Collective Security: Making Multilateralism Effective, ed. Joachim

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John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers Krause and Natalino Ronzitti (London: Routledge, 2012), https://doi.org/1 0.4324/9780203115541; and Thierry Tardy, “Building Peace in Post-Conflict Environments: Why and How the UN and the EU Interact,” in The EU, the UN and Collective Security, ed. Krause and Ronzitti, 197–220. Rafael Biermann, “NATO’s Troubled Relations with Partner Organizations: A Resource Dependence Explanation,” in NATO’s Post-Cold War Bureaucracy and the Changing Provision of Security, ed. Sebastian Mayer (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 215–234; Michael F. Harsch, The Power of Dependence: NATO–UN Cooperation in Crisis Management (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Michael Harsch and Johannes Varwick, “NATO and the UN,” Survival 51, no. 2 (2009): 5–12, https://doi. org/10.1080/00396330902860744; and Lawrence S. Kaplan, “NATO and the UN: A Peculiar Relationship,” Contemporary European History 7, no. 3 (1998): 329–342. Brosig, “The Multi-Actor Game of Peacekeeping in Africa”; and “Regime Complexity and Resource Dependence Theory in International Peacekeeping,” in Palgrave Handbook of Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics, ed. Rafael Biermann and Joaquim A. Koops (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 447–470; Thomas G. Weiss and Martin Welz, “The UN and the African Union in Mali and Beyond: A Shotgun Wedding?” International Affairs 90, no. 4 (2014): 889–905; Cedric de Coning, Linnea Gelot, and John Karlsrud, eds., The Future of African Peace Operations (London: Zed Books, 2016); Cedric de Coning, Chiyuki Aoi, and John Karlsrud, eds., UN Peacekeeping Doctrine in a New Era (London: Routledge, 2017); and John Karlsrud, The UN at War: Peace Operations in a New Era (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Yf Reykers and John Karlsrud, “Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms: Past Promises and Future Prospects,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 420–426, https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2017.1348567. Steve Cropper, Mark Ebers, Chris Huxham, and Peter Smith Ring, “Introducing Inter-Organizational Relations,” in The Oxford Handbook of Inter-Organizational Relations, ed. Steve Cropper, Mark Ebers, Chris Huxham, and Peter Smith Ring (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 4. Rafael Biermann and Joachim A. Koops, “Studying Relations among International Organizations in World Politics: Core Concepts and Challenges,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 31. Christer Jönsson, “IR Paradigms and Inter-Organizational Theory: Situating the Research Program within the Discipline,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics, ed. Biermann and Koops, 49. Rafael Biermann and Michael Harsch, “Resource Dependence Theory,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Inter-Organizational Relations in World Politics, ed. Biermann and Koops, 135. Biermann and Koops, “Studying Relations among International Organizations in World Politics,” 21. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald R. Salancik, The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Theory (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Business Books, 2003).

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24 Ephraim Yuchtman and Stanley E. Seashore, “A System Resource Approach to Organizational Effectiveness,” American Sociological Review 32, no. 6 (1967): 891–903. 25 For example, Harsch, The Power of Dependence. 26 Note though that the UN core budget comes from assessed contributions that are not necessarily under the ministry of defense budgets of member states, thereby avoiding direct competition. 27 Biermann and Koops “Studying Relations among International Organizations in World Politics,” 17. 28 See also Stephanie C. Hofmann, “Overlapping Institutions in the Realm of International Security: The Case of NATO and ESDP,” Perspectives on Politics 7, no. 1 (2009): 45–52, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592709090070, and “Why Institutional Overlap Matters: CSDP in the European Security Architecture,” Journal of Common Market Studies 49, no. 1 (2011): 101–120. 29 Carmen Gebhard and David Galbreath, Cooperation or Conflict? Problematizing Organizational Overlap in Europe (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2010); Hofmann, “Why Institutional Overlap Matters”; Koops, “Theorising Inter-Organisational Relations”; and Peters, “The OSCE, NATO and the EU within the ‘Network of Interlocking European Security Institutions.’” 30 Biermann and Koops, “Studying Relations among International Organizations in World Politics,” 20; and Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984). 31 Biermann and Koops, “Studying Relations among International Organizations in World Politics,” 23. See also Joseph Jupille, Walter Mattli, and Duncan Snidal, Institutional Choice and Global Commerce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 32 UN, Uniting Our Strengths for Peace, 63. 33 For example, Harsch, The Power of Dependence. 34 Richard Gowan and Stephen J. Stedman, “The International Regime for Treating Civil War, 1988–2017,” Daedalus 147, no. 1 (2017): 171–184. 35 Hofmann, “Why Institutional Overlap Matters.” 36 Hofmann, “Overlapping Institutions in the Realm of International Security,” 46. 37 Harsch, The Power of Dependence, 4. 38 Keohane, After Hegemony. 39 Kenneth W. Abbott and Duncan Snidal, “Why States Act through Formal International Organizations,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 1 (1998): 5. 40 Daniel W. Drezner, “The Viscosity of Global Governance: When Is Forumshopping Expensive?” unpublished conference paper, Princeton University, November 2006, www.princeton.edu/~pcglobal/conferences/IPES/papers/ drezner_S1100_16.pdf.

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Tools in a toolbox The African Union’s repertoire of mechanisms for addressing peace and security on the continent Linda Akua Opongmaa Darkwa

   

A trajectory of the development of the African Standby Force Obstacles to the AU’s utilization of the ASF and responses to Africa’s security challenges Enhancing the AU’s ability to utilize the ASF Conclusion

The African Standby Force (ASF) is one of the tools created by African leaders for the promotion of peace and security on the continent. Following the failure of the international community to respond effectively to conflicts on the continent, especially in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and inspired by the efforts of Africa’s regional organizations to address the situations of insecurity within their member states, African leaders decided to create a peace and security architecture that includes a multinational, multidimensional rapid response mechanism, the ASF. After about 13 years of preparation, the Specialised Technical Committee on Defence Safety and Security (STCDSS) declared the ASF to have attained full operational capability (FOC) on 15 January 2016, following the successful conduct of the continental Field Training Exercise, AMANI Africa II.1 Notwithstanding its operational readiness, the African Union (AU) has to date not mandated the deployment of the ASF. The failure of the AU to mandate the ASF has led to criticism and raised questions, especially in the press, concerning whether the standby force would ever deliver on its mandate. This chapter submits that any analysis of the ASF must begin from the premise that it is conceptualized differently from other rapid response mechanisms (RRMs) and as such, cannot be judged solely on its direct utilization by the AU. The ASF is based on regional standby forces. Based on the principle of subsidiarity, the regional standby forces may be mandated and employed by their Regional Economic Communities and/or Regional

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Mechanisms (RECs/RMs) for the maintenance of peace and security within their respective regions. In such instances, although the AU authorizes or endorses the employment of the standby arrangement, command and control over the mission is vested in the mandating authority—be it a regional organization or a coalition of member states. An AU-mandated ASF operation on the other hand places command and control of the operation under the AU. Nevertheless, AU-mandated and AU-authorized operations serve the same purpose of maintaining peace and security on the continent. Therefore, even though the AU has not mandated the deployment of the ASF, two of the regional standby forces have been utilized to address peace and security in Africa. While it was initially conceptualized as a collective security arrangement, in practice the ASF has proven to be more of a collective defense mechanism. As a result, although the AU may be able to mandate its deployment in limited circumstances, its utilization of the ASF may largely rest on its ability to provide strategic guidance through authorization of regionally mandated deployments. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first provides a trajectory of the development of the ASF and other instruments such as the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis (ACIRC), which was developed as a stop-gap measure pending the operationalization of the ASF, and the ad hoc security initiatives, created in response to peculiar security situations confronting some member states. The second section provides an analysis of the changing security landscape on the continent, obstacles to the AU’s employment of the ASF, and the ensuing responses generated by the RECs/RMs as well as affected member states. The third section provides op-tions for enhancing the AU’s ability to effectively utilize the ASF to deliver on its mandate. In the final section, the chapter concludes that given the varied security challenges confronting the continent and the theoretical underpinnings of the standby forces as collective defense mechanisms, the AU needs a number of response mechanisms. The conclusion recommends that competition between the ASF and other RRMs and security initiatives on the continent be minimized.

A trajectory of the development of the African Standby Force Following the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the AU, African leaders established the Peace and Security Council (PSC) to “facilitate timely and efficient response to conflict and crisis in Africa.”2 To be able to implement its mandate, the PSC is

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supported by the African Union Commission (AUC), three main tools and a funding arrangement: a Continental Early Warning mechanism; the Panel of the Wise, a mechanism for preventive diplomacy; the African Standby Force, the force implementation and law enforcement tool for the PSC; and a Special Fund to allow for timely responses to conflict and crisis situations on the continent. The ASF is therefore part of the larger African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). It is a multidimensional and multinational standby arrangement comprising five such arrangements at the regional level that are readied by member states and placed on standby for deployment at appropriate notice. The ASF may be deployed either as a measure to prevent the escalation of conflict into armed violence or in response to armed violence, in order to create an enabling environment for a political settlement. Following the adoption in 2002 of the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council, which provided inter alia for the establishment of the ASF, a Policy Framework for the Establishment of the African Standby Force and Military Staff Committee was adopted by the African Chiefs of Defence Staff in May 2003. The objective of the policy framework was to facilitate the development of the ASF. Using a number of conflict scenarios, the framework provides six main scenarios under which the ASF may be utilized, and timelines for deployment:      

Scenario 1: deployment as an AU or regional military adviser to a political mission. Scenario 2: deployment as an AU or regional observer mission co-deployed with a United Nations (UN) mission. Scenario 3: a standalone AU or regional observer mission. Scenario 4: an AU or regional peacekeeping force deployed for UN Charter Chapter VI and preventive deployment purposes. Scenario 5: an AU Peacekeeping Force for complex multidimensional peacekeeping missions involving low-level spoilers. Scenario 6: an AU intervention—e.g. genocide situations where the international community does not act promptly.3

In addition to the envisioned scenarios, Article 13(g) of the protocol also provides that the ASF can also be deployed by the PSC for the performance of any other functions related to the maintenance of peace and security.4 In terms of deployment timelines, the policy framework envisages that in the event that pre-mandate actions have been undertaken,

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deployment for Scenarios 1–4 should be within 30 days while the military component of Scenario 5 situations should be able to start deploying in 30 days, and be completed within 90 days. The framework recommends that the AU should deploy within 14 days in Scenario 6 situations. In cases of deployment under Scenarios 1–3, contingents are expected to deploy with self-sustainability for 30 days while contingents deploying under Scenarios 4–6 are ideally expected to be selfsustaining for 90 days.5 Since the essence of the ASF is to enable the AU to respond swiftly to situations of insecurity, the inclusion of a rapid deployment capability was a fundamental assumption in its conceptualization and each regional standby force is expected to have an inherent rapid deployment capability. The framework recommended a two-phase approach to the operationalization of the ASF and three “roadmaps” were subsequently developed to guide its development. Roadmap Two, which spanned June 2006 to March 2008, provided “clarity on the key steps required for the operationalization of the ASF in Phase 1.”6 It also facilitated the development and adoption of base policy instruments covering doctrine, training and evaluation, logistics concepts, communication information systems and standard operating procedures for the operationalization of the ASF. Roadmap Two focused on the development of additional documents as well as consolidation of the progress made through the implementation of Roadmap One. Roadmap One culminated in the continental Field Training Exercise (FTX) AMANI Africa 1, which tested the outputs of Roadmap One. Although the ASF was expected to attain FOC in 2010, the FTX showed that it was not ready. Based on the report of the FTX, a third roadmap was developed for December 2010 to December 2015. This aimed at consolidating the progress of Roadmaps One and Two, and implement outstanding issues from the roadmaps as well as the lessons learned from the FTX in order to ensure full operationalization of the ASF by 2015. Following the recommendations of the Independent Panel of Experts established by the chairperson of the commission to assess the ASF and provide recommendations for the attainment of FOC by 2015, Roadmap Three was revised. In 2013, citing the stalled operationalization of the ASF and the lack of an effective tool for translating the political commitment of the AU into reality, the chairperson of the commission recommended the establishment of the ACIRC.7 The ACIRC was established as a transitional tool to provide the AU with a rapid response mechanism to address situations of insecurity and conflict on the continent8 pending

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operationalization of the ASF. Based on voluntarism and the capacities of the participating countries, the deployment of the ACIRC is contingent upon a request by one or more member states to the PSC.9 Even though ACIRC was developed to fill a gap, it has yet to be deployed to address any of the crisis situations on the continent. Although it was established as an interim mechanism, ACIRC has not been dissolved despite the ASF having attained full operational capability. Instead, having been tested alongside the ASF, it was recommended for integration into the ASF concept.10 The continued existence of ACIRC remains the elephant in the room as the tensions surrounding the co-existence of the two mechanisms11 remain palpable. Even though the ASF has now attained FOC, it has not as yet been mandated for deployment by the AU. The closest that the AU came to this was in December 2015, when following the escalation of attacks in Burundi over the third-term bid of President Pierre Nkurunziza, the Peace and Security Council, meeting at the level of ambassadors, decided upon deployment.12 However, the planned deployment did not see the light of day when the PSC meeting at the level of heads of state and government decided that a military intervention was premature, and called instead for a political resolution of the conflict.13 Since then, the AU has not broached the topic of deploying the ASF. Instead, using the framework provided, the RECs/RMs and member states of the AUC have utilized the concept and framework of the ASF to mandate their regional standby forces, and obtained authorization from the AU to respond to conflict and crisis situations.14 This is attributable to a number of factors, including the enhanced capacity to respond to threats to peace and security provided through the development of the regional standby arrangements,15 a stronger assertiveness by the regions in the areas of peace and security caused in part by their enhanced capacities vis-à-vis the slow response of the AU to the contemporary security threats confronting the continent, and the assurance of reimbursements through the European Union’s Early Response Mechanism. A fundamental distinction between the ASF as a rapid response mechanism and other RRMs, notably the European Union Battlegroups and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) Response Force, is that the ASF concept is built on regions rather than member states. This means that in matters relating to the ASF, the AU does not deal directly with member states but rather with the RECs/ RMs. Indeed, the peace and security relationship between the AU and its regions is based on the principles of subsidiarity and complementarity. The policy framework provides for the deployment of the

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regional standby arrangements by the RECs/RMs for collective selfdefense, upon the authorization of the AU.16 Also, Article XX of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security between the African Union, the Regional Economic Communities and the Coordinating Mechanisms of the Regional Standby Brigades of Eastern Africa and Northern Africa, states that: Without prejudice to the primary role of the Union in the promotion and maintenance of peace, security and stability in Africa, the RECs and, where appropriate, the Coordinating Mechanisms shall be encouraged to anticipate and prevent conflicts within and among their Member States and, where conflicts do occur, to undertake peace-making and peace-building efforts to resolve them, including the deployment of peace support missions.17 The use of “peace support missions” in the memorandum provides a broad scope for all types of deployments, including interventions. This means that doctrinally, the utilization of the ASF, including for the purposes of military intervention, is not limited solely to the African Union through the PSC. However, in cases of military interventions, the regional mechanisms are required to seek authorization from the AU. The ASF concept does not envisage a situation where the entire continental architecture would be employed wholly to address a given conflict situation. Instead, it is generally expected that the standby arrangements would be employed within their regions, to address security challenges. Therefore, although inter-regional deployments were envisaged, they were to be the exception rather than the norm. Thus, it is fair to conclude that although the AU has only authorized use of the standby arrangements in West and Southern Africa, the ASF has actually been utilized since its operationalization.

Obstacles to the AU’s utilization of the ASF and responses to Africa’s security challenges Africa’s political and security landscapes have undergone significant transformations since the establishment of the ASF in 2002. These transformations have increased the complexities of the continent’s security challenges, but also facilitated the development or strengthening of non-traditional response mechanisms for the AU. This section examines obstacles to the AU’s employment of the ASF and the responses that have evolved to address Africa’s security challenges.

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Regional economic communities have considerably institutionalized a capacity to provide responses to matters of peace and security— primarily within their regions but also on the continent generally. This is in part a result of the processes for the development of the African Standby Force that required the RECs and RMs to develop structures for the operationalization of their standby forces. The enhanced capacities of the RECs have given them an edge over the AU in their responsiveness to crises. With shared vulnerabilities that create a more direct sense of the need for collective security and smaller memberships, RECs are able to take timely decisions. The AU, to the contrary, with its larger membership and more varied political interests, is not always able to respond in a timely manner to the threats confronting the regions and member states. As a result, even though the AU has demonstrated a great level of responsiveness to the peace and security challenges of the continent in its very early stages—mandating and deploying six peace support operations in four countries in the first seven years of its existence18—it has stalled in providing timely responses to the security challenges confronting the regions and member states. In fact the RECs were instrumental in the early deployments of the AU, reinforcing the notion that its ability to effectively utilize the ASF is dependent on the RECs/RMs. The AU appears to have overreached with its assumption of collective security to deal with challenges within Africa. An analysis of interventions and peace support operations (PSOs) on the continent reveals that, in practice, what has been applied in the context of African PSOs is largely collective defense. As such, in the instances where states on the continent have utilized regional multilateral arrangements for interventions, even under the guise of humanitarian interventions, it has been because, in most cases, national interests were at stake. Indeed, the AU-mandated operations in its first seven years were made possible because there was considerable support from member states in the regions of the conflict-affected countries.19 The nature and dynamics of current security threats also pose significant challenges to response efforts. The continent is presently confronted with high intensity, asymmetric armed conflicts in which unconventional strategies and tactics are employed. The human and financial costs of addressing contemporary security challenges on the continent, notably the fight against terrorism, is high. As a result, only those states that perceive such threats as risks to their interests would be willing to invest resources in response efforts. In Somalia, the Sahel region, and the Lake Chad Basin countries, it is largely the states threatened by insecurities that have invested in response efforts. Again,

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history attests to the fact that the success of interventions on the continent in the 1990s and early 2000s was because national interests of participating member states were at stake. The AU’s inability to deploy the ASF to support the challenges in these places is not because of the limited scenarios provided in the policy framework, but rather a lack of political will. The six scenarios provided for in the framework cannot be said to be exhaustive as it is practically impossible to predict the various types of insecurity that are likely to confront the continent. A unique feature of RRMs is their flexibility, which makes them responsive to situations of insecurity. Indeed, Article 13(g) of the protocol states that in addition to the outlined functions spelled out in the six scenarios, the ASF will perform any functions mandated by the PSC. This attests to the fact that the ASF was conceived as a tool for addressing security threats that go beyond the six scenarios. In addition, Article V(vi) of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security lists “counter-terrorism and the prevention and combating of transnational organised crimes” as one of the areas in which the African Union and RECs must cooperate. The failure of the AU to utilize the ASF to address the contemporary security challenges on the continent is therefore mainly the result of a lack of political will rather than the operational weakness of the ASF. Lack of political will is also discernible in the case of the ACIRC. Although the Malian crisis was the catalyst for its creation, the ACIRC, despite its robustness and much more flexible utilization process (a request by one or more participating states to the PSC), has not been deployed to Mali. Again, unlike the ASF, the ACIRC does not have any scenarios. While this means that it can be deployed to address any crisis situation on the continent, it has not yet done so. The other side of the lack of political will is the unwillingness of member states to accept deployment of the ASF to help address situations of insecurity in their territories. With the exception of Article 4(h) violations, the AU can only deploy the ASF at the invitation of member states, as provided for by Article 4(j) of the Constitutive Act. In the event that states do not invite or expressly articulate an unwillingness to have the AU’s involvement in addressing a situation of insecurity or conflict, it will not be able to mandate an ASF operation. In January 2015, Nigeria’s then national security adviser Sambo Danuski allegedly said that even though external assistance was an option for addressing the Boko Haram crisis, “regional partners were best placed to deal with the problem.”20 There have been efforts to play down Nigeria’s rejection of external assistance, and the Lake

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Chad Basin countries’ ensuing AU authorization of the Multinational Joint Task Force for Boko Haram (MNJTF). Nevertheless, the MNJTF with the exception of Benin is made up of troops from the Lake Chad Basin countries. As another example, the composition of the G-5 Sahel Force (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, and Mali) established to fight terrorism in the Sahel is composed mainly of countries in the sub-region. Two main response models appear to be gaining traction on the continent. These are regionally-mandated, AU-authorized deployments, and ad hoc security arrangements. There have been two regionallymandated operations since the ASF attained full operational capability. The first was in West Africa, when the regional body, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), mandated the deployment of the ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) to The Gambia to uphold the results of the presidential election of 1 December 2016, and to ensure the safety and swearing in of the then president-elect, Adama Barrow.21 Even though President Barrow requested ECOWAS support during his inaugural speech in The Gambia, the deployment was in part a military intervention. This is because on 17 December, when the mandate for deployment was given, there was no consent. Second, when the troops deployed to the borders of The Gambia, there was still no consent. This was only given on 19 January 2017. The second regionally-mandated deployment took place in the Southern African region. Following a deterioration of the political and security situation in Lesotho, its government requested military support from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which deployed a preventative mission on 2 December 2017. Since the threat of the use of force in the prior intervention, that in The Gambia, was evoked by ECOWAS, the first part of the deployment falls under Article 4(h) of the protocol while the latter falls under Article 4(j). The second, SADC, intervention, however, falls under Article 4(j) because it was at the invitation of the government. Prior to the two interventions and before the attainment of full operational capability by the ASF, other regional bodies had also rallied to address situations of insecurity in their member states. For instance, in July 2008, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) deployed troops to support the consolidation of peace in the CAR. Similarly, in 2013, leaders in the Great Lakes region took the decision to deploy an intervention brigade to the Democratic Republic of Congo to address continued atrocities perpetrated against civilians in the ongoing conflict. Although the proposed intervention was taken over by the UN, the decision taken demonstrates that

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ECCAS was cognizant of its responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security in its region. Judging from the practice of three out of the five regional bodies, it appears that regionally-mandated and AU-authorized interventions are becoming the norm in the maintenance of peace and security on the continent. The second model of response on the continent is ad hoc security arrangements. While there are variations in their nature and mode of operations, the concept is not necessarily new in Africa. In West Africa, the initial response to the crisis in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s was ad hoc. Even though the intervention by some West African states in the two countries was framed as a regional effort, only a few ECOWAS member states agreed at the initial stage to send troops. In fact, not only was there a lack of consensus, there was also open opposition to the intervention by some member states.22 Similarly, prior to the involvement of the AUC in addressing the insecurity caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), some countries in the Great Lakes region established ad hoc arrangements to deal with the threat. In 2008, Uganda and two of its neighbors that had been affected by the LRA’s activities—South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo—joined forces to fight against the group. Subsequently, in 2011, the three countries, joined by the Central African Republic (CAR), agreed to a structured long-term response to the LRA challenge through a multilateral arrangement, the Regional Cooperation Initiative for the Elimination of the LRA (RCI-LRA). It was only after the establishment of the RCI-LRA by the affected countries that the African Union authorized the deployment of its Regional Task Force (RTF).23 In the case of West Africa’s ad hoc arrangements, troops were generated from a coalition of the willing to operate outside their territories. In the main, their activities were limited to the countries in conflict— Liberia and later Sierra Leone. A difference between the West Africa and East Africa situations is that in the case of the latter, troops were generated by the affected countries, mainly to operate within their own territories but with the right to conduct cross-border operations in hot pursuit. The latter model appears to be the one currently replicated on the continent, especially in relation to the operations of the MNJTF and the G-5 Sahel Force. Participating members of the ad hoc security arrangements bear their own costs, although wealthier members of the coalition may bear a bigger share of the burden. They also receive voluntary contributions from other entities interested in their cause. Referred to as ad hoc security initiatives in AU parlance, these arrangements are outliers because they do not fall within the African Peace and Security Architecture. However, they have proven to be

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useful responses to some of the challenges on the continent. Nevertheless, ad hoc security initiatives could have implications for the ASF as the capabilities pledged by member states to the ASF through the regional standby forces tend to be the same ones utilized for all other peace operations. This means that member states contributing to ad hoc security initiatives may have difficulties with fulfilling their pledges to the ASF within the period in which they are engaged in an operation under the rubric of the former. The ability of the ad hoc security initiatives to bypass the political challenges of the AU makes them an attractive option worthy of further reflection by the AU’s technical and political decision-making organs to ensure that it does not undermine the ASF.

Enhancing the AU’s ability to utilize the ASF The African Union PSC may only be able to mandate the ASF in very exceptional circumstances. In the main, it may have to contend with authorizing the deployment of the standby forces following mandates by the political decision-making bodies of the RECs/RMs. However, as stated earlier, since the ASF doctrine provides for regional deployment of the forces subject to PSC authorization, such deployments would still qualify as utilization of the ASF. The ability of the African Union to maintain its strategic authority, either in mandating the ASF or in authorizing the deployment by RECs/RMs of their standby arrangements, is dependent on four main pre-requisites: closer collaboration between the strategic decision-making bodies of the AU and the RECs/ RMs; the development of additional policy guidance documents to provide clarity on the ownership of the standby forces and the processes regarding their employment; enhanced capabilities, including training and force projection capabilities; and predictable and sufficient funding. Closer collaboration between the strategic decision-making bodies of the AU and the RECs As indicated earlier, the ASF is based on the regional standby forces that are prepared by member states and held in readiness by the regions for deployment. Just like the AU, the RECs also have political decision-making structures for the maintenance of peace and security in their regions. In order to enhance cooperation between the two political decision-making bodies, Article XVII(5) of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security

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obliges the chairperson of the AUC and the chief executives of the RECs/RMs to hold a meeting at least once a year to deliberate on matters of peace and security. The importance of such interaction was buttressed by the first meeting held between the PSC and the RECs/ RMs, in September 2015, which went further to suggest that such meetings should be held twice a year.24 The processes for the operationalization of the ASF, including the joint development of policy instruments and training, have fostered an appreciable level of interaction at the operational level between the technocrats at the AUC and the RECs/RMs. However, except for occasional participation in the meetings of the RECs/RMs, interaction between them is very limited at the strategic level. Neither the provisions of the memorandum nor the subsequent recommendation of the meeting between the PSC and RECs have been followed up on, as there has been no meeting between the political decision-making bodies since 2015. Rather, what is observable is the close interaction between the PSC and the UN Security Council, which has allowed for quick and timely decision-making between the two bodies for peace and security on the continent. The African Union’s ability to mandate and deploy the ASF or exercise effective leadership over authorized peace support operations is highly dependent on collaboration between its strategic decisionmaking structures and those of the RECs/RMs. This is particularly because even though on paper the primary mandating authority for the ASF is the African Union’s PSC, in practice there is a lack of clarity. An analysis of the policy framework suggests that, theoretically, the AUC and the RECs/RMs jointly own the standby forces, at different levels. For instance, the framework makes provision for regional standby forces as well as a standby high-readiness brigade held by the AU, to which member states can contribute capabilities. The AU, however, does not have any such brigade. Therefore, even though the issue of the ownership of the forces must be treated loosely because of the absence of a standing capability per se, it is the RECs that have established processes either through formal agreement or consistent practice for the employment of national forces of member states for the maintenance of peace and security in their regions. The general position of almost all the RECs is that their political decision-making bodies have the final word on the deployment of their standby arrangements. Indeed, the position of SADC—that it cannot be taken for granted that the SADC Standby Forces (SSF) would be automatically deployed based on an AU mandate25—may be the position of most of the RECs.

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Closer interaction between the PSC and the political decisionmaking bodies of the RECs is critical for two main reasons. First, it would ensure that the AU retains its strategic relevance during the deployment of the standby forces by the RECs/RMs. Second, a closer relationship between the decision-making bodies enhances cooperation and provides greater assurances that should the need arise, the regions would release their standby forces in a timely manner to the AU for its mandated operations. The successful implementation of the decision of the African Union Assembly of Heads of State and Government (AHSG), following the recommendation of the Kagame Report to convert the second annual summit held in June/July into an AU-REC Coordination Meeting,26 would be useful in enhancing interaction between the political decisionmaking structures of the AU, RECs/RMs, and the highest decisionmaking body of the organization, the Summit. However, to optimize the opportunity provided through this meeting, it would be imperative to have a technical level meeting that maps out the areas in peace and security in need of strategic-level interventions, as well as to provide updates on progress made in the implementation of decisions taken by the strategic decision-makers. Development of additional guidance documents Despite its FOC, the various documents on the ASF are silent on a number of issues including the mandating process for deployment of the standby forces, the processes relating to being on standby and inter-regional deployments. Furthermore, based on the lessons learned from the AU’s attempted deployment in Burundi, there is a need for the development of guidance on a threshold for the application of Article 4(h). Other areas of the ASF in need of further development are the framework for placing RECs/RMs on standby, and the legal framework governing the employment of the ASF. The 9th Ordinary Meeting of the Specialised Technical Committee on Defence Safety and Security recommended that RECs/RMs should be placed on a six-month rotational roster with effect from 1 January 2017.27 There is, however, little guidance on what it means to be on standby. Generally, the idea is to have one region ready to be available to the PSC for deployment when required. This model assumes inter-regional deployments if a crisis occurs outside the region on standby. In view of the challenges envisaged with inter-regional deployments, the current arrangement may not serve the PSC well. In reality, even though the nomenclature used

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is “standby,” none of the regions really has a standby capacity. Instead, as provided for by the ASF Policy, what exist are pledges that are prepared and held in readiness at national level by member states, for availing to RECs/RMs, and when required to the AU upon request. The ability to utilize the pledged capabilities rapidly is therefore reliant on: the knowledge and skills of personnel; equipment to project force and address the threat; the logistic ability to move into theater quickly; and interoperability. This means that RECs/RMs must ensure a state of readiness through regular verification of the pledged capabilities, have strategic lift capabilities to be able to project pledges in a timely manner into theater, and enhance interoperability of the multinational forces and police teams through regular exercises and training. The AU must provide clear guidance on the requirements and expectations for being on standby, as well as an effective monitoring system that allows it to verify the state of readiness of the RECs/RMs to develop customized support structures for each of them. Policy guidance is also required on the matter of inter-regional deployment. Although the ASF Framework envisages inter-regional standby deployments, only the North African regional capability provides for inter-regional deployment in its legal instruments. Similarly, even though not ASF missions, the compositions of the MNJTF and the G-5 Sahel Force reveal that the exigencies of the security situation may in the future necessitate neighboring RECs/RMs to work together in mandating and deploying their standby pledges. Such operations may not necessarily be inter-regional deployments but may better be described as joint deployments, where each REC/RM operates within its own region but with the possibility of cross-regional operations, especially in hot pursuit. Developing the necessary legal arrangements that make it possible for both inter-regional and joint regional initiatives within the framework of the ASF is therefore important. In addition, joint exercises and training, especially between neighboring RECs/RMs, would enhance interoperability if there were a need for joint deployment. The AUC is aware of the gaps and it is drafting additional policy documents including a legal framework to guide the utilization of the ASF. One of the challenges that dogged the deployment of troops to Burundi was the lack of consensus on whether the threshold of Article 4(h) had been met. While there seemed to be a general recognition that the 11 December incidents in Burundi had “led to an escalation of violence and human rights violations,”28 there was disagreement over whether that was sufficient to trigger the application of Article 4(h), especially in the face of a de-escalation of violence.29 The application

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of Article 4(h) is predicated on the commission of grave crimes, namely war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Even though international law provides the elements of these crimes, the determination of their existence prior to deciding a response could be time-consuming, and in some instances problematic. For instance, the determination of intent, one of the requirements for genocide, is one that can only be established by a competent court. Determining whether one of the grave crimes is being committed or is likely to be committed in order to trigger the application of Article 4(h) could therefore be timeconsuming and defeat the objective of preventing a repetition of the events of the 1990s on the continent. Guided by history, the objectives for the transformation of the OAU into the AU and the establishment of the African Standby Force as part of the repertoire of tools for the maintenance of peace and security on the continent, the AU must critically reflect on how it can build consensus on a minimum criteria of violations for the application of Article 4(h), either as a preventive measure or to stop the continued perpetration of the crimes outlined in the article. Enhanced capabilities including training and force projection capabilities Full operational capability is a process that requires continuous development to meet security needs at all times. Even though some of the capability challenges have been addressed, much remains to be done. Many challenges that confronted past African peace operations still persist. This is particularly so in the following areas: well-trained military, police, and civilian personnel with the knowledge and skills to address contemporary security challenges; appropriate equipment that allows for effective and efficient responses to threats; strategic lift capabilities, force enablers, and multipliers; and clear lines of command and control. Training of the military and police, as well as equipment, are often in line with national needs, and even though countries provide training for peace support operations, this was until recently tailored to UN peace operations. In enhancing the operational readiness of the ASF, one of the areas in need of attention is training. Member states’ standby troops and police must be trained on how to address contemporary security threats, most notably terrorism and related issues. Using the experiences of the ad hoc security initiatives and ongoing AU peace operations, the AU must undertake training needs analysis to identify the knowledge and skills needed to address contemporary security challenges. This will enable member states, RECs/RMs, and training institutions

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to design and deliver appropriate training. Even though regional and continental field exercises could help in developing the required capabilities, the problem of relying solely on regional and continental training is that because there are only pledged and not standby capabilities, there are no guarantees that those who participate in such trainings would be the ones to deploy. Placing the responsibility for training and preparing to meet the contemporary security needs of the continent on member states is more likely to ensure that a larger number of troops and police receive the necessary basic and pre-deployment training. The pledged capabilities of member states include equipment. However, just like training, contingent-owned equipment is generally equipment procured for national security needs. Member states’ pledged equipment to the standby arrangements therefore comes from their national assets, which until recently were not necessarily meant to address the security threats they are currently confronted with. As a result, available capabilities are often inadequate to address these challenges. Experiences in Somalia and Mali should therefore guide the development of a Table of Equipment that reflects the contemporary security realities of the continent so that states can factor these into their defense and security procurements. The establishment of the continental logistics base in Douala, Cameroon would be most useful as it is expected to have relevant equipment for deployment. In addition, three of the five RECs/RMs are at different levels in their development of regional logistics depots. This would be most useful in enhancing the operational readiness of the ASF, especially in times of multiple deployments when a member state’s pledged assets might have been deployed for other operations. Given the limited financial capacity of the RECs/RMs and AU, it is important to ensure that the limited resources are expended on procuring capabilities for successful enforcement actions such as the armor and air, intelligence, and communication capabilities that member states and RECs/RMs are unable to provide, but which are essential to address the continent’s security threats. Training of personnel on the equipment in the continental and regional logistics bases is critical to their effective utilization and interoperability with other assets during deployment. Pledged personnel may not be familiar with the equipment in the depots if their countries use differently manufactured assets. The challenge here, as identified above, is the fact that since there is no uniformity in the interpretation of the standby capabilities (some RECs/RMs have databases with names while others do not), there is no guarantee that those

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trained would be the ones to deploy. One way of addressing this challenge may be a discussion between the AUC, RECs/RMs and member states, to agree that those who participate in the regular regional training exercises would be the ones placed on standby to deploy. In that case, training on the logistics capabilities should be factored into the periodic training cycles. The AMANI Africa II exercise revealed that even though only a few member states possess strategic lift capability, they could serve the needs of deploying the ASF. Following the inability of NATO to provide the strategic lift capability promised to support the AMANI Africa FTX in 2015, the AU had to rely on its member states. Algeria, Angola, and Nigeria provided airlift capabilities, while SADC member states deployed by land. The Continental Movement Control Centre (CMCC) established by the AUC is meant to address the strategic lift support capabilities for the ASF. In line with the ASF concept, the CMCC envisages member states to be the primary providers of strategic lift assets to the AU. This would be complemented with support from partners and commercially contracted assets. RECs/RMs are expected to establish Regional Movement Control Centres (RMCCs), which, among other things, will collect, maintain, and provide the CMCC with information on the actual capabilities of the regions. Strategic lift capabilities are critical to the ability to utilize the ASF and, as such, regions must verify and be satisfied with the state of the pledged strategic lift capabilities, in order to allow alternative arrangements to be made where the pledged assets do not meet the stated requirements. Communications and Information Systems (CIS) is another critical area in need of enhancement. PSOs are very dependent on communication, not only within the theater of operation but also with strategic headquarters. Yet this is one of the weakest links in the ASF, especially between the AUC and the RECs/RMs. Although the AUC recognizes this limitation and is working on improving its communication infrastructure with the regions, it is equally important for it to support the development of CIS in the regions that are lagging behind, because without an effective regional CIS it would be difficult to provide a link with headquarters. Equally important is the establishment of CIS links among the RECs/RMs to allow for better inter-regional cooperation where necessary in the area of peace and security. The ability of the AU to mandate the ASF is hugely dependent on sufficient financing. So far, all AU-mandated peace support operations have been heavily reliant on external sources of funding.

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Even though RECs have received reimbursement from funds provided through the European Union’s Early Response Mechanism, they have been able to provide the initial funds for deployment. The decision of the AU to fund 25 percent of its peace and security activities from its Peace Fund is remarkable.30 Properly implemented, this would go a long way to addressing the funding gap, especially in the initial phase of deployment. The commitment demonstrated to resourcing the Peace Fund is modest but encouraging. As of July 2017, 14 out of the 55 member states had honored their financial obligations to the fund. There is, however, a real danger that the Peace Fund could be confronted with the same challenge that has bedeviled funding the AU’s budget—non-payment and delayed payments by member states. To ensure that the Peace Fund is well resourced, Jide Martyns Okeke has set out a number of recommendations for the realization of the proposed financial autonomy of the AU.31 Thesr include greater participation and oversight of the management of the fund by the highest contributing countries, a more robust sanctions regime, and enhanced collaboration between the AU and the region worth considering. Ultimately, the AU must demonstrate value for money in the use of the funds. There is the need to establish through consensus the eligibility criteria that outline what kinds of operations and costs would qualify for support from the Peace Fund. This is also particularly important for accountability purposes for AU-authorized and -endorsed operations which do not fall under the command and control of the AU. Finally, there is also a need to revisit the assumption underpinning the ASF as a continental collective security mechanism. The experiences of mandating and deploying African Union PSOs since 2003 shows that in addressing the contemporary security challenges on the continent, AU member states may be more inclined to a collective defense rather than a collective security arrangement. Patterns of deployment to existing AU PSOs show that most of the troop-contributing countries are from the region of the country in conflict. Five of the six states contributing troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM)—Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya—are from the East African region, with Sierra Leone being the exception. It is poignant that despite promises by the then chair of the AU, President Kufuor of Ghana, to deploy troops to Somalia, this never materialized. Pledges by Nigeria and Malawi to also deploy to Somalia were never honored. In an analysis of why the six contributed troops, Paul Williams attributes participation to three main causes:32 enhancing institutional strengths at home through exposure of troops to peace support

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operations; reputation-building both for the states involved and their leaders; and as a way of providing economic support to domestic security forces and individual soldiers. Indeed, as demonstrated by Williams, national interests were the drivers that underlay country participation. The concept of collective security is premised on a system of shared norms, which when breached elicit action. In West Africa, the mandate of the ECOWAS Standby Force to The Gambia referenced the organization’s shared norms on good governance, democracy, and political principles. Even though only a few of its 15 member states contributed troops, there were no articulated objections to the deployment. The historical narrative underpinning the transformation of the OAU into the AU has had implications for its collective security assumptions. Guided by the more advanced regional integrative schemes of the regions, notably the West and Southern African multilateral arrangements, African leaders in 2002 appeared to have taken a cue from the practices of collective security in the regional integration arrangements. While the lessons from the RECs have served the AU in the development of its standby response mechanism, it is time to interrogate the extent to which the assumptions underpinning the development of the peace and security initiatives within the RECs/RMs are applicable to the African Union; especially because the degree of consensus regarding the AU’s norms on peace and security is contested. Clarity on the theoretical and conceptual foundations of the ASF is essential to guide realistic assumptions for its existence, development, and utilization.

Conclusion The paradigmatic shift of the AU from the concept of non-interference to non-indifference was a bold attempt to equip the organization with the legitimacy required to use force in preventing, responding to, and managing conflicts to avoid a repetition of the carnage of the 1990s. The ASF, developed as part of a larger framework for the maintenance of peace and security, is the mechanism for enforcing the articulated determination of Africa’s leaders. Through the development of the ASF, the peace and security frameworks of Africa’s sub-regional organizations, some of which were indeed ahead of the AU in the areas of peace and security, have been further strengthened and have been able to take bold actions for the maintenance of peace and security in their regions. In addition to the ASF, a number of response mechanisms, the ACIRC, and ad hoc security initiatives have also emerged as instruments for addressing contemporary security challenges.

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The AU’s ability to respond to the complex contemporary and emerging security challenges of the continent is dependent on having options that allow it to select the most appropriate response to a given situation. Under the rubric of the RECs, the ASF has been deployed twice: in West Africa as an enforcement mission, and in Lesotho at the invitation of the government. Through the regional standby forces the ASF holds considerable promise; nevertheless it also has limitations. Since its operationalization, useful lessons have been learned in both instances where the standby arrangements have been utilized – The Gambia and Lesotho – as well as in situations where the potential of its instrumentality has not been harnessed, such as in Burundi, CAR, Mali, Libya, and Somalia. The ad hoc security initiatives have received the blessing of the AU through authorizations, and are confronting the security threats on the continent. Ironically, the ACIRC, hailed as a robust mechanism for the AU to be able to better respond to the peace and security challenges of the continent, has never been deployed. Though a number of tools have been developed alongside the ASF for the maintenance of peace and security on the continent, the ASF itself has three main advantages over the others. First, its legitimacy is uncontested. Established by the Protocol, the validity of the ASF as a peace enforcement tool is accepted by all members of the AU. Second, even though there is need for the development of additional documents to clarify its employment, there are well-developed legal instruments for the utilization of the ASF. Third, the ASF has well-established structures for mandating, deploying, managing, and liquidating PSOs, even if there is uneven development of the structures in the various RECs/RMs. It is therefore imperative to enhance the operationalization of the ASF to ensure that the AU has a well-developed and wellresourced tool that it can configure, either on its own or as part of other developed response mechanisms, to respond to the peace and security challenges of the continent. A PSC-mandated and -deployed ASF may be a distant dream at the moment. Granted, deployment of the RECs/RMs qualifies as an ASF deployment, as long as they receive authorization from the AU Peace and Security Council. The AU must, however, provide better guidance and clarity on the processes for seeking its authorization and endorsement. The opportunity to minimize the implications of the three main challenges hindering utilization of the ASF—political will, the capability gap, and funding—may be in sight. The AU has a better chance of offering predictable and sustainable funding for its PSOs through the Peace Fund (once it is operational) and/or the

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European Union’s Early Response Mechanism. This may provide incentives for stimulating the political will for early response by RECs/RMs. Again, the opportunity to provide logistical support through the establishment of the continental logistics base and the regional logistics depot as well as the CMCC and RMCCs, also eases some of the burden on countries and could encourage early and more efficient responses to contemporary security challenges by the regions. In the end, the AU’s ability to provide a consensus-based framework that accommodates the three response mechanisms outlined would be critical to eliminating or at least minimizing competition between them, and ensuring that the ASF is not undermined.33 Indeed, the request of the STCDSS for the harmonization of the ACIRC with the framework of the ASF and enhanced cooperation with the ad hoc security initiatives,34 signals the intent of the AU to pull the various mechanisms into a single framework that will allow it to utilize the most efficient ones in times of crisis. Indeed, as argued in the Introduction to this volume, forum-exploitation may be the new paradigm in the utilization of RRMs, including in the AU.

Notes 1 AU, 2nd Extraordinary Meeting of the Specialized Technical Committee on Defence, Safety and Security, 15 January 2016. 2 AU, Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, 9 July 2002. 3 AU, Policy Framework for the Establishment of the African Standby Force and The Military Staff Committee, 15–16 May 2003. 4 AU, Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council. 5 AU, Policy Framework for the Establishment of the African Standby Force. 6 AU, Roadmap for the Operationalization of the African Standby Force, Experts’ Meeting on the Relationship between the AU and the Regional Mechanisms for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, 22–23 March 2005. 7 AU, Report of the Chairperson of the Commission on the Operationalization of the Rapid Deployment Capability of the African Standby Force and the Establishment of an “African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis,” 29–30 April 2013. 8 AU, Decision on the Establishment of the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis, 26–27 May 2013. 9 AU, Decision on the Operationalisation of the African Capacity for Immediate Responses to Crisis, Assembly Twenty-Second Ordinary Session, 30–31 January 2014. 10 Linda Darkwa, “The African Standby Force: The African Union’s Tool for the Maintenance of Peace and Security,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 471–482.

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11 Jide Martyns Okeke, “United in Challenges? The African Standby Force and the African Capacity for the Immediate Response to Crises,” in The Future of African Peace Operations: From the Janjaweed to Boko Haram, ed. Cedric de Coning, Linnea Gelot, and John Karlsrud (London: Zed Books, 2016), 90–105. 12 AU, Communiqué, Peace and Security Council 565th Meeting, 17 December 2015. 13 AU, Communiqué, Peace and Security Council 571st Meeting at the Level of Heads of State and Government, 29 January 2016. 14 Darkwa, “The African Standby Force.” 15 Cedric de Coning, “Peace Enforcement in Africa: Doctrinal Distinctions between the African Union and United Nations,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 1 (2017): 145–160. 16 AU, Policy Framework for the Establishment of the African Standby Force. 17 AU, Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security between the African Union, the Regional Economic Communities and the Coordinating Mechanisms of the Regional Standby Brigades of Eastern Africa and Northern Africa, 2008. 18 Paul D. Williams, “The African Union’s Peace Operations: A Comparative Analysis,” African Security 2 (2009): 97–118. 19 Ibid. 20 BBC, “Boko Haram Crisis: UN ‘Not Needed against Nigerian Militants,’” 23 January 2015. 21 ECOWAS Commission, Mandating the ECOWAS Standby Force To Uphold the Results of the Presidential Election in the Republic of The Gambia, document Decision A/Dec. 2/12/16, Fiftieth Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government, 17 December 2016. 22 Linda Darkwa and Philip Attuquayefio, “Analysis of Norm Diffusion in the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States,” African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review 4 (2014): 11–37. 23 David Gonyi, Personal Communication, 28 March 2016. 24 AU Commission, Conclusions of the Retreat of the Peace and Security Council on Enhancement of Cooperation between the AUPSC and the RECs/RMs in the Promotion of Peace, Security and Stability in Africa, 22 October 2015. 25 AU, Report of the Independent Panel of Experts on Verification, Confirmation and Validation of African Standby Force Pledged Capabilities, 2017. 26 AU, Decision on the Outcome of the Retreat of the Assembly of the African Union on the Institutional Reform of the African Union, 30–31 January 2017. 27 AU, Declaration, 9th Ordinary Meeting of the Specialised Technical Committee on Defence, Safety and Security, 4 June 2016. 28 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, “Fact Finding Mission of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to Burundi (7–13 December 2015). Final Communique,” press release, 13 December 2015. 29 Solomon Dersso, “To Intervene or Not to intervene? An Inside View of the AU’s Decision Making on Article 4(h) and Burundi,” Occasional Paper, World Peace Foundation, Tufts University, Somerville, Mass., 26 February 2016.

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30 AU, Decision on the Outcome of the Retreat of the Assembly of the Union, 27th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, 17–18 July 2016. 31 Jide Martyns Okeke, “Is the African Union’s Aspiration towards Financial Autonomy Achievable?” Policy Brief, Institute for Peace and Security Studies, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, July-August 2017. 32 Paul D. Williams, “Joining AMISOM: Why Six African States Contributed Troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia,” Journal of Eastern African Studies 12, no. 1 (2017): 172–192. 33 See also John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers, “Introduction,” this volume. 34 AU, Declaration of the 10th Ordinary Meeting of the Specialized Technical Committee on Defence Safety and Security, Thirty-Second Ordinary Session of the Executive Council, 22–26 January 2018.

2

EU Battlegroups From standby to standstill Yf Reykers

    

The Artemis template Key features Obstacles to deployment Any future left? Conclusion

The European Union (EU) has been slow in its military responses.1 To date, about 35 operations have taken place within the framework of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), of which roughly one-third were military operations. None of these operations made use of the Battlegroups, the EU’s official military rapid response mechanism. As a result, the EU Battlegroups have remained unemployed ever since they came into being. Although expectations about a potential Battlegroup deployment have repeatedly been voiced over the past few years, such as in response to the worsening crises in Mali in 2013 and the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2014, belief in the viability of the mechanism gradually waned, both among politicians and academics. However, threats at the EU’s eastern border, starting from the Russian annexation of the Crimea, combined with growing uncertainty about the American security guarantee, the Brexit vote of June 2016, and the increased threat of terrorist attacks, created a new momentum for defense integration and cooperation. The EU’s Global Strategy, published in June 2016, marked the start of a series of proposals to re-raise the EU’s ambition level, guided by the recognition that “we need a stronger Europe.”2 In the autumn of 2017, the revitalized Franco-German engine of integration even managed to get an agreement by 25 member states on the framework of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which was long considered the EU’s “sleeping beauty.”3 Despite the considerable attention

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that the EU Battlegroups have received in the academic literature over the past two decades,4 it is worth evaluating whether or not this renewed drive will also positively affect them. This chapter addresses the past, present, and future of the EU Battlegroups.5 The first two sections outline the origins and the main features of the Battlegroups. The third section highlights the most pressing obstacles to deployment, illustrated by some concrete examples from the past. In light of the EU’s seemingly reinvigorated defense integration, the fourth part evaluates the future of the Battlegroups. It is argued that the political reluctance to put troops at risk is likely here to stay, in spite of steps that have been taken to facilitate future deployment. Moreover, the chapter draws attention to the fact that the future of the EU’s rapid response mechanisms cannot be discussed without taking into account the increased prominence of ad hoc coalitions and the questions about prioritization which arise due to inter-organizational overlap.

The Artemis template The origins of the EU’s rapid response capability are to be found at the European Council summit in Helsinki on 10–11 December 1999. Being determined “to develop an autonomous capacity to take decisions and … to launch and conduct EU-led military operations in response to international crises,”6 EU heads of state and government agreed on what became known as the Helsinki Headline Goal 2003. The ambition was not only to develop a military corps-size capacity of 50,000– 60,000 personnel, but also to make these forces capable of deploying within 60 days. Moreover, this military corps was envisioned to contain “smaller rapid response elements available and deployable at very high readiness.”7 Although these ideas were further developed at the French–British Le Touquet Summit in February 2003, it was the EU’s military deployment to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) later that year that provided the necessary practical experience to give shape to these rapid response plans on paper.8 On 12 June 2003, the EU deployed Operation Artemis to the Ituri region of the DRC. The EU’s action took place after UN SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan in May requested assistance from France’s president Jacques Chirac, as troops from the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) were unable to stop escalating violence in the city of Bunia. The deployed EU force consisted of 1,800 troops from 12 member states, with France functioning as the “framework nation.” The operation was authorized by the UN Security Council with a mandate to use all necessary means, for the

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9

duration of three months. It has been widely discussed how Artemis not only strengthened the belief among French, German, and British leaders that a rapidly deployable EU force was realistic, but also how it was used as an “operational template”10 for the further development of the EU’s rapid response concept. Two lessons from Artemis are particularly noteworthy. First, it led to a downscaling of the initial corps-size ambition, in line with the Artemis set-up. Second, and related, it was recognized that such a size reduction would benefit the speed of deployment, leading to the ambition to make the Battlegroups deployable within 15 days. Following this Artemis template, the “EU Battlegroup Concept” was jointly proposed by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom in February 2004, and approved by the European Council on 14 June that year.11

Key features EU Battlegroups consist of 1,500 troops, which should ideally be deployable within 15 days for short-term missions, ranging in duration from one up to four months. These features constitute the core of what is assumed to be “the minimum militarily effective, credible, rapidly deployable and coherent force package capable of stand-alone operations or for the initial phase of larger operations.”12 As such, Battlegroups are supposed to consist of all necessary military, service, and logistical assets that are required to act autonomously. This “standard” is argued to include a headquarter company, three infantry companies and personnel in support of these companies.13 Remarkably, the small size of the Battlegroups does not imply an equally limited list of operation types which they should be able to undertake, at least not on paper. In line with the “Petersberg tasks,” a list of undertakings that finds its origins at the Ministerial Council of the Western European Union in June 1992, the Battlegroups can in theory be used for activities ranging from military advice and assistance operations, to humanitarian and rescue tasks, disarmament operations, conflict prevention, peacekeeping, post-conflict stabilization, and combat activities such as peace enforcement. This extremely wide scope of duties, formalized in Article 43(1) of the Treaty on European Union, obviously leads to ambiguity about what the Battlegroups’ core task should be once deployed, and remains to date an unaddressed pitfall. Yet, in practice, not all of these Petersberg tasks require a rapid response, and the set-up of the EU Battlegroups rather reflects the ambition of a bridging force or a first-entry force (similar to the UN standby force14).

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Another key feature of the Battlegroups relates to their troop composition, which is based on voluntary commitments by EU member states. Following a rotation scheme, every six months a new pair of Battlegroups is placed on standby. Within this system of “rosterization,” troops are provided by either one member state, or—more commonly—by a multinational coalition within which one member state acts as a “framework nation.” This voluntary rosterization has over the years proven to come with both benefits and uncertainties. On the positive side, while the EU Battlegroups have never been deployed, they have come with considerable benefits, of which three are particularly noteworthy. First, it is widely acknowledged that the introduction of rapid response forces such as the EU Battlegroups, but equally so the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Response Force, have led to coordinated modernization of military forces.15 The clearest examples thereof are to be found among the Nordic countries, which have repeatedly been described as “pioneers” in that regard.16 For instance, Swedish troops have been made more capable of conducting operations in hostile contexts, which is just one out of many illustrations of how Sweden gradually aligned its defense planning with the Battlegroup concept. In general, many EU member states have over the past decade transformed their armies to a more expeditionary configuration, a mind-set to which the Battlegroups undoubtedly contributed.17 Second, the Battlegroups have facilitated defense cooperation among like-minded EU member states. The gradual development of so-called “regional Battlegroups” is illustrative in that regard, although they have to date not been institutionalized and hence remain ad hoc collaborations. Again, Nordic military cooperation has expanded consistently since the creation of the Nordic Battlegroup, often making these countries the main advocates for an EU rapid deployment. But regional Battlegroups are also to be found elsewhere in the EU, such as there is the Visegrad Battlegroup or the Benelux Battlegroup. The EU Battlegroups have therefore even been considered a valuable integration tool, as it is a construct which pushes sub-regional partners to align their visions on when, where, and how to use armed forces.18 In addition, like-minded non-EU members have been given the opportunity to participate in Battlegroup cooperation, of which the most notable illustration is the opt-in that was granted to Norway to join the Nordic Battlegroup.19 Third, and relatedly, standby nations train together. Because their military troops might have different backgrounds and standards, joint training becomes essential. It serves the aim of creating cohesion

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among the troop-contributing nations on aspects such as rules of engagement, practicing coordination between the different levels of command, and synchronizing operating procedures. Joint preparation among the participating forces usually starts 12–18 months in advance of a standby responsibility.20 It includes processes of training and certification, both at the level of staff and troops. Increasingly, training also takes place at the level of ministers, in the so-called Political Exercise (POLEX).21 However, it should be noted that these training and certification processes take place under coordination of the framework nation. A more centralized and coordinated approach such as there is in NATO has repeatedly been suggested,22 yet agreement has to date not been reached. In addition to these clear benefits, the Battlegroup’s rosterization system has also been filled with uncertainties, mainly due to its voluntary nature. For instance, the EU has repeatedly struggled to get member states to place troops on the roster.23 One of the main reasons is that commitment puts serious constraints on the flexibility of the EU members’ already limited defense capabilities.24 Earmarking troops for the Battlegroups is for EU member states often a serious and resourceexpensive commitment, as many of them operate with a single set of forces. Furthermore, member states have been given the freedom to decide on what kind of forces they put on the roster, which allows them to approach the standby duty from their own specific background.25 While this discretion creates room for providing niche capabilities, it equally requires flexibility in terms of training standards and implies a risk of leading to variation, which may hinder continuity. In sum, the set-up of the EU Battlegroups reflects a constant tension between, on the one hand, the breadth of potential duties and crisis situations and, on the other, constraints in terms of size, composition, and member state commitment, which have repeatedly proven detrimental to deployment.

Obstacles to deployment Although the EU Battlegroups reached full operational capacity in 2007, they have never been deployed in their ten years of existence. Yet, deployment was over the years repeatedly expected and often even openly called for. The list of missed opportunities is long, starting with the crises in the DRC in 2006 and 2008, Chad in 2007, Libya in 2011, to the escalating conflicts in Mali in 2012–2013,26 and the CAR in 2013–2014.27 Consequently, there is a wide scholarly literature which identifies the obstacles to Battlegroup deployment, usually triggered by

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curiosity about the absence of an EU (rapid) response to one of these crises.28 Overall, the obstacles to Battlegroup deployment can be classified in three categories. First, there are doubts about the capacities of the EU Battlegroups and the mechanism’s command structure. As mentioned in the previous section, one shortcoming is their rather small size, which makes it hard to function as a full-fledged autonomous military operation. Alexander Mattelaer and Jo Coelmont in that regard even argued that “most EU Battlegroups simply lack the fighting power for any mission that goes beyond political symbolism.”29 Relatedly, one should bear in mind that the deployment of the Artemis operation, which served as a template for the Battlegroups, was greatly facilitated by the presence of French troops already in the region.30 Another problematic feature is the absence of an EU permanent military headquarters. As a result, a hypothetical Battlegroup deployment not only requires setting up a force headquarters, but also an operational headquarters (OHQ) for military-strategic planning. For the latter, the EU can select one of the five earmarked at its disposal (Paris, Potsdam, Northwood, Larissa, and Rome—all national OHQs), as well as the EU Operations Centre Horn of Africa & Sahel in Brussels (active since 2012). Moreover, it has the possibility to use NATO structures through the Berlin Plus arrangements. Although none of these three options is ideal and risks delaying deployment, the absence of a permanent headquarters should therefore not be considered a key obstacle to deployment.31 The second obstacle, and more crucial for explaining the lack of deployment over the past decade, is how the Battlegroups are funded. They are not supported by a sustainable financial solidarity mechanism, as troop contributors are expected to carry nearly all financial costs, except for the few costs covered by the Athena mechanism.32 Although the “costs lie where they fall” principle is an obstacle common to other organizations as well—such as NATO or the AU,33 it is one of the most frequently mentioned problems in analyses of the EU Battlegroups. Moreover, it implies that national financial constraints on military expenditures inherently also impact the likelihood of Battlegroup deployment.34 Examples of how these uneven funding provisions have hindered the Battlegroups from being deployed are manifold. For instance, Richard Gowan35 indicated that a key obstacle to deploying a Battlegroup to support the 2006 Congolese elections was that the proposed Battlegroup mainly consisted of German troops, meaning they would have to carry the bulk of the costs. But also more recently, in the context of the crisis in the CAR in 2014, have financial

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concerns by the standby nations, and Greece in particular, shaped decision-making.36 The third, and most problematic obstacle to Battlegroup deployment has been the much-discussed lack of political willingness among EU member states, which have repeatedly refrained from putting their troops at risk. In standard CSDP operations, EU member states can decide in an ad hoc manner whether they wish to contribute forces. For the Battlegroups, to the contrary, standby nations cannot opt-out of deployment once unanimity has been reached in the Council. The unanimity requirement in CSDP decisions hence implies that avoiding one’s standby responsibility is only possible through blocking the entire deployment decision. As argued elsewhere,37 there is a clear rationalist reasoning behind this recurrent lack of political will. Deploying one’s troops comes with serious political costs, particularly when there is a mismatch between the interests of the standby nations and the crisis that is faced. For instance, when violence escalated in Mali during the winter of 2012–2013, standby nations of the Weimar Battlegroup— particularly Poland and Germany—refrained from deployment as they perceived the Mali situation primarily a French matter of interest.38 A similar logic shaped the decision to refrain from deploying a FrancoGerman Battlegroup to the 2006 elections in the DRC. Anand Menon39 indicated how this decision was also due to German concerns about “its lack of experience of high-risk deployments.” In the absence of tangible benefits through which member state governments can sell a deployment decision to their home constituencies, the political and financial costs of deployment are likely to prevail. In addition to these three groups of commonly identified obstacles, it is increasingly reasonable to add a fourth and often ignored category: inter-organizational competition and forum-shopping.40 Although interorganizational relations and overlap undoubtedly have benefits, as demonstrated by NATO making available its headquarters to the EU through the Berlin Plus arrangements, it also comes with risks. For instance, national budgetary constraints and having only a single set of forces imply that states with a membership in both the EU and NATO have to decide which arrangement they prioritize. The failure to have two Battlegroups on permanent standby in the past few years is illustrative of this problem of prioritization.41 Moreover, the fact that ad hoc coalitions were preferred in several recent crises indicates that states are increasingly willing to operate outside the existing multilateral frameworks. This has also repeatedly occurred in crises where an EU Battlegroup operation was (openly) expected. The French-led interventions in Mali in January 2013 and in the CAR in 2013–2014

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exemplify how an ad hoc coalition was deemed more appropriate and more capable of providing a rapid response to escalating violence than the Battlegroups, although both crises were initially perceived as an opportunity for deployment.42

Any future left? Both external and internal developments have reinvigorated awareness within the EU of the need to strengthen defense integration and cooperation. Externally, Russia’s annexation of the Crimea at the EU’s eastern border, security concerns about the Baltics, increased threats of terrorism, and the migration crisis, as well as pressure from the United States to strengthen European defense, were all crucial push factors in that regard. Internally, momentum was created not only by a change of EU leadership in 2014, but particularly by the Brexit vote, which revamped the Franco-German engine of integration, with other member states (such as Italy) trying to use the momentum to take a more prominent position. In June 2016, this combination of developments led to the publication of “A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy,”43 which was adopted by the Council of the European Union in November.44 Guided by the premise that “we need a stronger Europe,” it set in motion a series of debates and projects on how to move forward. Remarkably, however, while there has been much scholarly attention devoted to these developments,45 there is to date little analysis of how this may or will affect the future of the EU Battlegroups. The Franco-German axis that gradually emerged following the Brexit vote has been an important engine of several security and defense initiatives since the adoption of the Global Strategy. The most notable development is the signing of an agreement on Permanent Structured Cooperation on 13 November 2017 by 23 member states (later expanded to 25), which was adopted during the Foreign Affairs Council on 11 December that year.46 This newly adopted framework finds its initial origins in the development of the 2004 Constitutional Treaty and was included in the Lisbon Treaty, yet it remained at an impasse for many years.47 With its adoption, the goal of PESCO is to deepen cooperation in the area of defense among EU members who are willing to do so. It provides a framework of binding commitments for further developing defense capabilities and making these available for operations, including EU Battlegroup operations. It is therefore worth questioning whether these developments, and particularly the operational dimension of the PESCO agreement, will help in “tackling the

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procedural, financial and political obstacles” that have prevented the Battlegroups from being deployed, as stated in the Global Strategy.48 Although the operational provisions of PESCO have been argued to contain “the greatest possible benefit,”49 this is far from guaranteed if one keeps in mind the rationalist cost–benefit logic that has so often prevented standby nations from actually deploying their troops. Regarding the Battlegroups’ funding, many suggestions have been made in the past about how to deal with the “costs lie where they fall” principle. Proposals have varied widely, from maintaining the status quo to a revision in order to cover both the deployment and withdrawal of the Battlegroups, or even creating a full and equal burdensharing principle.50 Jan Joel Andersson51 hinted at broadening the list of shared costs and creating a so-called start-up fund for deployment. With the adoption of PESCO in December 2017, member states have made a commitment to “strive for an ambitious approach to common funding of military CSDP operations and missions,”52 which includes potential future Battlegroup operations. They agreed to set the ambition level beyond the common costs as defined in the Athena mechanism. Yet, what this ambition would be still remains vague. Moreover, one wonders how this will affect the rationalist calculations preceding future deployment decisions. From an optimistic perspective, this commitment could raise the likelihood of Battlegroup deployment, as it diminishes the financial costs that the standby nations would need to carry. A more pessimistic outlook, however, is that such a more equal sharing of the financial costs would meanwhile raise the burden for non-standby nations to agree upon a deployment to which they do not contribute forces. As argued by Tomas Valasek,53 this could pose an additional obstacle to reaching consensus in the Council. Yet, as mentioned, financial costs are only one part of the problem. The persistent lack of political will among EU members to actually commit their troops when needed is much harder to overcome. Also here, the PESCO agreement provides an opportunity for changing the balance in standby nations’ cost–benefit calculations towards committing troops to the Battlegroups. Most crucially, standby nations have to be convinced of the value of putting their troops at risk, even in areas where they do not have a direct interest at stake.54 In that regard, the PESCO agreement includes a commitment of the signing parties to make available “formations, that are strategically deployable, for the realization of the EU Level of Ambition, in addition to a potential deployment of an EUBG.” It furthermore stipulates that the PESCO parties agree on “substantially contributing to EUBG by confirmation of contributions in principle at least four years in advance.”55 Daniel

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Fiott, Antonio Missiroli, and Thierry Tardy56 highlighted the “‘rational choice’ dimension” behind this peer pressure provision, as it raises the costs of shirking one’s standby responsibility. Meanwhile, a critical reader might wonder what a “substantial” contribution actually entails and in how far the notion of “in principle” creates room for incompliance with this agreed commitment. It is hence highly unlikely that this agreement will function as a panacea as it only constitutes a commitment to provide troops on standby (and make them available). While it might serve to avoid problems in filling the standby roster, it is not at all a commitment to also deploy these troops. It is doubtful whether these provisions can also accommodate the self-interest driven reasoning of troop contributors that has hitherto prevented Battlegroup deployment when needed. Moreover, while the list of potential operation types is long, as mentioned before, it has often been argued that the Battlegroups’ “full potential would be best realised in tasks of combat forces in crisis management, bearing in mind their limited size.”57 Given that combat operations come with high political costs for the troop-contributing governments, the likelihood of actual deployment is heavily contingent upon the extent to which the PESCO commitments are really “binding.” This requires concrete indicators to assess these commitments, as recognized in the Council’s recommendation on the roadmap for the implementation of PESCO of 6 March 2018.58 Interestingly, at the time of finalizing this chapter (late June 2018), nine European member states (France, Germany, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia, Spain and Portugal) signed off on a Letter of Intent for a so-called European Intervention Initiative. The initiative, which was first proposed by French president Emmanuel Macron during a speech at the Sorbonne in November 2017, follows the recognition that the lack of a shared strategic culture has repeatedly hindered the EU from deploying troops in a coordinated and autonomous fashion. Although the European Intervention Initiative is a nonbinding and rather flexible forum, which is argued to build upon existing standing rapid reaction forces, it is yet another clear sign of the growing willingness of several EU member states to improve their capacity to respond to crises. The fact that it will take place outside the EU’s structures, thereby achieving British support, signals a preparedness to maintain security and defense ties even after Brexit. Meanwhile, however, it remains to be seen whether the initiative will serve as a facilitator rather than as a competitor to the EU Battlegroups, as its participants might want to use it as a means to avoid the latter’s formal limitations. Its non-binding character in that regard could perhaps even

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be interpreted as a move towards further ad hocism among European states. On a final note, there is an important inter-organizational dimension to the increased awareness among EU member states of the need to strengthen defense integration and cooperation. Inter-organizational overlap between the EU and NATO has received much scholarly attention in the past,59 and it will remain a determining factor for both organizations’ rapid response mechanisms.60 Membership overlap between the EU and NATO also implies that the latter can potentially benefit from these dynamics. For instance, the PESCO commitment to make troops available for operations is not limited to CSDP operations per se and might thus also positively affect NATO, and its Response Force. However, functional overlap between the EU Battlegroups and the NATO Response Force comes with a risk of inter-organizational competition. In addition to the aforementioned problem of committing troops to the Battlegroups standby roster, this risk is particularly apparent when it comes to the priorities that member states will need to set regarding where to spend their (scarce) defense money.61

Conclusion With no deployments after more than a decade of existence, the EU Battlegroups have the reputation of a paper tiger. This is not to say that the Battlegroup story is completely negative—positive effects can be found in domains such as joint training, force modernization, and enhanced cooperation among (groups of) EU member states. However, this chapter has highlighted that making the Battlegroups actually deployable requires solving problems related to their set-up, their funding mechanism, and mustering the necessary political will. While external and internal developments have set in motion a series of projects to increase the commitment of EU member states to create a more equal funding mechanism and make forces available, deployment remains a decision that is primarily made at the national level. As repeatedly illustrated in the past, rationalist behavior remains the rule when standby nations face a crisis that demands a military rapid response. The challenge is then to ensure that these standby nations will actually put their troops at risk for a crisis whose resolution has no immediately visible benefits. Despite the efforts following upon the adoption of the EU Global Strategy, this is an obstacle that is likely here to stay. Moreover, several ambiguities remain unaddressed. For instance, the list of operation types for which the EU Battlegroups can in theory be deployed remains broad, and there is still no agreement on

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what types of operation have priority. Combined with the different opinions of member states about what constitutes a threat and when the use of force is acceptable, many hurdles on the path to reaching consensus on deployment are still present. On a final note, it remains to be seen how far the overlap between the EU and NATO in terms of membership and functionality will serve as a driver for cooperation, rather than competition, between both organizations’ rapid response capabilities.

Notes 1 The author would like to thank Dr John Karlsrud, Brig. Gen. Jo Coelmont, and the Military Representation of Belgium to the European Union for their valuable input in this chapter. 2 European External Action Service (EEAS), Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe—A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy, 2016, 7, http://eeas.europa.eu/archives/docs/ top_stories/pdf/eugs_review_web.pdf. Note: the document is referred to below as “EEAS, Global Strategy.” 3 Daniel Fiott, Antonio Missiroli, and Thierry Tardy, Permanent Structured Cooperation: What’s in a Name? (Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies, EUISS, 2017), 25, https://doi.org/10.2815/747538. 4 Ludovica Marchi Balossi-Restelli, “Fit for What? Towards Explaining Battlegroup Inaction,” European Security 20, no. 2 (2011): 155–184, https:// doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2011.564767; Anna Barcikowska, EU Battlegroups—Ready to Go? (Paris: EUISS, 2013): 1–4; Laura Chappell, “Differing Member State Approaches to the Development of the EU Battlegroup Concept: Implications for CSDP,” European Security 18, no. 4 (2009): 417–439, https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2010.498419, and Germany, Poland and the Common Security and Defence Policy: Converging Security and Defence Perspectives in an Enlarged EU (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Richard Gowan, “The Case of the Missing Battlegroups: Is EU–UN Military Cooperation in Decline?” Studia Diplomatica LXII, no. 3 (2009): 53–61; Wade Jacoby and Christopher Jones, “The EU Battle Groups in Sweden and the Czech Republic: What National Defense Reforms Tell Us about European Rapid Reaction Capabilities,” European Security 17, no. 2 (2008): 315–338, https://doi.org/10. 1080/09662830802642587; and Yf Reykers, “No Supply without Demand: Explaining the Absence of the EU Battlegroups in Libya, Mali and the CAR,” European Security 25, no. 3 (2016): 346–365. 5 This chapter builds on a previously published article: Yf Reykers, “EU Battlegroups: High Costs, No Benefits,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 457–470, https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2017.1348568. 6 European Council, European Council Presidency Conclusions, 10–11 December 1999, para. 27. 7 Ibid., para. 28. 8 See also Thomas Mandrup, “Multinational Rapid Response Forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Chapter 5, this volume.

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9 UN Security Council, UN document S/RES/1484, 30 May 2003. 10 See, for example, Michael Smith, Europe’s Common Security and Defence Policy: Capacity-Building, Experiential Learning, and Institutional Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 117, https://doi.org/10. 1017/9781316779545. 11 For a more detailed overview of the sequence of decisions leading up to the Battlegroups, see Gustav Lindstrom, Enter the EU Battlegroups (Paris: EUISS, 2007), www.iss.europa.eu/sites/default/files/EUISSFiles/cp097.pdf. 12 European Parliament, The European Security and Defence Policy: From the Helsinki Headline Goal to the EU Battlegroups, European Parliament Note, September 2006. 13 Lindstrom, Enter the EU Battlegroups, 15. 14 See Joachim A. Koops and Alexandra Novosseloff, “United Nations Rapid Reaction Mechanisms,” Chapter 4, this volume. 15 See, for example, Yf Reykers and John Karlsrud, “Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms: Past Promises and Future Prospects,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 420–426, https://doi.org/10. 1080/13523260.2017.1348567; and Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning, “The NATO Response Force: A Qualified Failure No More?” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 443–456, https://doi.org/10. 1080/13523260.2017.1350020. 16 European Parliament, The European Council and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP): Orientation and Implementation in the Field of Crisis Management since the Lisbon Treaty, 2016, 58. 17 Nonetheless, some member states (such as Germany and Poland) are seen as laggards in that regard. Author interview with national military representative to the EU, 8 March 2018. 18 Jacoby and Jones, “The EU Battle Groups in Sweden and the Czech Republic”; Reykers, “EU Battlegroups”; and Kaija Schilde, “European Military Capabilities: Enablers and Constraints on EU Power?” Journal of Common Market Studies 55, no. 1 (2016): 37–53, https://doi.org/10.1111/ jcms.12444. 19 Kristin Haugevik, “Diplomacy through the Back Door: Norway and the Bilateral Route to EU Decision-Making,” Global Affairs 3, no. 3 (2017): 1–15, https://doi.org/10.1080/23340460.2017.1378586. 20 Author interview with national military representative to the EU, Brussels, 8 March 2018. 21 Also here Sweden is considered among the frontrunners. 22 Barcikowska, EU Battlegroups—Ready to Go? 23 In March 2018, these problems once again became clear when the United Kingdom informed the EU Military Committee chairman that it would withdraw its troops from the roster for the second six-month term of 2019, for which it was scheduled as being the lead nation. This decision was a direct result of the Brexit negotiations. See Tom McTague and David M. Herszenhorn, “Britain Pulls Out of EU Defense Force,” Politico, 20 March 2018. 24 Reykers, “EU Battlegroups”; and Wolfgang Wosolsobe, “12. Wolfgang Wosolsobe,” in After the EU Global Strategy: Consulting the Experts, ed. Jan Joel Andersson, Daniel Fiott, and Antonio Missiroli (Paris: EUISS, 2016), 51–53.

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25 European Army Interoperability Center (Finabel), European Union Battle Group Manual: Guidance for Operational Preparation and Tactical Use, document no. A.25.R-T.37.R, 2014. 26 See also John Karlsrud, Natasja Rupesinghe, and Denis M. Tull, “Tangled Up in Glue,” Chapter 7, this volume. 27 See also Martin Welz, “Rapid Response and Inter-Organizational Competition,” Chapter 6, this volume. 28 See, for example, Jan Joel Andersson, If Not Now, When? The Nordic EU Battlegroup (Paris: EUISS, 2015); Balossi-Restelli, “Fit for What?”; Chappell, “Differing Member State Approaches to the Development of the EU Battlegroup Concept”; Gowan, “The Case of the Missing Battlegroups”; Niklas Granholm and Pal Jonson, EU Battlegroups in Context: Underlying Dynamics, Military and Political Challenges (Stockholm: Swedish Defence Research Agency, 2006); Jacoby and Jones, “The EU Battle Groups in Sweden and the Czech Republic”; and Reykers, “No Supply without Demand.” 29 Alexander Mattelaer and Jo Coelmont, “Modern European Operations: From Phoney Wars to Sickle Cuts,” in The State of Defence in Europe: State of Emergency, ed. Sven Biscop and Daniel Fiott (Brussels: Egmont, The Royal Institute for International Relations, 2013), 35. 30 Richard Gowan, “From Rapid Reaction to Delayed Inaction? Congo, the UN and the EU,” International Peacekeeping 18, no. 5 (2011): 604, https:// doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2011.598324. 31 The absence of a permanent military command structure has nonetheless proven detrimental in the past, as illustrated by the British refusal in 2008 to put its Northwood HQ at the disposal of the Nordic Battlegroups for deployment to the DRC. See Balossi-Restelli, “Fit for What?”: 167; and Gowan, “The Case of the Missing Battlegroups”: 58. 32 It is estimated that the costs covered by the Athena mechanism (i.e. costs of installing the OHQ and of medical services on the ground) fluctuate around 10–15 percent of the total costs of a deployment. See Jan Joel Andersson, Adapting the Battlegroups (Paris: EUISS, 2017), https://doi.org/10.2815/ 290989. 33 Linda Darkwa, “The African Standby Force: The African Union’s Tool for the Maintenance of Peace and Security,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 471–482, https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2017.1342478; and Ringsmose and Rynning, “The NATO Response Force.” 34 Barcikowska, EU Battlegroups—Ready to Go?; Chappell, “Differing Member State Approaches to the Development of the EU Battlegroup Concept”; and Anand Menon, “European Defence Policy from Lisbon to Libya,” Survival 53, no. 3 (2011): 75–90, https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2011.586191. 35 Gowan, “The Case of the Missing Battlegroups”: 57–58. 36 See Reykers, “No Supply without Demand.” 37 Reykers, “EU Battlegroups.” 38 Giovanni Faleg, Castles in the Sand: Mali and the Demise of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies, 2013); and Reykers, “No Supply without Demand.” 39 Anand Menon, “Empowering Paradise? The ESDP at Ten,” International Affairs 85, no. 2 (2009): 235–236, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2009. 00791.

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40 For the most recent state of the art on inter-organizational overlap and forum-shopping, see Joachim A. Koops, “Theorising Inter-Organisational Relations: The ‘EU–NATO Relationship,’ as a Catalytic Case Study,” European Security 26, no. 3 (2017): 315–339, https://doi.org/10.1080/09662 839.2017.1352583. 41 Wosolsobe, “12. Wolfgang Wosolsobe.” 42 For example, Thierry Tardy, EUFOR RCA: Tough Start, Smooth End (Paris: EUISS, 2015), https://doi.org/10.2815/157620. A more detailed analysis of the actual considerations that shaped these decision-making processes is presented in Reykers, “No Supply without Demand.” 43 EEAS, Global Strategy. 44 Council of the European Union, Council Conclusions on Implementing the EU Global Strategy in the Area of Security and Defence, 14 November 2016. 45 For example, Andersson, Fiott, and Missiroli, eds., After the EU Global Strategy; Sven Biscop, “All or Nothing? The EU Global Strategy and Defence Policy after the Brexit,” Contemporary Security Policy 37, no. 3 (2016): 431–445; and Hylke Dijkstra, “Introduction: One-and-a-Half Cheers for the EU Global Strategy,” Contemporary Security Policy 37, no. 3 (2016): 369–373, https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2016.1244241. 46 Council of the European Union, Council Decision Establishing Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and Determining the List of Participating Member States, 11 December 2017. 47 Fiott, Missiroli, and Tardy, Permanent Structured Cooperation. 48 EEAS, Global Strategy, 47. 49 Tomas Valasek, “The EU’s New Defense Pact: Marginal Gains,” Carnegie Europe, 16 November 2017, http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/74760. 50 Margriet Drent, Dick Zandee, and Eva Maas, Defence Matters: More Urgent Than Ever (The Hague: Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, 2015); Gowan, “The Case of the Missing Battlegroups”; and Niklas Nováky, “Who Wants to Pay More? The European Union’s Military Operations and the Dispute over Financial Burden Sharing,” European Security 25, no. 2 (2016): 1–21, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 09662839.2016.1141764. 51 Andersson, Adapting the Battlegroups. 52 Council of the European Union, Council Decision Establishing Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), Annex. 53 Valasek, “The EU’s New Defense Pact.” 54 Reykers, “EU Battlegroups.” 55 Council of the European Union, Council Decision Establishing Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), Annex no. 13. 56 Fiott, Missiroli, and Tardy, Permanent Structured Cooperation, 38. 57 EEAS, “Common Security and Defence Policy: EU Battlegroups,” 2013, www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/esdp/91624. pdf. 58 Council of the European Union, Council Recommendation Concerning a Roadmap for the Implementation of PESCO, 6 March 2018. In this meeting it was agreed to “specify more precise objectives” by June 2018 (ibid.). 59 For example, Carmen Gebhard and David Galbreath, Cooperation or Conflict? Problematizing Organizational Overlap in Europe (Farnham, UK:

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Ashgate, 2010); Stephanie C. Hofmann, “Why Institutional Overlap Matters: CSDP in the European Security Architecture,” Journal of Common Market Studies 49, no. 1 (2011): 101–120; and Koops, “Theorising Inter-Organisational Relations.” 60 According to Hofmann, “Why Institutional Overlap Matters,” overlap can occur on three dimensions: membership, mandate, and resources. 61 Valasek, “The EU’s New Defense Pact,” highlighted that “The PESCO agreement also potentially puts the EU and NATO on a path to compete for member states’ defense money.”

3

The NATO Response Force Bellwether of NATO’s commitment to regional deterrence Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning

    

Where does the NRF come from? What does the NRF look like? What has the NRF been hindered by? Where will the NRF go from here? Conclusion

For one and a half decades, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has gradually adapted its rapid reaction force—the NATO Response Force (NRF)—to the alliance’s changing security environment and evolving political ambitions.1 When the allies approved the NRF concept at their Prague Summit in 2002, the force’s raison d’être was primarily to be a vehicle for the transformation of NATO–Europe’s armed forces. An American brainchild, the first incarnation of the NRF was designed to induce an expeditionary mind-set among the European allies while at the same time providing the alliance with the type of “strike force that could have deployed to Afghanistan with U.S. forces there”2 during Operation Enduring Freedom. From 2006, when the allies declared the NRF a full operational capability (FOC) at their Riga Summit, many allies increasingly came to see the force as a strain on limited resources at a time when the campaign in Afghanistan was perceived to be driving transformation. As a result, NATO– Europe repeatedly failed to provide the military forces needed to fill the NRF—and so the allies decided to slim the force significantly. All that changed in 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine and most NATO allies were no longer engaged in Afghanistan. At their summit in Wales in 2014, the allies thus decided to transform the NRF rather dramatically. The NRF is today both a vehicle for transformation and a classic tripwire force linked to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty and collective defense and as such a “prerequisite” for maintaining NATO integrity and credibility.3

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In this chapter, we trace the history of the NRF and take stock of its current incarnation. We examine how the force developed from being predominantly associated with out-of-area operations and NATO’s role in crisis management to becoming a tool for regional security and deterrence. We also assess the major obstacles for the NRF, in regards to fulfilling its promises so far. Finally, we look into the future and point to some of the dynamics and factors that will be decisive for the success of the force in the years to come. In four sections, we thus address four questions: Where did the NRF come from? What does it look like today? What have been the major obstacles for the NRF fulfilling its promises? And where is the NRF likely to go from here? The chapter presents two main arguments. First, due to inadequate fill rates and disagreements as to the force’s operational role, the NRF was for many years a “qualified failure.” The force did to an extent fulfill its transformational purpose as thousands of allied European forces were certified and rotated through the NRF standby window, but it did not become the operational tool envisioned by the allies in 2002. Strategic differences and the high operational tempo in Afghanistan in the end paralyzed the force. Second, the “new” NRF is facing new opportunities. The root cause is the renewed Russian threat and the willingness of allies to provide necessary force contributions for deterrence. Moreover, to the extent that the “new” NRF has deterrent power, it will not be used—i.e. a credible deterrent will not be tested by a potential opponent. That makes a strong “new” NRF politically appealing. However, the NRF’s deterrent power can be questioned, and allied governments must already now consider innovative and costly ways to improve the NRF if it is not to become a qualified failure as in the past.

Where does the NRF come from? When the NATO allies agreed to set up the brand new NRF at their Prague Summit in 2002, ambitions were high. In an era where few Westerners felt the need for large, massed units prepared and equipped to confront a strong conventional opponent, the alliance aimed to set up a 25,000 strong—dominantly European—joint force, intended to be both the alliance’s mailed fist and “a show-case of NATO-resolve and collective commitment to military transformation.”4 While the Europeans subscribed to the idea of a new allied response force early on, the initiative was first and foremost American. In particular, the Kosovo war—and the perception of a “capability gap” between NATO–Europe and the United States—had convinced Washington

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that Europeans needed to invest more in force transformation and modernization. Also, in an era where threats to allied security seemed to originate far away from the Euro-Atlantic region, NATO was, so the argument ran, in need of a hard-hitting deployable response force. At heart, the NRF was thus designed to furnish NATO with an agile and robust military tool, while at the same time inducing a much-needed expeditionary mind-set among the European allies. NATO–Europe, so it was argued, needed to invest in an expeditionary, hard-hitting way of war that was intimately familiar to US forces, and tellingly, in 2002 the NRF template was not unlike a technologically advanced US Marine Corps expeditionary brigade. Keywords were “deployability,” “out-of-area operations,” and “transformation.”5 Since 2002 and the transformation summit in Prague, NATO has adjusted the NRF concept three times. The NRF of 2017—i.e. the NRF 4.0—is thus markedly different from the NRF 1.0 that was declared an initial operational capability (IOC) in October 2004. While the first incarnations of the NRF were tailored to facilitate the alliance’s capacity to act outside of NATO territory, the latest version of the force is to a large extent politically framed and linked to NATO’s “deterrence posture” and collective defense in Eastern Europe. As the alliance’s security environment has evolved, so has the NRF. Although NATO has labeled its new NRF the “enhanced NRF,” it is, in fact, considerably smaller than the NRF 1.0. Besides an evolving security environment, the wide-ranging transformation of the force was driven by a lack of available national forces and by disagreements as to when and where (if at all) to make operational use of the force. The allies already agreed to the first major adjustment of the NRF concept in October 2007, less than a year after the force had been declared FOC at the Riga Summit. While NATO’s military authorities felt that the overall concept and the overall structure of the NRF 1.0 was sound and fit for purpose, the allies largely failed to provide the forces needed to meet the NRF’s manpower quota—the so-called Combined Joint Statement of Requirements (CJSOR). The problem was already acknowledged prior to the Riga Summit (in fact, it was only with the help of some last minute “creative” measures that NATO’s military authorities managed to fill the force—at least on paper—before Riga), but by mid-2007 the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Bantz Craddock, felt that the problem had become untenable. Without informing the public he therefore took the rather extraordinary step of rescinding FOC of the NRF. At the time, the manpower quota for the upcoming NRF rotation was at an alarming 66 percent.6

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SACEUR’s remarkable step and the high operational tempo in Afghanistan and Iraq prompted the alliance to adopt the NRF 2.0 in late 2007. Labeled the “graduated approach,” the second incarnation of the rapid reaction force was essentially a slimmed down version of the NRF 1.0. Whereas the NRF 1.0 consisted of about 25,000 troops, the NRF 2.0 was made up of about 12,500, organized as a core of command and control elements and a number of key enablers. Onto this core NRF further pre-designated, supplementary elements could then be bolted, but the supplementary elements could at the same time be used by nations for other purposes—even while they were on NRF standby. Instead of putting the force to rest as a consequence of chronically low fill rates, the allies adjusted the level of ambition downward and opened up to more flexible ways of contributing forces.7 It soon became clear, however, that the NRF 2.0 was not going to solve NATO’s problems regarding its partially manned rapid reaction force. Although the graduated approach provided for more flexibility, the allies did not step up to the plate, and in mid-2008 the alliance’s military authorities resolved that only a new and far-reaching revision would render it possible to generate the forces needed to keep the NRF alive—or, at the very least, align ambitions with the political willingness to assign forces to the NRF. This, the second major adjustment of the NRF-concept, led us to the NRF 3.0, which was approved by the NATO ministers of defense at their meeting in June 2009 and was fully implemented by mid-2010. Essentially, the 2010 revision did two things. First, the NRF 3.0 offered maximal opportunities for allies to contribute forces. What the allies agreed to was a twofold structure consisting of a 13,000-strong Immediate Response Force (IRF), similar to—but even more flexible than—the “core” of the NRF 2.0, and a residual Response Force Pool (RFP). The latter was open-ended and its actual size would depend upon the number of forces that nations were willing to make available. Actual operational commitments could be made on an ad hoc basis. Second, and perhaps most importantly, the revision entailed a significant adjustment of the NRF’s mission statement. By moving away from the seven generic missions8 included in the mission statement for the NRF 1.0 and 2.0, the allies abandoned the imposing CJSORs that had served as little more than a mechanism for reporting failure. Although somewhat creatively, the image of the force therefore improved as the low fill rates—and the associated negative press reports—disappeared. Indicative of the success of the NRF 3.0, it endured until 2014 when Russia’s aggressive behavior in Ukraine

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induced NATO to alter the force once again (we examine the NRF 4.0 in the next section). In retrospect, it is tempting to portray the first incarnations of the NRF as outright failures. Repeatedly, the allies failed to contribute adequate force numbers, and twice the alliance had to reorganize and slim down the NRF to make it viable. Moreover, except for rather insignificant deployments to provide disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and in Pakistan following the October 2005 earthquake, the allies did not make operational use of their expensive tool. Much like the EU’s Battlegroups,9 the NRF was a dormant force. More than once, allies suggested that the NRF should be deployed (for instance to Afghanistan), but each time other allies made it clear that they would block such proposals. In our view, it is not fair to dismiss the “first NRFs” as outright failures, however. The force was always meant to be both an operational tool and a vehicle for transformation, and while it is certainly correct that the NRF never became the active and hard-hitting instrument envisioned by its architects, it did become an engine for the transformation of European militaries, as thousands of troops were NRF-certified and rotated through the force’s standby window. Concretely, once inside the NRF, allied forces had to meet NATO standards both for interoperability and training, and there was no escape: NATO military authorities (Allied Command Operations, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, or SHAPE) are there to certify that NRF-assigned forces meet the full range of standards as laid out in a large “NATO Forces Standards” document, ranging from tactical procedure to command-and-control systems. Therefore, to escape the embarrassment of NRF non-certification, allies had to shape up before rotating forces into the NRF standby window. As such, and in spite of the limits to investment exposed in this section, the NRF achieved a baseline of moderate success in so far as it contributed to a reservoir of interoperable, projectable forces that allies could appeal to as they would later face unrest in Syria, Libya, and elsewhere.10

What does the NRF look like? NATO announced the third major adjustment of the NRF concept at the Wales Summit in September 2014. The summit was initially planned to be a “farewell to Afghanistan” gathering, but as a consequence of Russia’s aggressive behavior in Ukraine the meeting of heads of state and government centered on how to respond to Moscow’s policies in Eastern Europe. The centerpiece of what was decided at the Wales

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Summit was the Readiness Action Plan (RAP). The RAP included both short-term “assurance” measures—aimed at immediately deterring Russia and reassuring the most exposed allies—and longer-term changes labeled “adaptation” measures. The comprehensive revision of the NRF—and the setting up of the NRF 4.0—was part of the latter basket of initiatives. Boiled down to its essence, the 2014 revision did two things. First, the IRF has been renamed the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) and recast to become a more agile force put on higher alert. Today, the VJTF is approximately 13,000 troops strong (as was the IRF) and parts are ready for deployment within 48 hours, whereas the old IRF needed a full 30 days to deploy. Moreover, with the NRF 4.0—or the “Enhanced NRF” as NATO officially labels the force—the 13,000 personnel preparing for standby the following year (standing up forces) and the 13,000 troops winding down after standby (standing down forces) are now formally part of the force, as the Initial Follow on Forces Group (IFFG). The IFFG are intended as “high-readiness forces that deploy quickly, following the VJTF, in response to a crisis.”11 In reality, the IFFG will require between 30 and 45 days to deploy—which hardly makes it a “high-readiness force.” Second, after the 2014 revision, NATO allies for the first time explicitly link the NRF to collective defense and Article 5. Officially, the alliance is presenting the VJTF as a force for both the East and “threats emanating from the Middle East and North Africa,” but in reality everyone acknowledges that adaptation measures above all else have been driven by Russian aggressiveness. In contrast to its earlier incarnations, the NRF 4.0 has thus exercised repeatedly in Eastern Europe and in the Baltic States. Moreover, NATO has established small command and control nodes—so-called NATO Force Integration Units (NFIUs)—in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary to facilitate the reception and activation of the VJTF. The core purposes of the NRF have thus been modified in the direction of deterrence. As with its precursors, the NRF 4.0 is meant to facilitate transformation, but it is now transforming allied forces towards regional deployment for high-intensity territorial defense rather than a variety of crisis management-related missions. The NFR 4.0 has as such become an important component of the alliance’s deterrence posture vis-à-vis Russia. The VJTF and also the full NRF are too small to deter by denial—i.e., to prevent a large, determined Russian force from crossing NATO boundaries—but they are the first step on the ladder of deterrence by punishment. By moving the NRF

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4.0 into harm’s way, NATO ensures Russia’s awareness of the fact that any aggression on its part will place American, British, and French flags, among others, on NATO coffins at the very outset of a conflict, which in turn will ensure a punishing reply on the part of the collective alliance.12

What has the NRF been hindered by? Russia’s aggressive course of action has galvanized the alliance, but enduring problems of coordinated action and resolve remain. In this section we consider the most critical challenges to the NRF 4.0. We begin with more practical matters and move on to bigger issues of culture and deterrence policy. One practical matter is the speed of reaction of the NRF 4.0. While intended to be at “very high readiness,” the VJTF’s spearhead elements require 48 hours of reaction time while the remainder of the force will take up to a week to deploy. The VJTF—a reinforced multinational brigade—will thus be well behind the blitz offensive that Russia is able to orchestrate into Baltic territory. If we assumed that NATO’s eastern conventional defense would begin with reaction forces—which is not the case, as we shall see shortly—then Russia could force a checkmate, as a much-noted RAND war game noted in regards to the mere 60 hours it would take Russian troops to reach Tallinn and Riga, capitals of Estonia and Latvia.13 It is a point not lost on NATO authorities. In the immediate wake of the NRF 4.0 and the Wales Summit they thus began work on a whole range of issues, from intelligence gathering, crisis indicators, hybrid warfare, and resilience, to the rapid movement of combat forces and munitions across both the Atlantic and intraEuropean borders. They are making progress, reaching agreement in 2018 to set up two support commands for logistics, reinforcement and military mobility, one in the United States and one in Germany.14 However, this happens within the immutable geographical constraint that the most exposed allies, the Baltic countries, are located behind a Russian anti-access, area denial (A2/AD) shield enabled notably by the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad that protrudes into the Baltic Sea and which leaves just a narrow strip of land (65 miles, or 104km) between Poland and Lithuania—the Suwalki Gap—for NATO reinforcements. Thus, NATO has warmed to an enhanced partnership with Sweden, whose territory, and especially the island of Gotland, offers NATO opportunities for establishing both a counter-A2/AD shield and lines into the Baltic allied states. Similarly, NATO has undertaken war games at the Suwalki Gap to rehearse the challenge of keeping the gap open.15

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Among the challenges for access and therefore credible deterrence is the high cost of high readiness. NATO’s principle for the VJTF and NRF as a whole is that costs lie where they fall. In other words, the contributing allies must pay for upkeep, readiness, and exercises that happen on their watch. Moreover, exposed (i.e. eastern) allies must build the infrastructure for receiving the VJTF on short notice—as a measure of “host nation support”—but this is costly, politically sensitive, and a complex matter considering all the moving parts of a multinational brigade.16 A financial maze thus opens. The prospect for collective financing is slim if not non-existent, as all allies are stretched budget-wise and lack the appetite for subsidizing other allies’ defenses. Host countries may reasonably appeal for investment help, but expeditionary allies which bear the costs of high readiness, training, and deployment will counter them with equally reasonable arguments. Another challenge concerns SACEUR’s authority to use the force. In a high readiness emergency, there is no time to run lengthy consultations with national parliaments before engaging the VJTF. The allies recognize this challenge but also want to retain ultimate control of what could be the first step up the ladder of escalation. During the Cold War, beginning in 1960 under General Lauris Norstad, SACEUR did have command of an Allied Mobile Force to deter the intimidation of allies on the flanks of the alliance.17 However, the current environment of hybrid and asymmetrical threats has eroded political confidence in this model of extensive command authority. In its ongoing work to address this challenge, the alliance instead seeks to upgrade the ability of the North Atlantic Council (NAC)—the political authority—to anticipate crises by way of comprehensive and better-integrated intelligence focused on (hard-to-define) indicators of emerging asymmetrical threats. Moreover, the NAC has divided command authority so that SACEUR has the authority to mobilize and deploy the force and, for instance, conduct snap exercises, while the authority to employ the force—to engage in hostile action and thus war—remains in political hands.18 There is widespread allied support for this approach of enhanced anticipation and limited command delegation because it represents a workable compromise between allies in favor of command delegation for the sake of enhanced deterrence and other allies focused on political control, in part for reasons of the constitutional requirement that parliaments must participate in deployment decisions. Emphasizing anticipation is a useful compromise but it does not solve the challenge of authority; it merely enhances the need to continuously work on useful/credible indicators of threats, to integrate

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national intelligence streams, and to bolster SACEUR’s lead initiatives in terms of training and readiness. NATO has responded by setting up a new Joint Intelligence and Security Division within its Brussels headquarters—supposedly the “most significant reform in the history of Allied intelligence”19—and the key now is to underpin this new institutional structure with diplomatic engagement and transparency (i.e. shared intelligence) and, ultimately, create a decision-making culture of “timely strategic judgement” and “boldness” in application.20 These NRF challenges in terms of access, cost, and authority have resulted in a certain marginalization of the new force in NATO’s deterrence posture. Thus, the 2016 Warsaw Summit introduced a new element of deterrence, a so-called Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) in the shape of four battalions located close to the Russian Baltic border (three European multinational battalions in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and then a US battalion in Poland). These forces will be inside the Russian A2/AD shield and will not face the mobilization and organization challenge inherent in the NRF. EFP—not the VJTF—has thus become the front line of NATO’s deterrence posture. While it is entirely possible to argue that the two forces are intrinsically linked, it is also clear that EFP would not have come about if the VJTF/NRF had been a trustworthy, short-notice tool for reinforcing the alliance’s eastern border at points of crisis. This leads to a bigger issue of political culture and strategic focus. It is not clear that the renewed Russian threat has galvanized the allies— and especially the European allies—to the point where they are willing and able to generate an effective force posture.21 The European allies subscribed to the forceful communiqué of the Wales Summit in 2014, including the upgraded NRF, and they have imposed sanctions on Russia. But the effective military response is lacking, and there is perhaps no better indicator of this than the EFP—a stopgap measure introduced within just two years of the Warsaw Summit. Moreover, it is a stopgap measure that ties down allied forces in fixed geographical positions, thus robbing them of the operational flexibility that they seek in a changing security environment—be it in respect to the southern flank or simply Russia’s ability to choose its point of challenge. In the big picture, NATO deterrence relies only marginally on the NRF. Instead, it depends on US forces, also at the conventional level. There is no question that the US nuclear umbrella continues to be the ultimate deterrence backbone for the alliance, but the point of conventional forces is to reinforce the deterrence posture at lower or nonnuclear levels. In this respect, the main muscle also remains American.

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In 2010–2011, prior to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the United States prepared to draw down in Europe and switch resources primarily to Asia but also the Middle East. Concretely, the United States announced the withdrawal of two of four brigades forward-deployed in Europe, which left the US presence with an airborne brigade headquartered in Italy and a mechanized Stryker brigade headquartered in Germany. The US response to Russia’s aggression has primarily come via a European Reassurance Initiative (ERI) that is national, not multilateral or NATO-based. With the ERI, the United States at first allocated additional funds for enhanced training and exercises in Europe to reassure exposed allies—at the rate of about $1 billion annually. In 2016, the United States upped the ante and expanded the ERI to a program of enhanced deterrence—the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI)—now funneling more than $4 billion into the forward deployment of an armored brigade and the pre-positioning of equipment for an additional armored brigade. There will thus be three brigades continuously in Europe, and at times four brigades—typically when rotations overlap. In early 2017, when the enhanced ERI forces began deploying, the United States moved both an armored brigade (including 87 tanks and 144 fighting vehicles) and a combat aviation brigade (including 50 Blackhawks) into Europe, and was thus at a level of four deployed brigades. The armored brigade is headquartered in Poland and the combat aviation brigade in Germany, but units from the brigades will move throughout Eastern Europe for exercises and forward presence. In addition, since January 2017, the United States has stationed a contingent of 330 Marines in northern Norway, and it will maintain an enhanced naval task force in the Black Sea. Encouragingly for European allies who fear the political fallout of President Trump’s repeated criticism of NATO, the Trump administration has both continued the strong EDI program of his predecessor and also proposed a 30 per cent increase—to $6.5 billion—in the president’s 2019 budget (which Congress must review and pass).22 The United States has thus placed significant combat power back in Europe, which defines the backbone of the alliance’s conventional deterrence posture. European forces in the NRF and the EFP are important symbolically, a type of tripwire, as noted. Yet they are not significant forces in their own right. European allies do contribute other forces—follow-on forces—and sometimes some of these will exercise with US and allied forces. However, the point in regard to these follow-on forces is that they are not part of the rapid reaction forces—the more expensive and harder part of deterrence. European

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follow-on forces are on lower readiness, not highly trained, and not tightly coordinated on account of their multinational and therefore compartmentalized character. They do figure in NATO’s graduated response plans—which is the planning tool for responding to eastern flashpoints and challenges—but as a rather ill-defined third layer of forces, where the VJTF and then the full NRF make up the first two layers and have more concrete roles and responsibilities. A 2017 RAND study examined the ability of the British, French, and German armies to generate and sustain armored brigades in the Baltics, all of which involves follow-on and not NRF forces, and concluded that the effort was doable but under “significant strain” and it would leave “little spare capacity for any other contingencies.”23 And this, it should be underscored, involves just three brigades (albeit armored) from the main European allies. In short, even if we look beyond the NRF to the full roster of European forces, there is a lack of cohesive and ready conventional muscle and thus a dearth of deterrence posture. This is not to say that European forces can be simply discarded from a deterrence perspective, but it is to say that without the backbone offered by battle-ready US brigades, Europe’s deterrence posture would be inadequate. The NRF, even in its latest guise, 4.0, is not a solution but a facet of this problem. The NRF 4.0 does represent progress compared to days of old, but the force is also a reminder of how much work European governments and forces have cut out for them in the domain of effective conventional deterrence.

Where will the NRF go from here? There is no question that the NRF will have to evolve and that it will be a struggle. The cause of evolution is clear enough: the NRF is small, even in its fullest configuration, and will continuously be challenged by Russia’s evolving ability to deny allied forces access to the Baltic countries and other eastern allies. The option of discarding the NRF in favor of in-place forces—like the EFP forces—is unappealing: allies do not want to tie down their forces in fixed geographic locations; prepositioned, in-place forces are expensive to maintain; and the whole southern flank of the alliance, meaning the Middle East and North Africa, remains a source of concern. Capable reaction forces are thus necessary on account of geography, budgets, and alliance solidarity. It might be worth noting that the intimate connection between the NRF and collective defense (i.e. the Russian threat) means that a variety of NATO partners get sidelined. Ultimately, the alliance must be able to defend itself and not have to rely on partners. Sweden and

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Finland are for obvious geographical reasons an exception: they have been offered Enhanced Opportunities Partnerships and were invited to a North Atlantic Council meeting at the 2016 Warsaw Summit in an unprecedented 28+2 format.24 Still, most partners, say, Japan or institutions such as the African Union or the United Nations, have no impact on the collective defense structure, which goes to highlight how the inner dynamics of the alliance have become more prominent. Upgrading the NRF will be a struggle because ultimately the force must be able to punch its way through the Russian A2/AD bubble centered in Kaliningrad. There are four components to this challenge. First is that NRF forces must be quicker to assemble and come into fighting format, a challenge easily grasped when considering that the NRF at times, depending on rotations, will be significantly filled by southern force contributions, from Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Getting such a complex multinational force to work smoothly in a high-stress, rapid-reaction context is a challenge that should not be underestimated, and one that will require continuous political support for costly exercises and organizational modernization. The second component concerns doctrine and the integration of advanced weaponry in a new approach to A2/AD bubbles. The US Army is developing a doctrinal response to this challenge under the heading of “multi-domain battle” (MDB), which emphasizes the Army’s ability to move into contested territory and from there call in and coordinate joint action—thus bringing Navy and Air Force technology into the equation.25 From a doctrinal perspective, it only makes sense that the US Army has developed MDB in cooperation with the Marines. From a joint perspective, it remains to be seen whether the Navy and Air Force will buy into the doctrine. From an allied perspective, the key question is whether allied land forces have the capacity to follow this lead, which means both the institutional capacity to invest in future warfare (most European land forces have focused stringently on current operational needs, divesting its innovation capacities) and the political backing for modernizing force arsenals and testing new ways of war in joint exercises. This type of military innovation may seem futuristic to some European governments, but it is in fact a necessity and the flip side of the decision to deploy enhanced forward-presence battlegroups that are too weak to resist Russian aggression of any significant magnitude.26 The third component is simply one of size. NATO has just one NRF, but there are multiple flashpoints along the eastern frontier. In recognition of this diversity of challenges, NATO has developed several graduated response plans for distinct eastern “sectors.” Thus, NATO

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has multiple plans for multiple contingencies but only one NRF tool in the toolbox. If Russia challenges NATO in Estonia, and if NATO responds by deploying the NRF there, Russia is better able to challenge NATO at another point of its choosing, such as in Romania, which borders Moldova, where Russia maintains troops. Size matters, therefore, and it is not hard to imagine that the United States in return for its enhanced investments in European deterrence will demand of European allies a further enhancement or multiplication of the NRF. If Europeans upgraded their follow-on forces, they could fill a second or third NRF. This ties in with the two other points made above, namely that the NRF will require both political support and military innovation. Size is the third facet of this challenge. To address the NRF challenge in earnest, therefore, the allies must tackle all three components at one and the same time: political support, innovation investment, and size. The fourth and final component relates to the context of the NRF in terms of NATO strategy and defense planning. NATO cannot truly enhance the NRF by focusing merely on the NRF itself. The modernization of this spearhead hinges on wider changes to NATO strategy—beginning with the Strategic Concept which dates back to 2010, and to the alliance’s method for engaging industry, and not just the defense industry but also the technology sector, and thus for ensuring the timely delivery of new technology and equipment.27 This is upping the ante in terms of demands on allied governments, of course, but it is to highlight the interconnectedness of NATO output in terms of ready-togo forces and NATO input in terms of political priorities, defense planning, and partnerships. European allies and also Canada are capable of reform, as their ability to reverse the declining trend in defense spending testifies to, but the sum total of these four demands associated with the NRF is nonetheless overwhelming. The allies can thus be expected to address issues incrementally and be inclined to compartmentalize matters. However, there is a clear limit on the extent to which they can fudge the issue. President Trump is already strong on burden-sharing and explicit in his demands for European investments in return for US security guarantees. What this analysis has shown is that the Trump administration can approach burden-sharing from an even stronger position, as it has decided to invest even more in its European deterrence posture. It is inconceivable that President Trump will not seek a return on this investment, just as it is improbable that a Trump successor in 2021, should Trump not be reelected, will not likewise demand such a return. After all, the 2 per cent rule happened on President Obama’s watch.

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Reaction forces are likely to be at the heart of this burden-sharing debate. Currently, Europeans maintain by far the majority of their forces as follow-on forces and then select a few as reaction forces. They will either have to shift more forces into the ranks of capable reaction forces, or invest more in the activation and capability of their follow-on forces, or simply both. The irony is that if the allied governments shy away from this challenge, with all that it implies in terms of political commitment, innovation investment, and force sizing, they will be faced with the criticism that typically gets levelled at the current US president, which is that talk is cheap. Thus, while muddling through is a preferred method of operation for a complex, multinational alliance, it seems that some hard choices are imposing themselves.

Conclusion At the end of the day the NRF is a window into the political conditions that enable the alliance and its military capability. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 generated political willingness to “transform” NATO, which, among other things, led to the launch of the NRF. The new force proved its worth as an engine of force modernization—rotating European forces through its certification process, elevating their skill and readiness—but lost attention as the “wars on terror” in Afghanistan and Iraq ramped up. NATO sought to rescue the NRF’s reputation by declaring it at full operational capability, but it remained a rather hollow structure that forced a revision of its underlying political ambition. Still, for the forces that were actually rotated through its readiness window, the NRF became a modernization engine—forcing assigned units to adapt to the scripture of NATO Forces Standards or else risk a politically unacceptable non-certified status. Allies may have limited the scope of their investment in the NRF, but for the units that did go into the force, there was no escaping the drive for enhanced interoperability. The cumulated experience and ability of allied forces in terms of force projection—so critical as allies continue to engage in crisis management theaters such as Libya and Syria, or as they seek enhanced deterrence postures to the east—may primarily build on hard-won lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq, but not exclusively: the NRF, as a mechanism of force modernization and certification, consistently contributed too. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the threat of further Russian aggression have revived political interest in the reaction force. At the Wales Summit in 2014, the “new” NRF was the key piece in NATO’s

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attempt to offer exposed allies reassurance and introduce new measures of deterrence vis-à-vis Russia. Thus, the NRF gained an enhanced or “very high” readiness capacity, the VJTF, and a greater number of ready follow-on forces organized in the IFFG. The ensuing summit in Warsaw, in 2016, was more stringently focused on deterrence—as opposed to reassurance—and exposed the limits of the new NRF. The alliance as a whole addressed problems of access and force projection, critical to the NRF, by deploying in-place “forward presence” forces to the Baltic states and Poland. Moreover, the United States, acting in parallel via its national ERI, significantly reinforced its land force capability in Europe. The ERI thus got upgraded to EDI—implying an effort strong enough to deter Russia in important ways. Still, as the stand-off between NATO and Russia continues, NATO’s force posture continues to be underwhelming in terms of the breadth of its reaction forces and the depth of its follow-on forces.28 As outlined here, four challenges present themselves to mainly European allies. They must maintain high investments in the NRF to secure its status as a capable and effective force, as opposed to a complex and composite compromise of national forces. They must agree to force modernization and indeed innovation to keep pace with US force doctrine—currently as captured by “multi-domain battle”—and maintain the NRF as a credible counter-A2/AD tool. This will require a significant engagement with new technologies, including artificial intelligence and cyber. They must support not only a better NRF but also a bigger one, as NATO’s reaction capacity along its eastern frontier is limited by the small size of the NRF, and, as the alternative, the deployment of in-place tripwire forces is both expensive and politically unattractive. Finally, it must ultimately rethink its approach to strategy and defense planning, as its force development, including the NRF, will take place within a rapidly changing context where NATO authorities must clarify its approach to and priorities within collective defense, as well as its relationship to critical defense and technology industries. The NRF is thus a piece in a wider puzzle that is both demanding and difficult. NATO allies will approach reform gradually, and the United States is likely to insist on greater sacrifice and political diligence. There is much that can be done, but a probable focal point will be the NRF: it is a force of high visibility considering its contribution to both reassurance and deterrence, and it is the allied tool that most visibly matches the American investment in force projection and conventional deterrence. The NRF should for this reason alone attract considerable interest: it is a readily apparent window into the

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willingness and ability of the allies to put their money and effort where their mouth is and thus to build alliance diplomacy on real military capabilities.

Notes 1 This is a revised and updated version of the authors’ article, “The NATO Response Force: A Qualified Failure No More?” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 443–456. Portions of the chapter build on Jens Ringsmose, “NATO’s Response Force: Finally Getting it Right?” European Security 18, no. 3 (2009): 287–304; and Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning, “Credible Deterrence? NATO’s New Spearhead Force,” Atlantisch Perspeetief 39, no. 6 (2015). 2 Richard Kugler, The NATO Response Force 2002–2006: Innovation by the Atlantic Alliance (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, 2007), 4. 3 Wojciech Lorenz, “The Significance of High Readiness Forces for NATO Credibility,” PISM 51, no. 991 (2017). See also Judy Dempsey, “NATO’s Eastern Flank and Its Future Relationship with Russia,” Carnegie Europe, October 2017. 4 Sten Rynning, “A New Military Ethos? NATO’s Response Force,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies 3 (2005): 5, https://doi.org/10.1080/14794010508656814. 5 Hans Binnendijk and Richard Kugler, “Transforming European Forces,” Survival 44, no. 3 (2002): 117–223, https://doi.org/10.1093/survival/44.3.117. The first generation NRF consisted of a reinforced brigade combat team, a combined naval task force, and an air element capable of undertaking approximately 200 sorties per day. Moreover, the force was planned to include a number of niche capabilities. See, for instance, Nicholas Stringer, “Refining the NATO Response Force: Improved Utility from a Revised Construct,” Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala., 2008; and Nicholas Fiorenza, “Ready for Action,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, 27 September 2006. 6 Jens Ringsmose, “Taking Stock of NATO’s Response Force,” NATO Defense College Research Paper no. 54, Rome, January 2010, 3–4. 7 Judy Dempsey, “NATO Retreats from Establishment of Rapid-Reaction Force,” New York Times, 20 September 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/09/ 20/world/europe/20iht-force.4.7587514.html; John Mark, “NATO to Scale Back Reaction Force,” Irish Times, 26 October 2007; Der Spiegel, “Eingreiftruppe am Ende,” 17 September 2007, www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/ d-52985261.html; and Jens Ringsmose, “NATO’s Response Force: Finally Getting It Right?” European Security 18 (2009): 287–304, https://doi.org/ 10.1080/09662831003694674. 8 The seven generic missions ranged from deployment as an initial entry force in a hostile environment at the high end of the conflict spectrum, to non-kinetic operations such as non-combatant evacuation and consequence management operations at the other end of the operational spectrum. 9 Yf Reykers, “EU Battlegroups: High Costs, No Benefits,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 457–470. 10 Of course, it was not only NATO and the NRF that facilitated the creation of a more expeditionary European mindset. At least three other factors

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have promoted European transformation: first, operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Libya, and Iraq have played an important part in (slowly) changing the European strategic culture; second, the EU Battlegroup concept contributed to the transformation drive; and third, probably the (almost) Europe-wide switch to all-volunteer forces has prompted the Europeans to obtain a more expeditionary mindset. NATO, Fact Sheet NATO Response Force (NRF), 2016, https://jfcbs.nato. int/page5725819/nato-response-force-nrf-fact-sheet. Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning, “Can NATO’s New Very High Readiness Joint Task Force Deter?” in NATO and Collective Defense in the 21st Century: An Assessment of the Warsaw Summit, ed. Karsten Friis (London: Routledge, 2017), 16–22. David A. Shlapak and Michael Johnson, Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank: Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2016), www.rand.org/pubs/research_ reports/RR1253.html. Wojciech Lorenz, “Changes to the NATO Command Structure,” PISM 108, no. 1048 (2017): 1–2; and Matthius Gebauer, Konstantin von Hammerstein, Peter Müller, and Christoph Schult, “NATO Grapples with Serious Organizational Shortcomings,” Der Spiegel, 20 October 2017, www.sp iegel.de/international/world/nato-faces-serious-shortcomings-in-command-r evamp-a-1173947-druck.html. Andrius Sytas, “NATO War Game Defends Baltic Weak Spot for First Time,” Reuters World News, 18 June 2017, www.reuters.com/article/us-na to-russia-suwalki-gap/nato-war-game-defends-baltic-weak-spot-for-first-time-i dUSKBN1990L2. Xavier Pintat, “NATO’s Readiness Action Plan: Assurance and Deterrence for the Post-2014 Security Environment,” NATO Parliamentary Assembly Report, NATO document 167 DSCFC 15 E bis, 10 October 2015. Diego A. Ruiz Palmer, “From AMF to NRF,” NATO Review, 2009, www. nato.int/docu/Review/2009/0902/090204/EN/index.htm. Joseph A. Day, “NATO’s New Deterrence Posture: From Wales to Warsaw,” NATO Parliamentary Assembly General Report, NATO document 161 DSC 16 E bis, 20 November 2016; and Jan Abts, “NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force: Can the VJTF Give New Élan to the NATO Response Force?” NATO Defence College Research Paper no. 109, February 2015, www.files.ethz.ch/isn/189415/rp_109.pdf. Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, “Adapting NATO Intelligence in Support of ‘One NATO,’” NATO Review, 8 September 2017, www.nato.int/docu/ review/2017/Also-in-2017/adapting-nato-intelligence-in-support-of-one-nato -security-military-terrorism/EN/index.htm. Steven McGuire, “NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (Land) 2017: An Analysis,” Small Wars Journal, 2017, http://smallwarsjournal. com/jrnl/art/nato%E2%80%99s-very-high-readiness-joint-task-force-land-20 17-an-analysis. See also Martin Zapfe, “Deterrence from the Ground up: Understanding NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence,” Survival 59, no. 3 (2017): 147–160. Anthony H. Cordesman, “NATO and the Delicate Balance of Deterrence: Strategy versus Burden Sharing,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Report, 7 February 2017, www.csis.org/analysis/nato-a

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Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning nd-delicate-balance-deterrence-strategy-versus-burden-sharing; and Jeffrey Rathke, “Security in Northern Europe and the Road to the 2018 NATO Summit,” CSIS Commentary, 20 November 2017, www.csis.org/analysis/ security-northern-europe-and-road-2018-nato-summit. Jen Judson, “Funding to Deter Russia Reaches $6.5 in FY19 Defense Budget Request,” Defense News, 12 February 2018, www.defensenews.com/land/20 18/02/12/funding-to-deter-russia-reaches-65b-in-fy19-defense-budget-request. Michael Shurkin, The Abilities of the British, French, and German Armies to Generate and Sustain Armored Brigades in the Baltics (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2017), 1, www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/ RR1629.html. Artur Kacprzyk and Karsten Friis, “Adapting NATO’s Conventional Force Posture in the Nordic-Baltic Region,” PISM 3, no. 156 (2017): 1–10. David G. Perkins, “Multi-Domain Battle: Joint Combined Arms Concept for the 21st Century,” Association of the United States Army, 14 November 2016, www.ausa.org/articles/multi-domain-battle-joint-combined-arms-conc ept-21st-century. Jüri Luik and Henrik Praks, Boosting the Deterrent Effect of Allied Enhanced Forward Presence (Tallinn, Estonia: International Centre for Defence and Security, 2017), https://icds.ee/wp-content/uploads/2017/ ICDS_Policy_Paper_Boosting_the_Deterrent_Effect_of_Allied_eFP.pdf. Julian Lindley-French, “One Alliance: The Future Tasks of the Adapted Alliance,” Globsec NATO Adaptation Initiative, November 2017, www. globsec.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/GNAI-Final-Report-Nov-2017.pdf; and Karl-Heinz Kamp and Wolf Langheld, “One NATO: The Military Adaptation of the Alliance,” Globsec NATO Adaptation Initiative, March 2017, https://www.globsec.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/the_military_a daptation_of_the_alliance.pdf. Anthony Cordesman, “Russian Exercises and NATO Force Planning,” CSIS Commentary, 14 September 2017, www.csis.org/analysis/russian-exer cises-and-nato-force-planning-need-real-strategy-deal-russia.

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United Nations rapid reaction mechanisms From SHIRBRIG to a UN Vanguard Force Joachim A. Koops and Alexandra Novosseloff

    

Where do the UN rapid reaction mechanisms come from? What did the SHIRBRIG rapid reaction mechanism look like? After SHIRBRIG: towards new UN rapid reaction mechanisms? What have the UN rapid reaction mechanisms been hindered by? Conclusion: where will UN rapid reaction mechanisms go from here?

Since its creation in 1945, the United Nations (UN) has struggled to find a solution to the persistent challenge of either relying on reliable contributions, including standby capacities, or mustering troops to respond rapidly and effectively to breaches of international peace or to other crises requiring the use of peacekeepers. Deployed in high numbers in the early 1990s and the decade after 2000, UN peacekeeping operations have often lacked two main capabilities: a rapid deployment mechanism and a force reserve (either strategic, over-thehorizon, or theater-level). As a result, these operations often lacked the capacity and flexibility to deal with a sudden deterioration of the security situation, or had to rely on an external parallel capacity to do so—coming from the European Union (EU), a bilateral partner, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), or a coalition of the willing. One cause of this lack of capacity and flexibility is that these operations have tended to be created to implement overambitious mandates without the necessary resources behind them and with an insufficient budget, far from what member states and coalitions would spend for other operations in bilateral or NATO-like frameworks—the annual budget for peacekeeping operations equals 0.3 percent of annual global military expenditure. At the same time, public expectations of the UN as the only universal organization often exceed the means put at its disposal by its membership to develop effective tools for preventing and stopping mass atrocities and human rights violations.1

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As a result, numerous peacekeeping reform reports, such as the “Brahimi Report” in 20002 and most recently the report by the HighLevel Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) in 20153 have repeatedly stressed the need for “rapid reaction tools” or a “small UN Vanguard Capability.” This would allow the UN to “reinforce a mission in crisis and more rapidly establish a new mission presence,” when past experiences have demonstrated over and over again that delays in troop deployments cost lives and lead to preventable deteriorations of the security environment.4 While current efforts to set up a UN “Vanguard Force” are still in their infancy, there are past lessons available from previous attempts at providing the world organization with multinational rapid reaction forces. Indeed, so far the only initiative that actually made it from the drawing board into the realities of the field and to be put at the disposal of the UN was the Standby High Readiness Brigade for UN Operations (SHIRBRIG). In this chapter, we highlight the historical evolution of the issue of rapid reaction and of predictable capacities, and outline some of the major institutional, operational, financial, and political challenges that need to be taken into consideration on the path towards establishing such tools. We briefly review SHIRBRIG’s origins, policies, and the key lessons that can be learned in terms of major obstacles and difficulties related to the creation and maintenance of a UN multinational rapid reaction force. These discussions are then placed in the more recent and wider context of plans to create a UN Vanguard Force. In line with this edited volume, this chapter also examines the interorganizational dimension related to the UN’s cooperation and rivalry with the EU, NATO, and the African Union (AU) in the realm of rapid reaction.

Where do the UN rapid reaction mechanisms come from? Proposals for—and experimentations with—different forms of standby international intervention forces or “multinational standby armies” predate even the creation of the United Nations itself. While the first attempts at organizing multinational forces for intervention and policing can be traced back to the Eight-Nation Alliance that crushed the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, the first proper example of a multinational coalition organized by an international organization was the creation and use of the so-called Saar Force in the mid-1930s. In 1935, following a British initiative, the League of Nations dispatched a multinational police force (made up of troops from Sweden, Italy, Britain, and The Netherlands) in order to secure the plebiscite in the Saar

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region in Germany. Lessons from this early successful implementation of a multinational coalition were also used for the preparation and design of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), which was the UN’s first observation mission, created in 1948.6 In 1945, the UN Charter had envisaged in Article 43 that all members of the organization “undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities.” Those agreements “shall govern the numbers and types of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of the facilities and assistance to be provided.” In other words, a certain element of predictability (but still far from a “UN Army”) was introduced by the drafters of the charter in the form of special agreements made by member states to put troops at the disposal of the Security Council.7 However, the permanent members of the Security Council were subsequently unable to conclude the negotiation of any such agreement due to renewed tension in 1947 and the beginning of the Cold War. As a result, troops provided by member states had been put at the disposal of the United Nations in an ad hoc manner, called upon by the Secretariat and not by the Military Staff Committee, the military committee of the Security Council.8 Since then, two types of proposal have regularly been made by independent experts, UN studies, or member states: those related to a limited but autonomous military capacity of the United Nations, and those related to mechanisms to improve the rapid deployment of UN troops on the ground. The following proposals are examples of these two features. In 1948, Trygve Lie suggested the creation of a “United Nations Guard” “for guard duty with UN missions, in the conduct of plebiscites under the supervision of the UN, and in the administration of truce terms.” This proposal was examined by the General Assembly through a “Special Committee on a United Nations Guard,” which changed it into a “UN Field Service” of 300 personnel (created by the secretary-general on 1 March 1950, after the adoption of General Assembly Resolution 297B of 22 November 1949), aiming at ensuring the protection of UN personnel on the ground without any military means. In the first post-Cold War years of optimism, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called in his 1992 Agenda for Peace for a reconsideration of Article 43 and the creation of “peace enforcement units”:

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Joachim A. Koops and Alexandra Novosseloff Such units from Member States would be available on call and would consist of troops that have volunteered for such service. They would have to be more heavily armed than peacekeeping forces and would need to undergo extensive preparatory training within their national forces. Deployment and operation of such forces would be under the authorization of the Security Council and would, as in the case of peacekeeping forces, be under the command of the Secretary-General.9

These units would be created outside peacekeeping endeavors. However, the idea was not supported by member states. In the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) of the UN Secretariat, a Standby Arrangement System (UNSAS) was created in 1995 to give more predictability to the planning of operations. This system was based on the establishment of a series of “memoranda of understanding” with member states, enabling forces, equipment, or other means to be provided in a pre-established format and time frame. They took the form of listings that helped DPKO to plan once a resolution creating a peacekeeping operation had been adopted. But there was no guarantee of any sort attached to the various “paper pledges” made by member states.10 In the Supplement of the Agenda for Peace, issued in January 1995, the secretary-general suggested the creation of a “rapid reaction force” that would constitute: the Security Council’s strategic reserve for deployment when there was an emergency need for peacekeeping troops. It might comprise battalion-sized units from a number of countries. These units would be trained to the same standards, use the same operating procedures, be equipped with integrated communications equipment and take part in joint exercises at regular intervals. They would be stationed in their home countries but maintained at a high state of readiness. The value of this arrangement would of course depend on how far the Security Council could be sure that the force would actually be available in an emergency. This will be a complicated and expensive arrangement, but I believe that the time has come to undertake it.11 Following that lead, The Netherlands issued a non-paper on the possible creation of a “rapid deployment brigade” made available to the UN on a permanent basis and for a limited period of time (this brigade of 5,000 soldiers was estimated to cost at the time $300 million per year).

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In September 1995, in a report entitled Towards a Rapid Reaction Capability for the United Nations, Canada made a series of recommendations calling for the development of a standby alert system, the strengthening of UNSAS, a partnership between the UN and some regional organizations, and a partnership between the UN and the private sector for the logistics. In 1996, Denmark submitted a non-paper on a “Multinational United Nations Stand-by Forces High Readiness Brigade,” the result of a working group on the topic, which led to the eventual creation of SHIRBRIG that year. In 2000, the Brahimi Report also looked at “United Nations capacities to deploy operations rapidly and effectively” and proposed “that the United Nations develop the operational capabilities to fully deploy ‘traditional’ peacekeeping operations within 30 days of the adoption of a Security Council resolution, and complex peacekeeping operations within 90 days. In the case of the latter, the mission headquarters should be fully installed and functioning within 15 days.” The report added that: in order to meet these timelines, the Secretariat would need one or a combination of the following: (a) standing reserves of military, civilian police and civilian expertise, materiel and financing; (b) extremely reliable standby capacities to be called upon on short notice; or (c) sufficient lead-time to acquire these resources, which would require the ability to foresee, plan for and initiate spending for potential new missions several months ahead of time.12 In 2003, the idea of a comprehensive United Nations Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS) was floated by civil society groups, policymakers, and experts.13 Subsequently, civil society groups and international nongovernmental coalitions led by the Canada-based World Federalist Movement developed the concept further and submitted a concrete proposal to the HIPPO panel in 2015. UNEPS would be an ambitious rapid reaction force of 13,500 dedicated civilian and military personnel, directly recruited by the UN and co-located at a UN base.14 In 2004, a debate on a “strategic reserve” was raised. At the heart of this proposal, troop-contributing countries, such as Pakistan and India, had declared themselves ready to provide troops to their own UN standing forces, including in the form of a strategic reserve based in their own countries. However, the proposal was rejected for financial reasons and replaced by a more modest one—the creation of an Enhanced Rapidly Deployable Capacity (ERDC). This new concept in

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fact gathered under the same brand numerous ongoing reforms and processes, such as the establishment of adequate financial procedures, the creation and development of strategic deployment stocks at the United Nations Logistics Base in Brindisi, Italy, the prior identification of means and personnel to strengthen an existing peacekeeping operation, in particular through intermission cooperation, and the use of regional agreements.15 In 2009, the “New Horizon” reform document considered that: rapid deployment, which is critical to the early establishment of security and to the credibility of a peacekeeping mission, is ultimately a function of political will. The speed and efficacy of deployment can, however, be enhanced by focusing on the early establishment of mission headquarters, a sequenced roll-out and prioritization of tasks. This can facilitate a faster response and greater focus on immediate priorities and needs on the ground. It therefore requested DPKO and the UN Department of Field Support (DFS) to “re-explore the willingness of Member States to provide rapidly deployable capacities for new missions and for reinforcing existing missions in crisis.”16 In 2012, the General Assembly, in Resolution 66/264, established a “Senior Advisory Group on rates of reimbursement to troop-contributing countries,” which made recommendations in its report released in November 2012 on incentivizing rapid deployment and operational readiness.17 Of all these suggestions, recommendations, and proposals, few have been agreed upon or implemented. All have been, to various degrees, limited by what is realistically achievable in a world where the demand for UN rapid response forces is likely to be huge, the interest of states in responding to that demand is not unlimited, and the capacity of the Security Council to manage crises effectively is often questioned.18 Furthermore, as Peter Langille put it: “The recurring impediments to progress in this respect tend to be within the insufficient political will, limited cooperation, inadequate UN funding associated with austerity and a zero-growth budget, and the reliance on slow and unreliable standby arrangements.”19 In this context, the UN had often to rely on external forces to intervene in crises more quickly, with bridging (military) forces either reinforcing an existing UN mission or being the nucleus presence of a wider UN one. The EU was for a decade (2003–2013) one of the UN’s main partners in crisis management, with the deployment of operations

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Artemis in Ituri in 2003, EUFOR RD Congo in 2006, EUFOR Tchad/ RCA in 2007–2009, and EUFOR RCA in 2014–2015.20 Yet, interorganizational cooperation with the EU has not been frictionless. While many planners at the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations hoped for stronger cooperation (particularly related to the EU Battlegroups), critics have also pointed out that the development of EU rapid reaction tools and EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations puts additional pressure on already scarce resources in the UN context.21 Rivalry and tensions between European interests and those of the UN were also apparent in another major actor that was founded in 1996 to improve the UN as rapid deployment capacity—the Standby High Readiness Brigade for UN Operations.

What did the SHIRBRIG rapid reaction mechanism look like? In 1996 a 4,000–5,000-strong troop brigade was established, on standby and readily available for UN peacekeeping operations. This was led by the initiative of the foreign ministers of three UN member states that were intimately involved in two of the three peacekeeping failures of the mid-1990s: the Canadians in Rwanda, and the Dutch and the Danes in Bosnia-Herzegovina.22 SHIRBRIG consisted of 23 member states and observers, its headquarters were set up near Copenhagen and declared operational in 1997, and its aim and mandate was to “provide the UN with a wellprepared, rapidly deployable capability for peacekeeping operations mandated by the UN Security Council.”23 The founding members (Austria, Canada, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Sweden) were further enlarged by a group of European countries including Italy, Romania, Spain, Finland, Lithuania, and Slovenia, as well as observers as diverse as Chile, Egypt, Jordan, and Senegal.24 It was originally meant to cover the full spectrum of peacekeeping operations, to be deployable within 15–30 days and be self-sustainable in theater for six months. However, it then instead concentrated on the narrower goal of a rapid “first-in unit” placed under the full operational control of the UN force commander. The brigade was deliberately created without the inclusion of Security Council permanent members or stronger powers, such as France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. While some saw this as a strength, by avoiding importing dominating states, it can also be seen as one of many design flaws that later led to problems related to the absence of strong leaders or countries that could shoulder a heavy financial and material burden. Even though SHIRBRIG was deliberately created as

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a standby arrangement (i.e. member states had to earmark troops and would only supply them on an ad hoc basis), the permanent headquarters and so-called “Planning Element” provided important continuity. Indeed, the staff officers of the multinational Planning Element were not only responsible for the planning and design of SHIRBRIG’s involvement in UN operations, but also for conflict monitoring, devising common UN-focused training standards, and from 2003 on also in military capacity-building for the African Union’s regional brigades.25 Political control of the multinational rapid reaction force was exerted by an intergovernmental steering committee composed of representatives of the ministries of defense and foreign affairs of the various member states. This political-military entity was responsible for the organization’s overall strategic direction of SHIRBRIG’s development, activities, and force generation. The presidency rotated each year among the member states. No UN officers were represented in this committee—instead the link between SHIRBRIG and DPKO was provided by the national ambassadors and military advisors of SHIRBRIG’s member states in New York, forming the so-called “contact group.” Between 2000 and 2005 SHIRBRIG deployed five missions, all of them on the African continent. The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) turned out to be SHIRBRIG’s largest deployment, with 1,300 troops, led by Canada, The Netherlands, and Denmark. For the following four missions, SHIRBRIG’s involvement consisted less of full-fledged troop deployments, than of providing planning assistance to DPKO and regional organizations (such as the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS) and the supply of a nucleus headquarters to the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and to the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS, based in Khartoum). With member states increasingly unable or unwilling to supply troops in large numbers, SHIRBRIG transformed itself into a small peacekeeping enabler and niche capability in the form of a rapidly deployable nucleus headquarters. In Liberia and South Sudan therefore, SHIRBRIG enabled the quick deployment and creation of two UN operations headquarters, which served as the basis for the wider enlargement of the mission once other troop-contributing countries finished their process of deployment. Yet, SHIRBRIG’s strongest advantage was that its rapidly deployable headquarters fully integrated into UN missions and UN command once deployed—a feature that in recent experiments with regional bridging operations has not been feasible.

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In addition to its mission activities, planning officers at SHIRBRIG’s headquarters responded positively to requests from the African Union in 2003 to support the development of similar multinational brigades in the context of the African Standby Force (ASF) scheme. SHIRBRIG officers trained senior officers from the East Africa Standby Brigade (EASBRIG) and ECOWAS Standby Brigade (ECOBRIG) and provided key capacity-building expertise to the build-up of both regional brigades, highlighting the strong inter-organizational potentials of the brigade in the realm of UN-AU cooperation.26 Yet, critics viewed these activities as a way for the headquarters staff to find new tasks when faced with member states’ reluctance to provide troops for large-scale deployments. Indeed, despite useful deployments, the most glaring challenge and failure behind SHIRBRIG was its inability to muster the full-strength of its earmarked 5,000 troops pool (see next section).

After SHIRBRIG: towards new UN rapid reaction mechanisms? After the decision to dissolve SHIRBRIG by June 2009, it soon became clear that the need for a UN rapid reaction mechanism continued to occupy the minds of the UN Secretariat and selected member states. The concrete policy debate on rapid reaction mechanisms reemerged in earnest with the work of the HIPPO in 2014–2015. The HIPPO report first considered that with its partners, the United Nations should overcome constraints to rapid deployment in response to crises. A more strategic force generation approach should be supported by political efforts. Greater consultation with contributors, innovative approaches to obtaining specialized capabilities, and a framework for improving performance were also considered essential.27 This issue is, however, not part of the latest reform proposals (“Action For Peace”) put forward by the secretary-general in March 2018, or of the dos Santos Cruz report on Improving Security of United Nations Peacekeepers of December 2017. The HIPPO report further considered that the UN “should define the minimum essential rapid deployment capabilities required to respond to fast emerging crises of the future” and “agree on a suite of tools for the Security Council to draw upon to respond to crises, drawing on both UN and non-UN capabilities”: “(i) a small UN rapid reinforcement/rapid deployment capability; (ii) arrangements for the transfer of personnel and assets in a crisis; (iii) a rapidly deployable integrated UN headquarters; and (iv) national and regional standby arrangements.”28 The Secretariat considered that creating a Vanguard

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Capability and a rapidly deployable headquarters could be within reach with such a pragmatic and modest standby approach in the current climate of financial austerity. Those considerations partly led to the creation within DPKO of a “Strategic Force Generation and Capability Planning Cell” to “ensure proactive coordinated, forward-looking, and sustained DPKO/DFS engagement with UN Member States for the generation of important peacekeeping capabilities with a specific focus on rapidly deployable capacities.”29 The cell also assists in planning and coordinating mid- to long-term DPKO/DFS engagement with member states. It is engaged in supporting, guiding, and coordinating strategic engagement with current and potential contributors of peacekeeping capabilities. To this end, the Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System (PCRS) for managing commitments from member states was created, replacing the old UNSAS. Overall, the aim is to achieve better predictability of the capabilities of the units that the UN aims to deploy, and their more rapid deployment. In its work of ensuring secure commitments from member states into the PCRS, the Strategic Force Generation Cell was helped by the organization of a series of annual pledging conferences. The first was the Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping convened in New York by President Barack Obama in September 2015; the second was the UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial held in London in September 2017 (with a Francophone segment held in Paris in October 2016); and the third the Defence Ministerial held in November 2017 in Vancouver.30 The 2015 Leaders’ Summit saw the major pledges with a total of 50,000 uniformed personnel that could be deployed on the ground. All pledges are processed through the PCRS’ different stages (four levels, the fourth one being an optional rapid deployment level) to allow improved readiness and reaction, once the political decision to deploy troops is made.31 Working on HIPPO’s recommendation, DPKO has also been working on the concept of a UN Vanguard Capability and rapidly deployable integrated headquarters for new missions. The Vanguard is a brigade-size force composed of a permanent core command element, infantry units, and the required force multipliers and enablers rapidly mobilized. It would be deployed under the authority of the secretarygeneral following a Security Council resolution. DPKO has so far made all the preparatory work to be able to deploy a Vanguard brigade within 60 days, but there may still be work to do on the support and logistics end. In London, six countries pledged to provide units to the Rapid Deployment Level for 2017—Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal,

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Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. There China confirmed that some of the troops it had pledged in September 2015 (8,000 soldiers) and in 2017 registered in the PCRS at Level 1, would be available for the rapid deployment level at a later stage. More rapid deployment pledges were made to DPKO following the 2017 decision of the General Assembly to provide a maintenance reimbursement payment to troop-contributing countries with units on the Rapid Deployment Level (RDL). Following a review of all pledges in late 2017, DPKO selected 15 units from 8 countries to make up the roster for the RDL in 2018/2019 year.32

What have the UN rapid reaction mechanisms been hindered by? When it comes to difficulties in establishing effective rapid reaction mechanisms, the United Nations has faced similar problems to those that have affected tools developed by regional organizations. Five are discussed here. First and foremost, the mismatch and wide gap between commitments on paper by troop contributors and actual deployments in crisis situations has been a continuing problem for the UN, as for any other mechanism of the sort (SHIRBRIG, EU Battlegroups, the NATO Response Force, and African Standby Forces). Indeed, the largest deployment (in the context of providing 1,300 troops to the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2002) consisted of less than a third of SHIRBRIG’s envisaged capacity, and was only made possible as a result of the strong support from its three main founder nations. Member states simply did not put their money where their mouth was and did not back up pledges with actual troop commitments. The most fundamental challenges and obstacles to establishing effective multinational rapid reaction forces have their roots in the simplest of problems: lack of member state political will and resource commitment.33 Second, even though member states finally decided to establish an intervention brigade that was designed to be exclusively geared to UN operations and UN training standards, member states often double- or triple-earmarked their troops—i.e. promising the same troops and capabilities to the UN, EU, and NATO at the same time. Third, with increasing pressures on member state defense budgets (and national budgets in general), troop contributing states will think twice before committing to operations that may not directly enhance their strategic national interests. One of the major successes of SHIRBRIG was not large-scale deployments, but rather acting as a rapidly deployable headquarters, carrying out planning for complex blue helmet operations or acting as a capacity-builder. These activities require comparably

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fewer resources and boots on the ground, but are still demanding in terms of the required high level of expertise, which is a rare resource amongst most armed forces. Fourth, beyond financial and resource obstacles, member states also often follow the political instinct of “showing the flag”—i.e. if they deploy troops to international missions they also want to reap the full impact of publicity and credit for sending their troops into harm’s way. Within a cohesive multinational brigade, it is often more difficult to claim credit. Fifth, SHIRBRIG faced several problems by design, which are those of multinational endeavors in general. First of all, the strict intergovernmental nature of SHIRBRIG’s steering committee and the lack of a direct link to DPKO created an unnecessary and cumbersome distance between the brigade and its main client. Moreover, rather unnecessary inter-organizational rivalries between DPKO mission planners and SHIRBRIG planners weakened SHIRBRIG-UN relations. The absence of a strong “hegemon” or big player within SHIRBRIG also meant that there was an acute lack of leadership among member states. Finally, SHIRBRIG’s inter-organizational competition with the EU and NATO added the final nails to the organization’s coffin. Since 16 out of the 23 member states and observers were members of the EU, there was obvious potential for cooperation but also resource rivalries with the EU and to some extent NATO from the start. Both the UK/ France/Germany paper on the Battlegroups in 2004 and the 2004 European Council Paper on “Elements of Implementation of the EUUN Joint Declaration” explicitly stressed the importance of close cooperation between the EU Battlegroups and SHIRBRIG.34 However, the Nordic countries in particular focused their political and military attention more on the EU and NATO and their rapid reaction forces than on bolstering and enhancing SHIRBRIG. Thus, interorganizational competition, in terms of Nordic and other European countries’ commitments to NATO and the EU from 2004 onwards, placed enormous resource pressure on SHIRBRIG and the organization had to compete for attention and political commitment from its erstwhile creators. SHIRBRIG was therefore phased out on 30 June 2009. The need for a close and systematic arrangement of “interlocking rapid reaction partnerships” therefore becomes clear.35 The obstacles outlined above are not specific to the case of SHIRBRIG, but also bedevil efforts to create multinational rapid reaction mechanisms for the UN more generally. As pointed out by Langille, rapid deployment is a complex, demanding process, even for the most advanced and best prepared Member States. Prior preparation and

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extensive planning are essential. The prerequisites usually include the immediate availability of highly trained, well-equipped personnel and dependable transport with secure supply chains. The absence of one element may frustrate and delay a deployment … As with UN peacekeeping more broadly, rapid deployment depends on five levels of authority and effort: political, financial, strategic, operational, and tactical. Problems that arise at one level may have implications for all.36 The problem when it comes to past and current peacekeeping rapid deployment efforts is that these five levels of authority and efforts are lacking in various ways. Committing to rapid deployment or strategic reserve raises issues that often complicate the process of generating such capacity, and that explain why all the proposals and initiatives put on the table so far did not come to fruition. National interests will always be a key consideration in decisions to commit, contribute, and deploy. Difficulties arise in peacekeeping when the goals of the organization and of its peacekeeping operations do not match the goals and interests of its main decision-makers and contributors, as the latter are rarely involved in the negotiations of the mandates designed by the Security Council. After making a commitment at the political level to any of these forces, member states must follow through by dedicating specific units to such a force and the logistics that go with it. Before these units are even ready to deploy, they must make a long-term commitment to training for readiness but also for interoperability, which is a daunting task among 120 contributing countries. It is a costly and time-consuming exercise to reach operational status. Once a force is earmarked, trained, and certified as operational, its readiness will need to be maintained. A high level of readiness does not come cheap: member states acknowledged this fact in January 2017 when they recommended, through the Contingent-Owned-Equipment working group, that a payment be made to countries willing to keep troops under a high level of readiness in the PCRS. This level of readiness requires constant exercises and retraining. The costs are recurrent and are likely to be made in conjunction with the rate of reimbursement provided by the UN. So far, they have not been impacted by the 2017 cuts to the peacekeeping budget.

Conclusion: where will UN rapid reaction mechanisms go from here? This chapter highlighted some of the most pressing problems and obstacles encountered when designing and implementing rapid reaction

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mechanisms for the United Nations. Despite its high-profile role in peace and security and despite being the only organization with a nearuniversal state membership, the UN has struggled ever since its foundation to facilitate the creation of an effective multinational rapid reaction tool. SHIRBRIG, the tool that has so far come closest to realizing a rapid reaction mechanism, was shut down in 2009 and the current plans for a UN Vanguard Force seem more modest, and face similar problems to those encountered throughout history. Yet, the difficulties encountered by regional organizations with more cohesive membership and stronger resource bases—such as the EU or NATO—also highlight that it is far from easy to create, maintain, and effectively deploy rapid reaction mechanisms, and the fact is that few member states have this expeditionary capacity. In this context, the Vanguard Force concept and the creation of a rapidly deployable headquarters could be the right approach in terms of more modest ambitions and pragmatic steps, but it has so far not been really tested, as there has been no creation of any peacekeeping operation since the creation of the Vanguard concept. Furthermore, in line with current trends of UN strategic discussions, UN rapid reaction mechanisms may only be successful if they are geared towards effective and mutually reinforcing partnerships with other regional organizations and standby arrangements. The future lies in peacekeeping partnerships—also in the realm of rapid reaction, but there these various actors have very different levels of capabilities. Rapid reaction depends on a tricky mix of organizational capacity and national political will. In 2016, the Security Council authorized the urgent deployment of 250 police to Burundi and 4,000 soldiers to South Sudan, but the first has not deployed and the second has taken more than a year to start deployment due to the opposition of the host nation. This also serves as a sobering reminder that an effective global tool of rapid reaction must overcome more than just technical, institutional, and financial obstacles. Seven decades after the UN launched its first ever peacekeeping operation in an ad hoc fashion, it will indeed require all the political will of a broad coalition of strong member states and non-state stakeholders, as well as institutional shrewdness to avoid past mistakes, in order to get a much-needed UN rapid reaction force off the ground.

Notes 1 Alexandra Novosseloff, “Blue Helmets: UN’s Unloved Stepchild Needs Leadership,” The Global Observatory, 16 February 2018.

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2 UN, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, also known as the “Brahimi Report,” UN document A/55/305-S/2000/809, 21 August 2000, 14–16. 3 UN, Uniting Our Strengths for Peace: Politics, Partnership and People, Report of the High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN document A/70/95–S/2015/446, 16 June 2015. 4 Ibid., 51. 5 Joachim Koops, “Das Ende der multinationalen UN-Eingreiftruppe (SHIRBRIG): Hintergründe, Lehren und Konsequenzen,” Vereinte Nationen no. 1/2011 (2011), 1–7. 6 Joachim A. Koops, Norrie MacQueen, Thierry Tardy, and Paul D. Williams, “Introduction: The United Nations and Peacekeeping,” in The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, ed. Joachim A. Koops, Norrie MacQueen, Thierry Tardy, and Paul D. Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 2. 7 UN, Charter of the United Nations, 24 October 1945, Article 43. 8 Novosseloff, A. (2018). The UN Military Staff Committee: Recreating a Missing Capacity (New York: Routledge, 2018, 172 pp.). 9 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping, Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to the statement adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992, UN document A/47/277, 17 June 1992, paras. 44–45. 10 Ray Murphy, “United Nations Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System (UNPCRS) Formerly Known as the United Nations Standby Arrangement System (UNSAS),” Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, Heidelberg, 2015, http://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/la w:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1859?prd=EPIL; and Alexandra Novosseloff, “Système des forces en attente,” Peace Operations Research Network (ROP), University of Montreal, 2007, www.operation spaix.net/135-resources/details-lexique/systeme-des-arrangements-en-attente .html. 11 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Supplement to An Agenda for Peace: Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General on the work of the organization, UN document A/50/60–S/1995/1, 3 January 1995, para. 44. 12 UN, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (“Brahami Report”), paras. 88–89. 13 Justine Wang, “Report of the Symposium on Genocide and Crimes against Humanity: The Challenge of Prevention and Enforcement,” convened by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, Calif., and the Simons Centre for Peace and Disarmament Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2003. 14 H. Peter Langille, “Peacekeeping Challenges Require Standing, Not Just Standby, Capacities: Time for a United Nations Emergency Peace Service,” a submission to the High-level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations on behalf of the World Federalist Movement–Canada, 26 March 2015, www.globalcommonsecurity.org/drpeterlangille/wp-content/up loads/2015/11/HPL-UNEPS-for-H-L-Panel-March-18-2015-fnl-docx-2.pdf. 15 Novosseloff, “Système des forces en attente.”

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16 DPKO and DFS, A New Partnership Agenda: Charting a New Horizon for UN Peacekeeping, July 2009, 25, www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/documents/ newhorizon.pdf. 17 UN General Assembly, Letter Dated 9 November 2012 from the President of the General Assembly to the Chair of the Fifth Committee, UN document A/C.5/67/10, 15 November 2012. See also Adam C. Smith and Arthur Boutellis, “Rethinking Force Generation: Filling the Capability Gaps in UN Peacekeeping,” Providing for Peacekeeping paper series no. 2, International Peace Institute, New York, 2013, www.ipinst.org/wp-content/ uploads/publications/ipi_rpt_rethinking_force_gen.pdf. 18 Adam Roberts, “Proposals For UN Standing Forces: A Critical History,” The United Nations Security Council and War: The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945, ed. in Vaugh Lowe, Adam Roberts, Jennifer Welsh, and Dominik Zaum (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 100. 19 H. Peter Langille, “Improving United Nations Capacity for Rapid Deployment,” Providing for Peacekeeping paper series no. 8, International Peace Institute, New York, 2014, 3, www.ipinst.org/wp-content/uploads/p ublications/ipi_e_pub_improving_un_rapid_deployment.pdf. 20 See Alexandra Novosseloff, “United Nations–European Union Cooperation in the Field of Peacekeeping: Challenges and Prospects,” GGI Analysis Paper 4/2012, Global Governance Institute, Brussels, 2012. 21 Thierry Tardy, “UN–EU Relations in Military Crisis Management: Institutionalisation and Key Constraints,” Studia Diplomatica LXII, no. 3 (2009): 43–52. 22 Joachim A. Koops and Johannes Varwick, “Ten Years of SHIRBRIG: Lessons Learned, Development Prospects and Strategic Opportunities for Germany,” GPPi Research Paper series no. 11, Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin, 2008, www.gppi.net/fileadmin/user_upload/media/pub/2008/ Koops_Varwick_2008_Ten_Years.pdf. 23 SHIRBRIG Planning Element, SHIRBRIG Lessons Learned Report, 1 June 2009, www.operationspaix.net/DATA/DOCUMENT/566~v~Shirbrig _lessons_learned_report.pdf. 24 Koops and Varwick, “Ten Years of SHIRBRIG.” 25 Christof Tatschl, “SHIRBRIG’s Support to the African Standby Force: A View from Practice,” Studia Diplomatica LXII, no. 3 (2009): 91–101. 26 Ibid. 27 UN, Uniting Our Strengths for Peace, 10. 28 Ibid., 50–51. 29 DPKO, Current and Emerging Uniformed Capability Requirements for United Nations Peacekeeping, January 2018. 30 For links to these meetings and a list of various pledges, see Providing for Peacekeeping, “United Nations Peacekeeping Pledges,” at: www.provi dingforpeacekeeping.org/capabilities-summits/united-nations-peacekeepingpledge-counter. 31 No new pledging conference is planned for 2018, the process being likely to move from annual to bienniel meetings, with the next to be held in 2019. 32 DPKO, Current and Emerging Uniformed Capability Requirements. 33 Linda Darkwa, “The African Standby Force: The African Union’s Tool for the Maintenance of Peace and Security,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 471–482; Yf Reykers, “EU Battlegroups: High Costs, No

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Benefits,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 457–470; and Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning, “The NATO Response Force: A Qualified Failure No More?” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 443–456. 34 Joachim A. Koops, The European Union as an Integrative Power: Assessing the EU’s “Effective Multilateralism” Towards NATO and the United Nations (Brussels: VUB Press, 2011), 250–254. 35 Joachim A. Koops and Thierry Tardy, “The United Nations’ InterOrganizational Relations in Peacekeeping,” in Joachim Koops, Norrie MacQueen, Thierry Tardy, and Paul D. Williams., eds., The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 60–77. 36 Langille “Improving United Nations Capacity for Rapid Deployment,” 2.

5

Multinational rapid response forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo Another example of winning battles, but losing the peace? Thomas Mandrup

    

Rapid reaction forces The European Union interventions in the DRC: Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo The SADC Force Intervention Brigade The lessons learned from the FIB Conclusion Ultimately, all governments stand and fall on the consent of the governed, and all counterinsurgency campaigns depend for their success on the government securing that consent.1

The international community has a long history of intervening with military means in what is today known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).2 In 1960, the United Nations (UN), via Security Council Resolution 143, deployed the United Nations Operation in Congo (ONUC) to assist the newly independent Congolese government in establishing law and order, and the use of force helped secure the territorial integrity of the Congo.3 In 1999, the UN established the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) as a response to what has since become known as the Second Congo War,4 which involved a plethora of local and regional insurgent groups, and more than six regional states supporting different sides in the conflict.5 In support of the UN mission, three robust “rapid” response forces (RRFs) have since been deployed in support of and parallel to the UN peace mission. The deployment in 2013 of the so-called Southern African Development Community (SADC) Force Intervention Brigade6 (FIB) is the latest example of pushing the boundaries of peacekeeping operation

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mandates, and the deployed forces getting increasingly robust Chapter VII mandates.7 A recent example of this development is the UN mission in Mali, which has the right to stabilize population centers and deter threats and the risk of a return of armed elements to these areas.8 Another example is the UN-mandated African Union (AU) Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which has been undertaking a counter-insurgency-style mission fighting the Al-Shabaab insurgents.9 While Denis Tull10 argues that this has become the new norm of peace missions, Peter Nadin, Patrick Cammaert, and Vesselin Popovski11 argue that in reality this is a normalization of conducting peace missions in nonpermissive environments. One of the risks of the increased reliance on the use of military force and coercion is the reduced focus on conflict prevention and on search for peaceful solutions. In popular terms it can be argued that just because the hammer becomes the preferred tool in the toolbox, this does not automatically entail that everything is a nail. However, equally valid criticism can be raised against traditional peace missions, which have often turned out to be unable to fulfill their mandate, because why deploy a peacekeeping mission when there is no peace to keep?12 For example, protection of civilians (POC) is a cornerstone in the mandate of the UN forces in the DRC. One of the many challenges facing the UN is its inability to rely on national security forces as a reliable partner, and thereby the necessity to undertake the role of protecting the civilian population itself. However, the failure of the mission in the DRC to fulfill its POC obligations has led to loss of credibility and legitimacy among the local populations, while a more robust and proactive posture directed against the armed groups has increased the risks for the deployed UN peacekeepers.13 The conundrum for the UN over the years has been and still is that the POC is primarily the responsibility of the DRC government. In reality, the DRC security institutions have often failed to undertake this responsibility, and have often been the perpetrators of crimes themselves. The UN and its international partners, and also the DRC government, do not have a shared vision on causes and solutions to the conflict. This has made joint operations and coordination difficult, and often absent.14 This chapter first scrutinizes the concept of “rapid response forces,” which is often used to cover robust intervention forces, even though such forces are not deployed in a rapid response capacity. Second, the chapter investigates three recent examples of foreign interventions in the DRC, and asks to what extent these deployments have managed to fulfill their mandates, and what problems the deployment of parallel

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forces and institutions in the same mission area has encountered. Finally, the chapter examines what lessons these missions provide for future African-led rapid response deployments. See Table 5.1 below for a timeline of rapid reaction mechanisms in the DRC.

Rapid reaction forces As argued by Malte Brosig and Norman Sempijja in a recent book chapter on RRF,15 the establishment of rapid reaction forces started in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and the ethnic cleansings in Srebrenica. The inability of African and international governments to react to these atrocities, despite the knowledge being available, led to the formation of military force structures that have the ability to intervene rapidly.16 There was consequently a need for effective collective and even common security measures to be established, which could manage security challenges effectively. In Africa, the formation of the African Union and its African Standby Force (ASF) was a product of this tendency.17 However, according to Brosig and Sempijja, the effectiveness of these forces has only been meager and most have never been deployed as intended. A key question one needs to ask is to what extent the RRFs are in fact rapid reaction tools, and whether a whole range of ad hoc forces often called “rapid reaction” are in fact something else. A good example of this was the Standby High Readiness Brigade (SHIRBRIG), which never deployed as an RRF, but was several times used in a traditional peace mission role.18 More often than not, rapid response is a reaction of choice and not always a response of necessity.19 There was never a political consensus that allowed for SHIRBRIG to be deployed as an RRF, and the same goes for the ASF and other comparable force formations, which have failed to deploy rapidly when called upon, mostly due to a lack of political commitment rather than a lack of military capabilities. As described elsewhere in this volume, response forces are generally characterized by their short response time, i.e. in their design and setup they can deploy within a predetermined short timeframe when a call for action has been given to pre-empt or even stop human suffering.20 Where traditional peace mission forces normally require at least 90 days to deploy their first forces, RRFs are designed to be the force that goes into a crisis situation, and with robust means—if need be—pave the way for the traditional forces. This is important since RRFs are not designed and intended to be deployed and sustained as traditional peace mission forces for long periods. Most RRFs are planned to be replaced after 3–6 months, and have logistically been designed and

Table 5.1 Timeline of rapid reaction mechanisms in the DRC, 1960–2018

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planned accordingly. In reality, RRFs are most often deployed as part of, or as a parallel structure to, traditional peace missions. Furthermore, RRF deployments in Africa has most often been undertaken by individual states or ad hoc coalitions. A good example of this was the Ethiopian deployment to Abyei in Sudan, which only took a few days. Another was the recent establishment of the G5 Sahel regional force.21 Another dimension of the RRF concept is the mission-designated RRFs, which can be applied in crisis hotspots in mission. In the case of the DRC, there are a whole range of these types of forces, the ad hoc FIB being the latest addition. The Congolese army, against the advice of the international military advisors, but as part of a political compromise, operates with an RRF concept for designated strengthened battalions. The problem is that the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) do not possess the capabilities to move the forces.22 These are RRF units by name, but in reality they cannot act in a rapid reaction fashion. In Security Council Resolution 2098 it was argued that the national RRF should build capacity and replace the FIB, which was only deployed in a temporary manner.23 At the time of writing, the FIB is still deployed in the DRC, and the national RRF has failed to take over that responsibility. Other examples of RRF deployments are the French-dominated EU deployments, Operation Artemis in Ituri province in 2003, and the European Union Force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (EUFOR RD Congo) in 2006. The first functioned as an RRF mission, being deployed rapidly to pave the way for the UN mission forces to arrive. The EUFOR RD Congo had an “in mission” RRF function, was designed as a deterrence force, and was designated to be deployable into security hotspots in the whole of the DRC during the 2006 elections.

The European Union interventions in the DRC: Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo The EU has been actively involved in the peace process in the DRC. It has twice intervened with military force to prop up its other initiatives, while calls for an EU intervention in 2008 were unsuccessful. The deployment of Operation Artemis followed the bilateral agreement signed by the DRC and Ugandan governments in October 2002 allowing for the withdrawal of the Ugandan Defence Forces (UDF) deployed in, among other places, Ituri province. This agreement followed the collapsed Lusaka peace agreement of 1999, which the actors had failed to implement. Ituri had been plagued by sporadic fighting and instability since 1999, and the 2002 agreement paved the way for

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the withdrawal of foreign military forces and the deployment of the UN force, MONUC. However, the fast withdrawal of the UDF and the limited MONUC force of 700 Uruguayan peacekeepers at the airport of the provincial capital of Bunia in April 2003 created a security vacuum, which was exploited by local armed groups. Fighting between a primarily ethnic Lendu militia supported by the DRC government and an ethnic Hema militia led to 500,000 internally displaced people and the deaths of an estimated 60,000 in Ituri itself. Another aggravating element was the brutality used by the militia groupings, which led to international fears of a repeat of the 1994 Rwanda scenario. The killing of two UN military observers led to further calls for an international military response to stabilize a deteriorating security situation. UN secretary-general Kofi Annan called for the rapid deployment of a robust military force to take control of key installations in Bunia and to protect the civilian population. In Resolution 1484, the UN Security Council mandated the deployment of an Interim Emergency Multinational Force (IEMF) under Chapter VII of the UN Charter for a short period of initially three months. The decision to deploy was taken on 5 June 2003, and already one day later the first 100 French soldiers had arrived at the airport of Bunia, while the mandate ended on 1 September that year. The objective of the Artemis force was to support the small Uruguayan MONUC contingent, which had already deployed, and subsequently create a security environment in which the remainder of the MONUC force could be deployed.24 The UN Ituri Brigade deployed to replace Artemis was robust in structure and equipped with attack helicopters and armored personnel carriers. The EU had made it a priority to equip the UN to be able to fulfill its role as the global manager of peace and security. The force was deployed in parallel to the MONUC force, but operated in close coordination with it. This model of deploying a robust parallel force is something that came to be a model for future deployments in both the DRC and beyond. The deployment of Operation Artemis itself was of central importance in the shaping and setting up of the EU’s military dimension, the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). It was the first time that the EU had launched a robust military force with the specific objective of preventing a potential genocide and using force and the threat of force to stabilize a volatile security situation. This signified a new role for the EU as an international security manager, which had started to take shape in the former Yugoslavia a few years earlier.25 The deployment of EUFOR RD Congo in 2006 was,

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according to a statement by the then high representative for foreign relations, Javier Solana, due to: The request of the United Nations … for military support … at a crucial point in time[. T]he transition period in [the] DRC was entering its final phase and it was essential to create the necessary conditions and security environment to ensure a successful outcome. The European Union had worked very hard for a number of years to facilitate a democratic transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Elections were key to final success.26 On 12 June 2006, the European Council decided to deploy a robust military contingent in support of the MONUC force for a period of four months to help secure the presidential and national elections in the DRC.27 The decision was among other things prompted by the fact that the initial integration and training of the local Congolese forces had been difficult, and not enough local forces had been trained to secure the elections. The tense political situation in Kinshasa was considered to have the potential for conflict.28 The objective of the force was fourfold:    

support and provide security to MONUC installations and personnel; contribute to airport protection in Kinshasa; protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence; and provide evacuation operations in case of emergency if needed.

The difference between EUFOR RD Congo and Artemis was basically that the former was deployed as a deterrence force, while the Artemis mission was sent in to stabilize and stop a potentially escalating crisis from occurring and to relieve the pressure on the small MONUC force deployed in Bunia.29 Both missions were characterized by a limited mandate, robust military posture, and by being deployed as short-term interim forces. Where Operation Artemis had been under French command, the EUFOR RD Congo was under German command and was run from the operational center in Potsdam, Germany. However, as Benjamin Pohl documents, the dominant German role was the result of significant French pressure for Germany to play the role of lead nation.30 However, on several levels, the EUFOR RD Congo was different from Operation Artemis. The bulk of the forces—which could have been deployed in hotspots all over the DRC—was only deployed as a rapid reaction capability based in neighboring Gabon. Some 21

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EU member states were involved, and it was run as an EU operation, without making use of Berlin+ assets. It was also a force that, when deployed, was not dependent to the same extent on French interests, but was part of the combined EU involvement in the DRC. The mission was also conducted, coordinated, and deployed with the acceptance of the local actors and the international presence already in the DRC. It was supposed to be deployed in support of the MONUC force, and not independently. Operationally, however, it was deployed as a parallel force, with an independent command structure, and coordinated its efforts with the MONUC force. An important element in the relative success of the EUFOR RD Congo deployment was that the military planners conducted several “recce” or reconnaissance missions and identified various possible deployment areas in the DRC if the force were to be activated and deployed. This emphasizes the importance of having access to credible intelligence and knowledge about the deployment theater, which often is not the case. In terms of pooling and sharing, both Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo managed to engage in close cooperation with the MONUC command, and, in the case of Artemis, managed to bring in non-EU partners to provide logistical support to the mission. However, the EUFOR deployment showed that if intelligence is not shared and accessible and if the national contingents have national caveats that prevent them from operating effectively, it could endanger the missions and their objectives. The EUFOR RD Congo illustrated once again that the contributing countries were reluctant to deploy troops in theater and that the strategic and tactical lift capabilities needed to be effective were not available. Despite the fact that the mission was widely supported by EU member states, it was more difficult to get members to deploy troops in theater, and when they did so it was often with national caveats and limitations on their use. Despite Solana’s claims to success—among other things due to being provided with the needed capabilities—the force lacked the necessary air assets in terms of both tactical and strategic support and lift, and also lacked sufficient combat air support. Where Operation Artemis had been instrumental in shaping the EU ESDP, EUFOR RD Congo was deployed as an ESDP framework mission, which provided guidance to support an EU “comprehensive” approach to its engagement with the DRC. The EU deployment should therefore be seen as part of, and a tool in, an overarching strategy of (re-)building the Congolese state after years of war and conflict. The EUFOR RD Congo and Artemis were under separate command from MONUC, but worked in close coordination. Both operations had

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split their operational parts, and EUFOR RD Congo had its operational command center located in Potsdam; the forces deployed in Kinshasa; and then the reserve force deployed to Gabon. According to Solana, the EU had described a number of lessons learned that would be useful in future military operations of this nature. To quote at length, he highlighted:     

the definition of a clear mandate, in both scope and in timeframe; highly professional troops, to whom I wish to pay tribute; a very high degree of interaction with MONUC; an active communication policy, both towards the Congolese population and to key actors in the electoral process; in a wider context, transparency and information-sharing with African partners and with the AU, and other African regional organizations invited to deploy liaison officers, has also facilitated this process.31

However, the greatest success was the deterrent effect of the force on the local actors, limiting the number of incidents. This was also achieved during Operation Artemis, where the security situation was stabilized to such an extent that it allowed for refugees to start returning home. Elements of the EUFOR RD Congo force in Gabon were brought in as a show of force on several occasions, both in Kinshasa and other geographical locations of the DRC.32 While it would be fair to say that both Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo did help stabilize the security situation in Kinshasa, the latter did not, as Solana claimed, play a significant role in the overall achievement of peace and security in the DRC. This was also to be expected and was not really the objective of EUFOR, since the physical presence of the force was too limited in terms of its mandate, time set aside for deployment, and soldiers on the ground to have a long-lasting impact. This highlights an important point about military presence, and time-limited expeditionary deployments, namely that they cannot solve the structural cause of conflict, but can help create space for other entities to address these structural causes, by stabilizing the security situation for a period of time, and thereby creating a window of opportunity for the implementation of agreements and wider capacity building. The new role that the EU carved out for itself also followed the recommendations of the so-called Brahimi Report of 2000,33 namely to attempt to modernize UN peace operations and shape their strategic partnerships with regional organizations like the EU. However, the EU focus at the time was on the Balkans and the events in Iraq. Solana

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34

emphasized that the DRC was not a priority area for the EU. It was therefore a French initiative that drove the decision to deploy, and the French army command called for a sufficient and realistically robust Chapter VII mandate, limited in scope to the town of Bunia and with a time limit of three months. The same kind of thinking and influence can be seen in the EUFOR RD Congo deployment. It was furthermore made a condition that the national DRC government and the governments of Rwanda and Uganda support, or at least accept, the deployment.35 Operation Artemis was also interesting in the sense that it was a robust military deployment of 1,800, with superior capabilities, including significant Swedish special forces capabilities. France provided 900 of the combat troops, while Germany’s contribution of 350 was of a noncombat nature. On top of that, France had over 1,000 troops in reserve in Gabon and Chad. The robust composition was also found in EUFOR RD Congo and later in the SADC FIB deployed in 2013. However, both Operation Artemis and EUFOR RD Congo revealed the problems and challenges faced by EU missions due to national caveats, which had a significantly negative influence on the operational capabilities of the deployed forces.36 The two EU deployments played an important part in the development of the EU as a global conflict manager. Both operations were also an illustration of the important role played by national interests in deciding where and how the EU should intervene. Had France not driven the process of creating support for the operation, it is very unlikely that it would have taken place. France had a direct historical and strategic interest at stake, and the deployment of Artemis created an opportunity for France to repair its damaged image and influence in central Africa, as well as in the world in general. France, along with its EU partners, showed the world that it was living up to the normative values expressed in the UN Charter and that it was willing to deploy into high-risk zones of conflict to help the UN strengthen and regain its role as the main global conflict manager. The normative element therefore played a significant role in legitimizing the deployment, and it was presented as being in stark contrast to the allegedly illegal United States-led invasion of Iraq.

The SADC Force Intervention Brigade37 As the FIB will support the FARDC in undertaking “clear-hold-build” styled operations, the ISSSS [International Security and Stabilization Support Strategy] is set to become a key framework for the “holding and building” parts of the strategy.38

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When the UN decided in 2013 to deploy the FIB as a parallel robust intervention force with the task of conducting “targeted offensive operations” it was new in the sense that it acknowledged the failure of the existing UN force to fulfill its mandate.39 The deployment of the SADC FIB was also especially a result of regional pressure from SADC and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), both of which were adamant that they needed a robust intervention force on the ground to disarm and deal effectively with the March 23 Movement (M23) in particular.40 The inability of the UN force to fulfill its mandate in especially the eastern DRC was illustrated on several occasions during the conflict, where, for instance, in 2004, the UN failed to protect the regional capitals of Bukavu and Goma from advancing rebels.41 This happened again, for instance, in 2008 and 2012, and strengthened the popular narrative of a failed and ineffective UN force, prompting the need for a robust parallel force.42 There is, however, also another picture, when in 2005, the UN managed to block another rebel advance on Goma with the use of robust means, including attack helicopters. The 2006 operations against insurgents in Ituri are another important example in this regard. The idea to deploy a robust buffer force to deal with the security threats claimed by Rwanda from DRC-based insurgents was not new, and had already been put forward by, for instance, South Africa early in the MONUC mission.43 A political compromise was reached when groups other than the Rwandan-dominated M23 were added to the list of insurgency movements that needed to be disarmed. Most notable were the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the Allied Democracy Forces (ADF).44 In UN Security Council Resolution 2098, it was specified that the regional actors should stop their support for the different groups in eastern DRC. The decision to deploy the FIB was also a result of a growing narrative among African states that it was counterproductive to send a peacekeeping force into situations where there was no peace to keep, a highly controversial matter among dominant troop-contributing countries (TCCs) in the UN, such as Pakistan and India. In Resolution 2098 it was argued that the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) and its FIB force were authorized to use all means necessary to fulfill its POC mandate, and for the FIB specifically “neutralizing armed groups.”45 The formation of the FIB was also part of the tendency mentioned above where the peace missions since the end of the Cold War had received increasingly robust mandates, moving from traditional peacekeeping to peace

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enforcement, under the mantra of “why deploy peacekeepers when there is no peace to keep?” Nadin, Cammaert, and Popovski even go as far as to argue that robust peacekeeping should not be seen as a new form of peacekeeping, but as a normalization of operations in nonpermissive environments.47 Contrary to the popular narrative surrounding the track record of the UN forces in the DRC, the organization had used force against armed non-state actors in the DRC before mandating the FIB, both in joint operations with FARDC to disarm armed groups, and, for instance, in repelling rebel advances on Goma in 2006 and again in 2008 using attack helicopters.48 The increased use of force was furthermore part of the tendency, highlighted in the report of the High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations,49 where a “division of labour”50 between the UN and the regional entities entails that the regional formations or a coalition of the willing will undertake robust stabilization tasks via the military and pave the way for a traditional UN peace mission to be deployed at a later stage. Finally, the FIB has been described as a test case for future operations and has become a model for future robust operations.51 As described in the quote at the beginning of this section, the FIB was deployed as an offensive force that had to support the FARDC, and MONUSCO’s strategic guidance document, the International Security and Stabilization Support Strategy (I4S) document52 was intended to provide the framework for the efforts of holding and rebuilding the cleared sectors. The FIB consists of three infantry battalions, an artillery regiment, and significant special forces and reconnaissance elements.53 The FIB deployment in Kivu was furthermore supported by Rooivalk attack helicopter platforms, which provided a much needed air-support capability. In the battle against the M23 rebels in 2013, it was among other things these specialized assets that forced the M23 away from its mountain strongholds. The FIB headquarters was established by late April 2013 and by 10 October that year, with the arrival of the Malawian contingent, the force reached its force ceiling level of 3,000.54 However, by the end of July 2013, the FIB force had already started an operation against what was seen as the main protagonist force, the M23. The operations were conducted as a joint operation with the FARDC, supported by attack helicopters and artillery. Even before the arrival of the Malawian contingent, the FIB had forced the M23 away from its positions in the vicinity of Goma, and by 5 November 2013 the group had ended its insurgency.55 However, the deployment of the FIB was not the only new initiative from the UN in 46

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2013, which also decided to make use of unmanned aerial vehicles for the first time in a UN mission, helping the MONUSCO forces gather information and intelligence.56 The strengthening of the UN mission’s information gathering was a welcome addition to the MONUSCO inventory, since a lack of credible actionable intelligence had been a problem in UN missions in general and in MONUSCO in particular. The decision to deploy the FIB only made this need more urgent. However, the FIB faced severe criticism, the argument being that it had failed to create the necessary momentum for the peace process in the DRC and for the MONUSCO mission.57 Critics of the FIB furthermore argued that the aggressive tone of the resolution and the offensive mandate provided to the brigade risked jeopardizing the legitimacy of the UN, since it refuted the spirit of what peacekeeping is, including the impartiality principle. The critics feared that the FIB would create a precedent for future operations and deter some of the traditional TCCs from making troops available to the UN.58 As argued elsewhere, it was nothing new that UN forces had a mandate to use force, since concepts such as “in defense of the mission” had previously been interpreted more widely than merely the use of force in selfdefense—e.g. the so-called “capstone doctrine,”59 which emphasizes that impartiality does not necessarily equal neutrality.60 The UN mission in the DRC was early on provided with a Chapter VII mandate, which in 2005 led to offensive operations in Ituri province against insurgent groups. It can be argued that the decision to deploy the FIB was based on a consensus between the members of the regional organizations, the ICGLR and SADC, and then the AU and UN, which agreed to the deployment of a neutral intervention force.61 It can further be argued that the FIB was deployed with regional consent and tasked to disarm and neutralize the armed elements that disrupted the possibilities for regional peace and stability—despite the criticism of being a direct attack on the principles of impartiality and consent from the parties. Tull argues that SADC and its Kinshasa allies never intended to deal effectively with insurgent groups other than the Rwandan-backed M23. The argument was that the FIB’s failure to fulfill its mandate is of a political-context nature rather than as a result of the efforts on the ground.62 Looking at the track record of the FIB, this is an easy conclusion to reach, since progress has been limited since then. However, the FIB did initiate operations against the FDLR and later the ADF, but was blocked for periods by internal UN bureaucracy from working with specific elements of the FARDC due to

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allegations of war crimes, and because of the difficult relationship that existed between the FIB and some of the dominant TCCs in North and South Kivu. Tull confirms this, and points out that just six months after the deployment of the FIB, cooperation between the FIB, MONUSCO, and FARDC had effectively broken down.63 In this way, the involvement confirms the pattern of an uneasy relationship that has existed over the years between the DRC government and the international actors.64 From time to time, cooperation has been suspended, from both sides, and the relationship between the Joseph Kabila government and MONUSCO had been strained since 2006, when Kabila realized that UN forces and the international community were not necessarily in the DRC to serve his interests. Arthur Boutellis reminds us that the FIB deployed because of regional and international fears that the failure of the MONUSCO force to stop the M23 advance and taking of Goma in November 2012 held the risk of evolving into a second Sebrenica.65 This international humanitarian narrative was strong in relation to the deployment of Operation Artemis in 2002, in 2006 when the EU was close to deploying a buffer force to eastern DRC, and then again in 2013 when the FIB was deployed. Internally in the MONUSCO force, the division of forces and roles between the FIB and the so-called framework brigades had not worked well, and the core forces of MONUSCO had not changed their approach to the mandated robust posture.66 A centrally placed informant argued that the large TCCs, especially India and Pakistan, refused to support the FIB and take orders from the MONUSCO force commander before they had consulted their capitals, and they insisted on working within a Chapter VI mandate. For political reasons, the mission could not send them home.67 This also worked against the comment made by MONUSCO Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral Martin Kobler, who in a comment on the passing of Security Council Resolution 2098 stated that the robust mandate was not just for the FIB.68 In MONUSCO’s report to the Security Council in March 2017 it is stated: All MONUSCO troops must be ready and willing to use force against armed groups that pose a threat to the civilian population, and to do so pre-emptively. The conduct of targeted offensive operations to neutralize armed groups should remain the priority task of the force Intervention Brigade units; however, the framework brigades must contribute actively in a supporting role to the neutralization of armed groups … I will also report to the Security Council, as requested, on any cases of non-performance.69

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However, the problems of individual TCCs interpreting the mandate according to Chapter VI peacekeeping principles is not new, to which the inability of MONUC to fulfill its mandate is direct testimony. During their visit to MONUSCO in July 2016, the Indian contingent made it clear that the robust tasks were outside their mandate.70 This had a damaging effect on the tactical efficiency of the FIB, because the brigade had to spread its limited force and reduce its military efficiency, due to a lack of cooperation from the other MONUSCO forces and the DRC security institutions. It has even been argued that since the FIB consists of African forces only, it has more legitimacy than non-African forces would.71 This argument falls within the narrative of “African solutions to African problems” that has become prevalent among AU member states for several years. The continuing unstable situation in the DRC illustrates that the FIB has failed to achieve its original objective; however, whether this also means that the parallel force model does not work is another question. The question is whether the FIB is being criticized for elements that it was not intended to cover in the first place, since these elements were part of the I4S framework.72 The FIB as a robust military tool cannot address the political and governance issues facing the DRC, and does not have the forces needed to hold cleared sectors. As argued by Hugo de Vries back in 2016, there was a need for the I4S to be implemented as it was intended.73 The I4S mentions the role of the security pillar of MONUSCO, not just the FIB, in helping to hold sectors, something that has turned out to be difficult since the individual contingents do not necessarily see this as their task as members of MONUSCO. This was illustrated during a visit to North Kivu in July 2016, where the Indian contingent argued that it fell outside its mandate to support the FIB operations.74 Some support for that narrow interpretation of the mandate taken by the Indian and other contingents can be found in the I4S, in the section describing the institutional role of different entities, that MONUSCO is to assist the FARDC in being capable of holding territory.75 The role of the non-FIB MONUSCO elements was to offer support for training and logistics, but not concrete operational support. The problem was that the FARDC and the other security institutions largely failed to play that role, and a vacuum was left which the armed groups have managed to fill. Since the publication of the dos Santos Cruz report in late 2017, and with the introduction of the new MONUSCO military strategy—Protection via projection—the regular TCCs have been operationally more active and are doing increased numbers of joint patrols with the FARDC.

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The UN’s military involvement in the DRC has been influenced negatively by the protracted nature of the conflict, and the mission creep that has changed the mandate and task of the mission on several occasions. In her article on the “war on terror,” Audrey Cronin argues that four counter-productive patterns can be found in prolonged conflicts, namely means becoming ends, tactics becoming strategy, boundaries becoming blurred, and the search for the perfect peace overcoming reality.76 It was a similar reality into which the SADC FIB force was deployed and which made it a difficult undertaking. De Vries argues that there did not exist clear conceptual thinking and understanding within the UN system on the nature of the stabilization concept, and the UN often refers to it being the transitional phase between conflict and peace.77 The MONUSCO mission’s I4S was the first attempt to conceptualize and formulate a coherent approach to stabilization in the DRC. Tull argues that stabilization missions should be seen “as a new sub-category of peace operation,” but that this has at the same time increased the confusion concerning what the use of force actually entails.78 The I4S and the deployment of the FIB were a result of a regional Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework (PSCF) reached and agreed to by the regional partners in 2012.79 In the I4S strategic document, stabilization is defined thus: Stabilization is an integrated, holistic but targeted process of enabling state and society to build mutual accountability and capacity to address and mitigate existing or emerging drivers of violent conflict, creating the conditions for improved governance and longer term development.80 The establishment of the FIB was also a consequence of revisionist thinking in the UN and among the member states, because the existing MONUSCO deployment had not delivered the results hoped for, the perfect peace, as argued by the Cronin.81 Consequently, there was a need for a reassessment of the available ends, ways, and means, to see if a more offensive approach directed at what in the mission was described as the “negative forces,” could deliver better results. When in 2013 the UN Security Council, in Resolution 2098, mandated the deployment of the SADC FIB, it was the culmination of many years of discussions and frustration with the slow progress made in the DRC towards creating the foundations for lasting and sustainable peace, especially in the eastern part of the country. In 2010, the UN mission was renamed MONUSCO, including the word “stabilization” to signify the progress of the operation. “Stabilization” in the

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UN and DRC context therefore had a very different meaning to the one attached to NATO’s stabilization operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which were counter-insurgency oriented. To secure unity of command and competing structures, in terms of command and control, the leadership of the FIB is linked directly with the central command of MONUSCO.82

The lessons learned from the FIB [I]ts records reveal that the brigade cannot be regarded as an organisational model worth replicating, that peace-enforcing mandates do not necessarily lead to greater success in peacekeeping.83

The reasons for the FIB’s loss of momentum are widespread. Among other things it was due to operational circumstances mentioned above and regional and national political dynamics. The force was initially effective when it had the cooperation of the FARDC and the MONUSCO force. When cooperation between the other partners became difficult, and was at times suspended, the effectiveness and value of the FIB became less apparent. The deployment of the FIB illustrated the challenges often raised in relation to the UN force in the DRC, such as that the interpretation of the mandate by the different TCCs made it very difficult for the UN mission to fulfill that mandate. The challenging relationship between the UN and the FARDC did not improve this, since operations often lacked coordination. The FIB was a temporary deployment, but mission creep has kept the force in the DRC for more than five years (2013–2018). This has increased the risks for the contributing states, since the insurgent groups, especially the ADF and the FDLR, have had time to adapt to the FIB’s operations. The FIB illustrates that robust military force is only useful when it is anchored within a wider multidimensional structure, where other tools can take over and lead when the military has done its job. The deployment of the SADC FIB also illustrates that the deployment of RRF needs to be militarily configured for the task at hand. The SADC FIB was configured to deal with the M23, which was a more conventional force. When it was asked to disarm strategically asymmetric groups like the FDLR and especially the ADF, it was not configured for that. This highlights the importance of tailoring the force to the tasks at hand, which did not happen in the case of the SADC FIB after the operations against the M23. Another lessons learned from the SADC FIB has been, and which has been highlighted in the dos Santos Cruz report as well, that for UN forces to be

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successful, well trained and equipped troops are needed, and capable military planning and command is essential. The FIB has for periods of time lacked the necessary strong military leadership and planning capability, and the troops deployed have not always been prepared for the task. The rebel attack on Simuliki in December 2017 and the deaths of 14 Tanzanian FIB soldiers is testament to that. Another consequence of the previous lack of strong leadership of the FIB was the early 2018 decision of the MONUSCO leadership to carefully select the commander of the FIB.

Conclusion In the introduction to this volume John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers point out that delays cost lives. This has been one of the driving factors in the establishment of RRF capabilities around the world since the end of the Cold War. The ambition was to avoid a new Rwanda and create capabilities that in the future would be able to deploy within a short timeframe. Interestingly enough, none of the three cases in this chapter feature forces deployed as part of a rapid standby arrangement, but rather those formed for the occasion. All three cases have elements of what in the Introduction is called “forum shopping,” where the intervening actors chose to deploy into a theater that served their interests the best. The cases also confirm the point made in the Introduction that the ability of the force to deploy rapidly is determined by the national interests of the deploying nations in the conflict in question. The three cases of robust military deployments in the DRC illustrate both the limitations and usefulness of the use of force in contemporary peace missions. All three cases show that it is pivotal that the mission should be well integrated into the existing missions and with the local security forces with which it is supposed to cooperate. When such cooperation becomes difficult or collapses, the effectiveness of the robust force is significantly reduced. It can even be argued that the robust force risks worsening the conditions for the local population since, for instance, a freed territory is often retaken by rebels when the intervention force moves to the next operational area, because the UN framework forces and local security forces fail to secure the liberated areas. The problems in the missions under scrutiny were not so much about lack of interoperability or duplication of efforts, as indicated in the Introduction, but more a lack of will to effectively coordinate the efforts, something that was visible in the case of the SADC FIB. This also highlights another central finding, namely that RRFs can be used to remove a concrete problem surgically, but are not useful if

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they are not integrated into a larger operational strategy, including softer tools (such as policy dialogue and other coercive tools). All three cases illustrate that there can be no military solution to what is basically a political problem. RRF-type deployments might help pave the way for a political solution, but cannot deliver the whole solution. Another finding is that the RRF deployments are most successful when they have a limited deployment period and mandate. The deployment of the FIB has shown that its military effectiveness has diminished over time, as the temporary deployment took on a more permanent nature. Apart from the reasons mentioned above, the extended deployment time reduces the operational advantage that the RRF-type of force has, since the opposition adapts to its operations. The result is that the RRF has to change its tactics and operations, and the risks to the deployed forces are increased. The 2017 killing of 14 Tanzanian FIB soldiers by the ADF is a case in point. However, the deployment of the SADC FIB shows that the African countries, in this case of the SADC, can deploy effective robust military instruments that work well when the political and operational context within which they have to operate is favorable for their operations. The deployment of the RRFs in the DRC illustrates that this robust military tool can be an effective deterrence measure, illustrated by Operation Artemis and EUFOR, when deployed with a realistic mandate and the necessary tools. It also shows that RRFs are useful for short-term deployments, with a limited mandate, and when deployed within a multidimensional peace mission, including soft tools. RRFs cannot win the lasting peace, but could give rise to conditions that are ripe for a political solution.

Notes 1 Richard Wood, “Countering the Chimurenga: The Rhodesian Counterinsurgency Campaign 1962–80,” in Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, ed. Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian (Oxford: Osprey, 2008), 185. 2 This work was supported by the EU Horizon 2020 under Grant IECEU CSA project no. 653371. 3 Menent Savas-Cazala, “Offensive Use of Force in Peace Operations: The Force Intervention Brigade,” European Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 4, no. 2 (2016): 116. 4 Gérard Prunier, Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 5 In May 2010, MONUC was transformed into a “stabilization mission” via UN Security Council Resolution 1925 and renamed the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the

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Congo (MONUSCO). The new mandate had more emphasis on the protection of civilians (POC) and allowed for the use of all means necessary to carry out its mandate. The emphasis on POC was included in the mission mandate as a core task in 2008 already. See for instance MONUC, Force Commander’s Directive 03/08: Protection of Civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, document MONUC/FHQ/DCOS Ops Sp/G9 CIMIC – 059/MONUC/FC, 28 January 2008. Despite the directive and the emphasis put on the POC, more than 100 people were massacred in the village of Kiwanja in North Kivu in November 2008, despite the Indian contingent having a base only a few kilometers away. See J. Arthur Boutellis, “From Crisis to Reform: Peacekeeping Strategies for the Protection of Civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 48, nos. 2/3 (2013): 1–11, https://doi.org/10.5334/ sta.ci. After the fall of Goma in 2012, the SADC member states decided to deploy the SADC Standby Force to assist the DRC government in maintaining the territorial integrity of the DRC. Via UN Security Council Resolution 2098, the SADC states managed to secure the SADC force as part of an expanded MONUSCO mandate, which also secured the funding for the mission. See UN Security Council, Resolution 2098, 28 March 2013, www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/2098 (2013). Thomas Mandrup, “From Inhumanitarian Non-Interventions to Protection of Civilians: A Paradigmatic Change in AU and UN Peace Missions,” in The African Standby Force: Quo Vadis? ed. Francois Vreÿ and Thomas Mandrup (Stellenbosch, South Africa: Sun Press, 2017), 41–62; and Denis M. Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement: The Force Intervention Brigade in the DR Congo,” International Peacekeeping 25, no. 2 (2018): 167, https://doi.org/10.1080/13533312.2017. 1360139. Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement”: 168. Mandrup, “From Inhumanitarian Non-Interventions to Protection of Civilians,” 42. See also Linda Darkwa, “Tools in a Toolbox,” Chapter 1, this volume. Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement.” Peter Nadin, Patrick Cammaert, and Vesselin Popovski, Spoiler Groups and UN Peacekeeping (London: Crossmark, 2015), see chapter 2, “Forming a Response: UN Missions,” 37–54. Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement,” 170. Boutellis, “From Crisis to Reform,” 5. Ibid., 6. Malte Brosig and Norman Sempijja, “From Idea to Practice to Failure? Evaluating Rapid Response Mechanisms for African Crisis,” in The African Standby Force, ed. Vreÿ and Thomas, 123–140. Ibid., 123. Vreÿ and Mandrup, eds., The African Standby Force; and Jason Warner, “Complements or Competitors? The African Standby Force, the African

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Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises, and the Future of Rapid Reaction Forces in Africa,” African Security 8, no. 1 (2015): 58. See Joachim A. Koops and Alexandra Novosseloff, “United Nations Rapid Reaction Mechanisms,” Chapter 4, this volume. Brosig and Sempijja, “From Idea to Practice to Failure?” 130. Ibid., 123–140. See also John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers, “Introduction,” this volume. UN Security Council, Resolution 2098. Ibid. Boutellis, “From Crisis to Reform,” 2. Simon Duke, “Consensus Building in ESDP: The Lessons of Operation Artemis,” International Politics 46, no. 4 (2009): 396, https://doi.org/10. 1057/ip.2009.1. EU, “United Nations: Presentation by Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the CFSP, on the Democratic Republic of Congo/EUFOR,” document S005/07, New York, 9 January 2007, www.consilium.europa.eu/ ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/discours/92360.pdf. EU, Council Decision 2006/412/CFSP of 12 June 2006 on the launching of the European Union military operation in support of the United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) during the election process (Operation EUFOR RD Congo), 12 June 2006. Hans Hoebeke, “The EU and ‘Conflict Peacebuilding’ in the DRC,” Studia Diplomatica LX, no. 1 (2007): 49. Ibid. Benjamin Pohl, “To What Ends? Governmental Interests and European Union (Non-)Intervention in Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Cooperation and Conflict 49, no. 2 (2013): 201. EU, United Nations: Presentation by Javier Solana. UN, “European Union Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo Contributed Successfully to Country’s Political Transition, Security Council Told,” Security Council press release, UN document SC/8936, 9 January 2007, www.un.org/press/en/2007/sc8936.doc.htm. UN, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN document A/55/305-S/2000/809, 21 August 2000. Duke, “Consensus Building in ESDP.” Ibid., 402. The problem of national caveats is not limited to the EU, as NATO, for instance, and especially UN missions, suffer from the same kinds of challenges. The term “SADC Force Intervention Brigade” has been used on purpose, since this is the term used by the SADC countries. UN, International Security and Stabilization Support Strategy 2013–17, ISSSS for the Democratic Republic of Congo, 21, www.unpbf.org/wp-con tent/uploads/ISSSS-2013-2017-Strategic-Framework-FINAL_EN.pdf. Abel R. Engelbert and Sadiki Maeresera, “The United Nations Force Intervention Brigade: Whither the SADC/ICGLR Synchronised Peace Support Efforts in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Recurring Conflict?” Journal of International Studies 12 (2016): 65; and Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement,” 174.

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40 Boutellis, “From Crisis to Reform,” 1. 41 Ibid., 5. 42 The author is aware of the debate going on to what extent the SADC FIB is a parallel force to MONUSCO or not. In terms of its mandate, it is part of MONUSCO and refers to the Force Commander. However, in operational terms, it has an expanded mandate and operates as an independent force in coordination with FARDC and MONUSCO. 43 Author interview with Ambassador Sisa Ngombane, 3 November 2004. 44 Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement,” 178. 45 UN Security Council, Resolution 2098, para. 9. 46 Mandrup, “From Inhumanitarian Non-Interventions to Protection of Civilians”; and Martha Mutisi, Redefining Peacekeeping: The Force Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Kujenga Amani digital forum of APN, Social Science Research Council, 2015). 47 Nadin et al., Spoiler Groups and UN Peacekeeping, 77. 48 Boutellis, “From Crisis to Reform,” 3; and MONUC, Force Commander’s Directive 03/08. 49 See UN, Uniting Our Strengths for Peace: Politics, Partnership and People, Report of the High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN document A/70/95–S/2015/446, 16 June 2015, para. 57, https://peaceoperationsreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/HIPPO_Rep ort_1_June_2015.pdf. 50 Ibid., x. 51 Karlsrud and Reykers, “Introduction.” See also Denis M. Tull, “United Nations Peacekeeping and the Use of Force: The Intervention Brigade in Congo Is No Model for Success,” SWP Comments 20, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, 2016, www.swp-berlin.org/file admin/contents/products/comments/2016C20_tll.pdf; and Boutellis, “From Crisis to Reform.” 52 UN, International Security and Stabilization Support Strategy 2013–17. 53 Ibid., 6. 54 Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement,” 175. 55 Ibid. 56 Touko Piiparinen, “Beyond the Technological Turn: Reconsidering the Significance of the Intervention Brigade and Peacekeeping Drones for UN Conflict Management,” Global Governance 21, no. 1 (2015): 141. 57 Engelbert and Maeresera, “The United Nations Force Intervention Brigade”; and Tull, “United Nations Peacekeeping and the Use of Force.” 58 Savas-Cazala, “Offensive Use of Force in Peace Operations,” 118. 59 See Trevor Findley, The Use of Force in UN Peace Operations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/files/books/ SIPRI02Findlay.pdf. 60 Ibid., 392. 61 Engelbert and Sadiki Maeresera, “The United Nations Force Intervention Brigade,” 68. 62 Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement,” 178. 63 Ibid., 183.

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64 Thomas Mandrup, “Reforming the ‘Bras Tendus’? The Congolese National Police Reforms from 2004–2016,” African Security Review (forthcoming). 65 Boutellis, “From Crisis to Reform,” 1. 66 UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN document S/2017/206, 10 March 2017. 67 Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement,” 183; and author interview with Marc Verrets, 29 June 2016. 68 Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement,” 182. 69 UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, para. 59. 70 Author interview with the staff of the Indian North Kivu contingent of MONUSCO, 2 July 2016. 71 Engelbert and Maeresera, “The United Nations Force Intervention Brigade,” 68. 72 See UN, International Security and Stabilization Support Strategy 2013–17. 73 Hugo de Vries, “The Ebb and Flow of Stabilization in the Congo,” PSRP Briefing Paper 8, Rift Valley Institute, Nairobi, Kenya, 8 February 2016. 74 Author interview with the staff of the Indian contingent of MONUSCO, 2 July 2016. 75 UN, International Security and Stabilization Support Strategy 2013–17, 24. 76 Audrey Cronin, “The War on Terrorism: What Does It Mean to Win?” Journal of Strategic Studies 37, no. 2 (2014): 174–197. 77 De Vries, “The Ebb and Flow of Stabilization in the Congo.” 78 Tull, “The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement,” 170. 79 UN, International Security and Stabilization Support Strategy 2013–17, 5. 80 Ibid. 81 Cronin, “The War on Terrorism.” 82 Savas-Cazala, “Offensive Use of Force in Peace Operations,” 119. 83 Tull, “United Nations Peacekeeping and the Use of Force,” 1.

6

Rapid response and inter-organizational competition Four international organizations, two key states, and the crisis in the Central African Republic Martin Welz

  

Background to the crisis The 2012–2013 crisis Conclusion

This chapter explores conflict management during the crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) that erupted in late 2012 and was described as being on the verge of genocide. I focus on the responses to that conflict by France and various international organizations such as the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the European Union (EU), and the United Nations (UN). In doing so, I will discuss the present volume’s guiding questions: Was there a rapid response to the crises and, if so, by whom? And did inter-organizational competition hinder responsiveness or did cooperation facilitate responsiveness? Drawing on my findings, I will put forward two arguments. First, the CAR case suggests that competition between international organizations can delay an adequate response to a conflict and can lead to massive security problems on the ground. Second, states play a key role in deciding whether there is a rapid response or not. In this case study, Chad and France are the key states which kept firm control over conflict management throughout the crisis. In the remainder of this chapter, I will first give an overview of the background to the conflict in the CAR to provide some hints as to why a lasting peace is difficult to achieve. When exploring the five phases of conflict management following the outbreak of violence in late 2012, I will concentrate on the international response rather than on the conflict and its drivers. Throughout the analysis of those phases, I will show which organizations and states offered a rapid response and

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which did not. To that end, I will introduce the aforementioned key actors and analyze their policies and actions. In approaching the second set of guiding questions, that of whether inter-organizational relations hindered or facilitated a rapid response, I will first outline the organizations’ mandates to demonstrate that overlapping mandates are one source of inter-organizational competition, which in the case of ECCAS-AU relations led to massive problems on the ground.

Background to the crisis During the colonial period, France neglected the CAR (as it did with most of its Afrique-Équatoriale française or French Equatorial Africa). It did not invest in that colony and did little to develop it. When the CAR became independent in 1960, its economy was weak, and there were few functioning institutions that might underpin a modern state in the European sense. With the granting of independence, however, the CAR was forced to become exactly such a state. This explains in part why the CAR did not witness a longer period of peace and stability as well as democratic rule after independence. Indeed, the country suffered from numerous coups, the establishment of a monarchy, including the crowning of His Imperial Majesty Bokassa the First, and continued interference by France. Located at the center of a conflict-torn region with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and South Sudan amongst others as neighbors, and having limited economic possibilities itself, the CAR had a bleak outlook—and continues to have had one ever since 1960. This is the case despite some economic potential given its natural resources—diamonds, gold, timber, and uranium, in particular—which, however, remain by and large unexploited to the present. This bleak outlook was accompanied by non-payment of salary arrears and claims of ethnic favoritism in the army, at which point a political and social crisis erupted in 1996–1997 due to widespread discontent over the prevailing social and economic problems.1 Three unsuccessful mutinies were staged against then-president Ange-Félix Patassé. Regional leaders agreed on the establishment of the InterAfrican Mission to Monitor the Implementation of the Bangui Agreements (MISAB) to stabilize the CAR. This operation was handed over to the UN in 1998, which set up the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINURCA). After peaceful elections in 1998 and 1999, in which Patassé won a second term, the large-scale UN operation ended and the UN Security Council replaced it with the UN Peacebuilding Support Office in the Central African Republic

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(BONUCA), exclusively made up of civilians, to provide further assistance for the country’s peacebuilding efforts.2 The hope for a more stable and peaceful CAR after the 1996–1997 crisis was short-lived. The social, political, and military crisis deepened and another peace operation, this time under the auspices of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD), was deployed to tackle the crisis. Shortly thereafter and following a proposal of France, the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) Multinational Force (FOMUC), comprising troops from Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Gabon, came into being and replaced the CEN-SAD operation. At that point, Chad had become deeply embroiled in the CAR’s internal crisis. General François Bozizé had attempted a coup d’état against Patassé in October 2002 but was forced to flee to Chad. Bozizé’s second coup attempt in March 2003 proved successful. FOMUC troops did little to stop it from taking place even though one of their main tasks was to protect President Patassé. France, which continued to play a crucial role in CAR politics, at least gave an “orange light” to Bozizé, effectively allowing him to overthrow Patassé.3 Amidst Bozizé’s rise to power, a bush war started with the emergence of the Union des Forces Démocratiques pour le Rassemblement. This force took control of some parts of the country’s northeast and advanced towards the capital Bangui. Only with French military assistance were Bozizé’s troops able to resist the rebels. On 20 June 2008, the warring factions signed a peace agreement. In July 2008, the ECCAS-led Peace Consolidation Mission in the Central African Republic (MICOPAX) replaced FOMUC.4 That mission was tasked to protect civilians, contribute to the national reconciliation process, and facilitate political dialogue. Initially, the operation comprised 400 soldiers; 150 police officers were added in 2010. The EU African Peace Facility Program supported MICOPAX financially.5 Additional troops in 2012 increased the total number to roughly 700.6 Just prior to that, in 2010, BONUCA had been succeeded by the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the Central African Republic (BINUCA). In this appraisal of conflict management in the CAR since 1996, I have only referred to the peace operations fielded exclusively for the CAR. In addition to those, the EU was running its EUFOR Chad/ CAR operation (2007–2009) to tackle the refugee crisis stemming from the Darfur conflict and to protect civilians in Chad and the CAR. The UN took over that operation in 2009. Yet, these operations are of limited interest here, inasmuch as their prime theater had been Chad.

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In short, until the end of 2012, the CAR had already gone through what we have elsewhere labeled “patchwork interventionism.” Indeed, the international community had created an “alphabet soup”—a reference to the acronyms of the numerous peace operations.7 The operations deployed had been rather small and had little reach. Nor was there a long-term commitment of any international actor that might allow the CAR to prosper in a secure environment. This is reminiscent of the “peacebuilding triangle” Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis have proposed.8 Their study suggests that peace is more likely if there is local capacity, international commitment, and a low level of violence. As this appraisal suggests, there was neither local capacity, given weak political institutions and a weak economy, nor a significant level of international commitment as indicated by the rather half-hearted responses to the crisis. And, once the level of violence increased towards the end of 2012, the chances of peace decreased even further, allowing the “patchwork interventionism” to continue. Four more peace operations were to be established by April 2014: an African Union operation, the AU Mission in the Central African Republic (MISCA); a European Union operation, the EU Force in the Central African Republic (EUFOR CAR); a United Nations operation, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA); and the French military intervention, Opération Sangaris. See Table 6.1 below for a timeline of international interventions in the CAR.

The 2012–2013 crisis I divide the latest round of conflict management in the CAR, which commenced at the end of 2012, into five phases. At the outbreak of the crisis in December 2012, the ECCAS had already been on the ground and was hence at the helm of conflict management. It provided the first response to the deepening crisis while the UN was playing a minor role as mediator through its BINUCA mission. As MICOPAX troops had already been in the CAR, that response was indeed rapid. During phase two (late December 2012–July 2013), the AU slowly moved towards claiming leadership over conflict management in the CAR. The transfer from MICOPAX to the AU operation MISCA, however, only occurred from August 2013 onwards in phase three (August–December 2013), amidst the intensifying of the conflict. After a massive increase in violence in the second half of 2013 when the crisis began to feature prominently in international news, France

Table 6.1 Timeline of international interventions in the CAR, 1997–2017

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entered as an active player in this round of conflict management alongside the AU, sending troops and initiating phase four (December 2013–April 2014), marked by strong French leadership. Paris was also quick in deploying its troops. The French rapid response was followed by phase five (April–September 2014), during which France searched for an exit strategy and made it possible by shifting responsibility towards the EU and UN, with the latter finally taking over in September 2014.9 In the following, I will provide more details on this sequence of events as well as the drivers and interests that lay behind it, thereby shedding light on the guiding questions of the present volume. Phase one: December 2012 When the crisis erupted in December 2012, the operations MICOPAX and BINUCA (of the ECCAS and the UN, respectively) were running simultaneously in the CAR. As noted, roughly 700 MICOPAX troops were present in the CAR when the Séléka, a rebel coalition of predominantly Muslim anti-government militias led by Michel Djotodia, arose and advanced towards Bangui. Two thousand Chadian troops helped end this rebellion. The AU, which strictly opposes unconstitutional changes of government, and wary that such a change could occur in the CAR, welcomed Chad’s measures.10 On 6 January 2013, South Africa announced that it would send 400 troops to the CAR, on a bilateral basis as well as for helping to prevent a coup by the Séléka. Amidst mounting military pressure, peace talks were facilitated between the warring factions by the ECCAS chair, President Idriss Déby of Chad, and a few others. That in turn led to the Libreville peace agreement of 11 January 2013 between the Séléka and Bozizé’s government.11 The Libreville peace agreement, however, was short-lived. The Séléka advanced further and Déby switched sides after having supported Bozizé for years.12 Bozizé not only lost Chad as a close ally but also unsuccessfully appealed to France to intervene. This created space for the Séléka to overthrow Bozizé in a coup, and Djotodia declared himself president on 25 March 2013. Even the South African troops could not prevent this from happening; after 13 of their soldiers were killed and at least 25 wounded on 24 March, caught in a firefight with Séléka rebels, South Africa withdrew all its forces. They never returned. With Chad’s president Déby playing an influential role, the ECCAS quickly recognized Djotodia as the country’s new president. ECCAS leaders considered him as less problematic than Bozizé and de facto supported his coup.13

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At that point, MICOPAX had experienced an unprecedented comeback. In 2012, the countries contributing troops had been frustrated: they had seen little progress, and decreased (financial) support from donors, mainly from the EU, led them to reduce their efforts. However, amidst the rise of the Séléka rebels and the deepening political crisis, MICOPAX seemed more important than ever to regional leaders. At an ECCAS summit on 21 December 2012 they agreed to dispatch additional troops. At MICOPAX’s formal end in October 2013, there were almost 2,700 troops and police officers deployed. The ECCAS’s deployment and its willingness to increase troops can be linked to the regional dimension of the CAR crisis. As noted, the CAR is located in a fragile region with unstable neighboring countries such as the Sudans and Congos. In addition, “[d]ue to the limited territorial reach of state authority and lacking control over borders and remote areas, CAR’s year-long instability … allowed the country to become a stronghold for ex-soldiers, mercenaries and armed groups from neighbouring conflicts.”14 Therefore, regional states had strong interests in the CAR and thus aimed at having firm control over conflict management. This aim was particularly shared by President Déby, who feared a spillover from the CAR crisis.15 Déby had faced radical opposition to his rule. Rebellions against him often originated from outside Chad, making the region—and the unstable CAR in particular—a foreign policy priority. As chair of the ECCAS, Déby could put his political weight behind his position to maintain responsibility for conflict management within the region and keep out other actors such as the AU, even though the latter followed the events closely and was ready to take responsibility. Parallel to MICOPAX’s efforts, BINUCA was operating in the background. As the latter was primarily composed of civilians, its possibilities were limited in a war zone like the CAR. As a result, regional leaders could move themselves to center stage. BINUCA had little to offer beyond a political response. South Africa, which also provided troops for a rapid reaction, could likewise not exert much influence. Yet, it was rather active in this domain. Despite its economic and political aspirations in the CAR, South Africa’s involvement in the country was brief. Phase two: late December 2012–July 2013 Phase two of the conflict was characterized by inter-organizational competition between the ECCAS and the AU. Initially, the AU had endorsed ECCAS’s efforts. However, in the last week of December

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2012, the AU decided to take the lead. The chairperson of the AU Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, noted the “readiness of the Union, in agreement with the Government of CAR and in consultation with ECCAS … to mobilize, from within the continent, any additional support that would be required to facilitate the success of the regional efforts.”16 The stage was set for competition between the AU and the ECCAS over leadership in conflict management in the CAR, since ECCAS leaders were not yet willing to give up their grip on managing the conflict. The subsequent rivalry over leadership between the ECCAS and AU, which had caused severe security problems in phase three, was only able to emerge because both organizations have a mandate to promote peace and security in Central Africa. The same is true for the UN, which at a later point vied with the AU for leadership over conflict management (see phases four and five). The AU Constitutive Act describes the promotion of peace and security as one of the organization’s objectives.17 To this end, the AU established an African peace and security architecture, comprising, among other elements, a Peace and Security Council, a Continental Early Warning System, and standby forces.18 The ECCAS was originally a trade community; however, a major reform process in the 1990s led to the establishment of a regional security architecture, consisting of a Council for Peace and Security in Central Africa, an early warning system, and a Defense and Security Commission.19 The extended mandate of the ECCAS covers the promotion of peace and security in the region. In short, member states of the AU and ECCAS—and self-evidently of the UN—have given their organizations a mandate that allows them to engage in conflict management in the CAR. In practice, however, the capabilities for using the established institutions at hand to promote peace and security differ starkly among these organizations. Despite chronic budget problems, the UN is by far the bestequipped and most-experienced of the three. It has gained considerable experience in running long-term multidimensional peace operations, particularly after the end of the Cold War. Hence, it is suited to implement long-term peace operations and to engage in post-conflict reconstruction. The AU has also gained experience in various peace operations, beginning in 2003 in Burundi. It has shown that it can provide a framework to conduct long-term peace operations as indicated by its operation in Somalia, running since 2007—at least if it receives financial support from third parties. The AU’s institutional setup is well designed to meet the security demands of the continent. Yet there is

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still a gap between theory and practice, which has nonetheless narrowed significantly since the AU’s launch in 2002. With respect to the ECCAS, though, the gap between ambition and reality is still wide. While the organization has “a narrow, militaristic approach to security issues,”20 it lacks human and financial resources and the hardware to run complex operations. Apart from MICOPAX, the ECCAS has gained no larger experience in the peace operations theater. What unites all three organizations is that they are ultimately dependent on their member countries, as none has its own troops for rapid reaction.21 ECCAS’s lack of capabilities and experience is part of the explanation why the AU demanded the leading role from December 2012 onwards. In the eyes of AU officials, the ECCAS was unable to provide the kind of response needed to address the CAR crisis. The United States had sympathy for this circumstance, considering the AU the best-suited organization to respond to the situation on the ground because it has less strict rules of engagement, which allows for a more militaristic way to manage conflict than the UN’s rules. At the same time, the AU has experience in conducting peace operations and runs these at lesser expense than the UN. Other international actors shared this view and even the UN was not against an AU intervention at that point in time. In short, there was international support for the AU to take over from the ECCAS as it was widely perceived as the organization that could most effectively respond to the rapidly changing security situation. It was against this background that the AU Peace and Security Council took initial action once the Séléka renewed its fighting and advanced to the capital city after the collapse of the Libreville peace agreement in early 2013. The Peace and Security Council imposed a travel ban against those who had undermined the agreement, while also freezing their assets.22 Two days later, following the successful coup, the Peace and Security Council suspended the CAR from the AU, as it automatically does to any country in which an unconstitutional change of government occurs.23 Even though the suspension of member states under such circumstances is an AU policy agreed to across the continent, the ECCAS nonetheless recognized Djotodia. This caused friction between the AU and ECCAS, revealing a core difference between their responses to conflict and their interpretations of the rule of law.24 At an ECCAS summit on 18 April, the organization requested that the AU provide assistance for MICOPAX but insisted that ECCAS take the lead. In fact, though, this request opened the door for the AU

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to take over. Following the report of a military assessment mission, the AU Peace and Security Council finally took control and supported “in principle, the establishment of an African-led International Support Mission for the Central African Republic (AFISMA-CAR).”25 Then, on 19 July 2013, the Peace and Security Council authorized: the deployment, for an initial period of six months, of AFISMCAR [MISCA], which will have a total strength of 3,652, including 3,500 uniformed personnel (2,475 for the military component and 1,025 for the police component) and 152 civilians, the nucleus of which will be constituted by the contingents currently serving in MICOPAX, in order to contribute to: (i) the protection of civilians and the restoration of security and public order, through the implementation of appropriate measures; (ii) the stabilization of the country and the restoration of the authority of the central Government; (iii) the reform and restructuring of the defence and security sector; and (iv) the creation of conditions conducive for the provision of humanitarian assistance to population in need.26 Perhaps surprisingly, it was the AU Commission which took the lead instead of AU member states. Key member states of the AU were at best indecisive. Egypt and Libya were enduring the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Algeria had an ailing president, and Nigeria was witnessing the rise of Boko Haram at that time. Last, South Africa had earlier been pushed out of conflict management. In short, despite AU member states generally keeping tight control over their organization, the AU Commission had the leeway at that point in time to act independently—and it used this opportunity against ECCAS’s wishes. Phase three: August–December 2013 The inter-organizational competition between the AU and the ECCAS delayed the “rehatting,” thereby creating a political vacuum in the CAR. The two organizations could not prevent the conflict from turning worse during the transition phase, which took four months to complete. Since the AU Commission was acting without the support of the AU’s heavyweights, the ECCAS was able for a longer period to resist the AU’s attempts to claim responsibility. Eventually, however, it gave in. The ECCAS secretary-general visited AU headquarters in mid-2013 to clear up the “misunderstandings” and pave the way for MISCA.27 The “misunderstandings” between the ECCAS and AU and the battle for supremacy have their roots in the regional communities’ general

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suspicion of the AU. The ECCAS, and its member states, prefer to keep tight control over their region as they see themselves better positioned to engage in conflict management. As noted, in the CAR case, the ECCAS had only requested the AU to assist in early 2013. Nonetheless, the AU used this window of opportunity and appropriated the entire mission, causing further friction between the organizations. Notwithstanding ECCAS’s move to give way to an AU operation, the Central African organization appointed a special representative and maintained a small office in the CAR to retain some influence over the unfolding events. Despite having formally transferred responsibility to the AU, ECCAS states were still directly involved in conflict management since the ECCAS’s members were the main troop providers for MISCA and preserved strategic control over their actions. The ECCAS members Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, both Congos, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon were the troop contributors alongside Rwanda—the latter not a member state. It was in this environment that the crisis in the CAR further intensified. The CAR’s Muslim community, particularly in the northeastern part of the country, had long been marginalized by governments in Bangui and had initiated several unsuccessful rebellions. The Chadian government, deeply embroiled in the conflict, had acted as the “external political representative of the CAR’s Muslims.”28 The predominantly Muslim Séléka had arisen in this context. Now, in mid-2013, the “Anti-Balaka,” chiefly comprised of young men affected by the Séléka’s fights and seeking revenge, was formed in opposition to the Séléka. Once the groups engaged in heavy fighting, there was a high number of casualties. More than four million people were in need of help, and the number of refugees swelled to almost half a million.29 A UN official assessed the situation as “a tinderbox that can ignite into something very, very big and very, very bad”30 and his organization warned that the CAR “is at risk of spiralling into genocide.”31 Phase four: December 2013–April 2014 In light of the worsening situation, France undertook preparations for a military operation for which it sought UN authorization. On 5 December 2013, the UN Security Council, acting under Chapter VII, authorized the French intervention Opération Sangaris, which commenced immediately. At the same time, the UN Security Council ex-post also authorized the AU operation MISCA.32 France deployed 1,600 troops to Bangui, but increased its troops by another

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400 in February 2014. At that time, it had realized that the number of troops was not sufficient to control Bangui, let alone other parts of the CAR. France’s motives for deploying boots on the ground are multiple. There are the historical links to its former colonies, a sense of responsibility having its roots in the colonial era, the “fear of Anglophone encroachment in French domains in Africa,”33 fear of an increasing Chinese role in Africa, links to the ruling elites in Africa, and the estimated 240,000 French nationals living in Africa, as well as economic interests.34 Roughly a decade ago, Denis Tull argued: “Since the establishment of the Fifth Republic [in 1958], Francophone Africa is no less important to France’s national self-perception and its position in international politics than the possession of the nuclear weapon.”35 Beyond the geopolitical considerations and France’s drive to exert influence in Africa, it has often been argued that French economic interests play a role when it intervenes. Official figures, however, reveal that the CAR is at best of secondary interest to France in terms of trade. French imports from the country were worth US$9 million in 2010, and French exports to the CAR stood at $55 million in the same year. This is negligible in comparison to Germany, France’s biggest trading partner, from which France received imports worth $114,642 million and to which it sent exports worth $83,542 million in 2010.36 Against this background, it appears not that the economic interests in the CAR had to be protected but rather those of France in the region.37 AU and UN officials stress that French troops were not sent to the CAR to protect civilians but to secure French strategic interests, including a functioning airport in Bangui.38 Only when civilians in Bangui realized the French interest in the airport and fled in large numbers there to find protection was France entrapped into further operations under the mantle of humanitarianism. Given the EU’s reluctance to get involved, with London signaling its opposition to an EU intervention (see below), the options for France narrowed, and it had to intervene on its own. The center of control over conflict management had clearly shifted towards Paris, but regional leaders still maintained some influence. On 6 December 2013, one day after the adoption of the UN resolution authorizing Opération Sangaris and MISCA, the French government held a summit bringing together African leaders and the French government. One decision made at the summit was to increase the number of troops from 3,500, as authorized by the AU Peace and Security Council on 19 July, to 6,000. This proposal and the ensuing decision

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were made without prior consultation of the AU, which was unhappy with this fait accompli. However, the AU Peace and Security Department, one of the departments within the AU Commission, knew that only a larger force (which was fully financed and thus caused no financial stress to the AU) could help to stabilize the CAR. Hence, the AU silently accepted the decision.39 As of March 2014, there were 6,000 AU troops deployed in the CAR. It was widely reported that AU troops and France worked well together on the ground, which is related to the fact that Chad, a loyal ally of France, had more than 800 troops in the CAR in the context of MISCA. Meanwhile, regional leaders sustained their influence over actions in the CAR. They met in January 2014 in Chad and on that occasion pressured the former rebel leader and then-president Djotodia to step down. ECCAS’s leaders considered him unable to restore order in the CAR.40 Both regional leaders (including Déby) and France had underestimated the Séléka. They had not anticipated that the coalition was too loose and hard to bring under control—let alone to dismantle—something that Djotodia had unsuccessfully attempted.41 Hence, a new president for the CAR had to be chosen. Under pressure from the AU, EU, UN, France, and the United States, a National Transitional Council of the CAR was set up as a temporary parliament after the coup in March 2013, and elected Bangui’s mayor Catherine Samba-Panza as new president for an interim period. The ECCAS congratulated Samba-Panza on her election and pledged $100 million in support for the transitional authority and MISCA.42 While France was leading the AU peace operation that was concurrently running, it realized that it was financially and military overstretched and thus searched for an exit strategy. France was conducting its large Opération Serval in Mali at the same time, a country widely considered to be at risk of becoming a breeding ground for international terrorism.43 Given that Mali was more important for France in geostrategic and security terms, the French government preferred to concentrate on that crisis and looked for relief in the CAR (as well as in Mali). Initially, France could rely on the Chadian troops in the CAR, for President Déby stood steadfast on Paris’ side. However, Chad suddenly withdrew its troops in April 2014, following accusations that they had launched an unprovoked attack which had left 30 civilians dead. This made it more urgent for France to find other partners to engage in the CAR conflict. The EU and the UN were considered the most likely candidates inasmuch as talks were already underway with these organizations to establish peace operations.

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Phase five: April–September 2014 France played a key role in shaping a new situation, along with the EU and the UN, assuming more responsibility and thereby pushing the AU out of the CAR. The EU’s deployment of 800 troops from April 2014 onwards in support of France and MISCA was less problematic to the AU. The EU is perceived rather positively at AU headquarters when it comes to cooperation in the field of peace operations. Indeed, the EU supports the African peace and security architecture and provides significant funding for AU peace operations and technical assistance. What is more, the EU does not challenge the AU’s supremacy in African security issues but mostly establishes police and military training operations. These do not rival the AU’s core competences but complement them. The EU was rather slow to deploy its troops to the CAR; it took until June 2014 until full operational capacity was finally reached. The reasons for this slow response lie in a lack of political will, which is linked to a British refusal to play a leading role in the context of such an operation (for Britain was leading the standby EU Battlegroup at that point in time).44 Other European governments were similarly unenthusiastic about the operation. Only Georgia and Poland provided more than 100 soldiers, and the German parliament allowed up to 80 troops to be deployed in the CAR. The tardiness of the EU operation should be seen more as a response to the French call for military and financial relief than as a committed operation based on sufficient political will. Given this background, relations between the AU and EU could just not have soured over that issue, and we should speak of a rather fruitful cooperation between the two organizations. In contrast, the UN Security Council’s decision on 10 April 2014 to establish the large-scale MINUSCA reignited the competition between the AU and the UN that had lain dormant after the UN pushed the AU out of conflict management in Libya (in 2011) and Mali (in 2013). Indeed, the AU had been frustrated vis-à-vis the UN in the past when the AU was marginalized in such crises and was not able to demonstrate its capabilities as an African security provider.45 The UN Security Council had authorized MISCA for a period of 12 months in December 2013, but forced the AU to withdraw earlier. For AU staff, this situation was reminiscent of the closure of its African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA), in which the UN pushed the AU out of the lead in mid-2013. Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that the AU once again felt that it was being pressured to serve as temporary security provider but not allowed to run longer or more complex operations. At the same time, however, AU

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officials knew that their organization was not yet able to run complex multidimensional peace operations over extended periods due to limited financial resources and lack of military and civilian capacities. Hence, AU staff would not lament the eventual UN takeover as such but instead its timing. MISCA was supposed to run for 12 months but in the end only operated for roughly nine. The UN owed its new operation and leadership in conflict management in the CAR to France, which had pulled strings in New York in its favor. In fact, the United States preferred an AU operation at that time, regarding it as better suited for the task (see above). The UN Secretariat, however, welcomed the idea of a greater responsibility in the CAR. The UN—like the AU—is seeking recognition while they both (along with other organizations) compete for relevance and funding. Given the UN Secretariat’s “need for [a] problem,”46 it welcomed the French initiative to “rehat” MISCA and grant the UN the prime responsibility. After all, the UN needs international credit to underline its role as the world’s prime security provider at a time when regional organizations like the AU and EU are increasingly playing a more central role in conflict management. In September 2014, the UN finally took charge.

Conclusion As the above analysis has shown, several responses to the conflict in the CAR between December 2012 and December 2013 can be seen as rapid. MICOPAX’s response was rather incidental as that operation had already been on the ground; its impact has been limited. The South African attempt ultimately failed, and the French attempt to offer a rapid reaction was successful insofar as Opération Sangaris contributed to a more stable CAR with more security for its citizens. Yet it did not contribute to finding a lasting solution to the conflict. The AU aimed for a quicker deployment but was hindered by rivalry with the ECCAS. The EU operation was more a response to the French request than a rapid response to a conflict. By far, there was not as much political will behind this operation as behind other EU operations, such as those in Mali or Kosovo. The UN did not offer a rapid response—and never aimed to—besides the political efforts it made in the context of its civilian operation, BINUCA. By the time the UN had deployed its large operation, more than 18 months had passed since the CAR crisis had erupted. We can draw some tentative conclusions from the analysis above regarding rapid responses. First, competition between international organizations—or mutual hampering and dysfunctional competition in

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the terminology of this volume—can delay an adequate response to a conflict. The AU was widely perceived to offer the best possible response of an international organization to the CAR crisis, but its adoption was severely hampered by the dysfunctional competition with the ECCAS. Overlapping mandates, the absence of a clear division of labor, and the fact that no key state in Africa put its weight behind the AU Commission’s attempts to claim leadership opened space for the ECCAS to keep MICOPAX in place and delay the transfer to MISCA. Second, France’s actions at its summit with African leaders, as well as its actions at UN headquarters, where it pulled strings in the UN’s favor, suggest that such influential states can determine the actions of international organizations. At the same time, the quick deployment of Opération Sangaris suggests that if a state is committed to a rapid response and finds support internationally (or faces no severe opposition), then such a response can take place. Whether the various efforts undertaken since December 2012 are ultimately helpful to the CAR remains an open question. Regarding short-term effects, the French intervention alongside the efforts of the AU and EU reduced the level of violence significantly, whereas during the ECCAS operation and during the transition phase to the AU operation the level of violence increased. Regarding the long-term effects of crisis management in the CAR, doubts remain. As demonstrated, the international commitment has again been half-hearted: South African and Chadian troops left the country, France quickly searched for an exit strategy, and the AU was replaced early on. In short, the “patchwork interventionism” to which the CAR has been subject since 1996 has not ceased. Local capabilities remain small while the level of hostility has not significantly decreased, as revealed by another outbreak of violence in 2017. The UN’s emergency relief coordinator, Stephen O’Brien, went as far as to caution that the situation in 2017 signaled “the early warnings of genocide.”47

Notes 1 Angela Meyer, “Regional Conflict Management in Central Africa: From FOMUC to MICOPAX,” African Security 2, nos. 2–3 (2009): 159–160. 2 United Nations, “Central African Republic—MINURCA Background,” 2001, www.un.org/Depts/DPKO/Missions/minurcaB.htm. 3 International Crisis Group, “Central African Republic: Anatomy of a Phantom State,” Africa Report No. 136, 13 December 2007, 15. 4 Martin Welz and Angela Meyer, “Empty Acronyms: Why the Central African Republic Has Many Peacekeepers, but No Peace,” Foreign Affairs, 24 July 2014.

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5 European Union, “MICOPAX,” 2012, http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/ where/acp/regional-cooperation/peace/peace-support-operations/micopax_e n.htm. 6 Angela Meyer, “10 Years of Regional Security Cooperation in the Central African Republic—and Still No Stabilization in Sight?” paper presented at the European Conference on African Studies, Lisbon, 27–29 June 2013, www.nomadit.co.uk/ecas/ecas2013/panels.php5?PanelID=2110. 7 Welz and Angela Meyer, “Empty Acronyms.” 8 Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, “International Peacebuilding: A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis,” American Political Science Review 94, no. 4 (2000): 779–801. 9 Martin Welz, “Briefing: Crisis in the Central African Republic and the International Response,” African Affairs 113, no. 453 (2014): 601–610, and “Multi-Actor Peace Operations and Inter-Organizational Relations: Insights from the Central African Republic,” International Peacekeeping 23, no. 4 (2016): 568–591. 10 African Union, “The African Union Urges the Armed Groups in Central African Republic to Cease Any Military Offensive and Embark upon Path of Dialogue,” press release, 24 December 2012. 11 AU, “The African Union Welcomes the Agreement Signed by the Central African Republic Parties,” press release, 12 January 2013. 12 Radio France Internationale, Centrafrique: Bozizé lâché par Déby, ignoré par Hollande, 26 March 2013, www.rfi.fr/afrique/20130326-centrafrique-bo zize-lache-deby-lache-hollande. 13 Author interview with an African official, Addis Ababa, 18 February 2014. 14 Angela Meyer, “Preventing Conflict in Central Africa: ECCAS Caught between Ambitions, Challenges and Reality,” Central Africa Report no. 3, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, August 2015, 5. 15 Roland Marchal, “Chad/Darfur: How Two Crises Merge,” Review of African Political Economy 33, no. 109 (2006), 467–482. 16 AU, “The African Union Warns against Any Attempt to Seize Power by Force in the Central African Republic,” press release, 31 December 2012. 17 AU, Constitutive Act of the African Union, 2000, Article 3f. 18 See Linda Darkwa, “Tools in a Toolbox,” Chapter 1, this volume. 19 Meyer, “Regional Conflict Management in Central Africa.” 20 Meyer, “Preventing Conflict in Central Africa,” 1. 21 See Darkwa, “Tools in a Toolbox,” as well as Joachim A. Koops and Alexandra Novosseloff, “United Nations Rapid Reaction Mechanisms,” Chapter 4, this volume. 22 AU Peace and Security Council, Communiqué, document PSC/PR/Comm (CCCLXXII), 23 March 2013, para. 6. 23 AU Peace and Security Council, Communiqué, document PSC/PR/Comm (CCCLXXIII), 25 March 2013, para. 8. 24 Author interview with AU and other officials, Addis Ababa, February 2014. 25 AU Peace and Security Council, Communiqué, document PSC/PR/Comm (CCCLXXX), 17 June 2013, para. 6. 26 AU Peace and Security Council, Communiqué, document PSC/PR/ COMM.2(CCCLXXXV), 19 July 2013, para. 6. 27 Author interview with an African official, Addis Ababa, February 2014.

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28 Author interview with a UN diplomat, Addis Ababa, 20 February 2014. 29 IRIN, “Aid Agencies Struggle to Reach All of CAR’s Needy,” 6 December 2014, www.irinnews.org/report/99281/aid-agencies-struggle-to-reach-all-of-c ar-s-needy. 30 BBC News, “Central African Republic’s UN Protection Force Approved,” 30 October 2013, www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-24744757. 31 BBC News, “UN Warning over Central African Republic Genocide Risk,” 4 November 2013, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24800682. 32 UN Security Council, Resolution 2127, 5 December 2013. 33 Belachew Gebreworld, “Comprehensive Security versus Competing Interests,” in Routledge Handbook of African Security, ed. James J. Hentz (London: Routledge, 2014), 265. 34 Ibid., 258–267; Andrew Hansen, “Backgrounder: The French Military in Africa,” New York Times, 9 February 2007, archive.nytimes.com/www. nytimes.com/cfr/world/slot2_20070209.html?pagewanted=all; and Daniela Kroslak, “France’s Policy Towards Africa: Continuity or Change?” in Africa in International Politics: External Involvement on the Continent, ed. Ian Taylor and Paul Williams (London: Routledge, 2004), 61–82. 35 Denis Tull, “France’s Africa Policy at a Turning Point,” SWP Comments 2005/C 45, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, October 2005, 2. 36 International Monetary Fund, Direction of Trade Statistics Quarterly: March 2011, 2011. 37 Vincent Jauvert, “Centrafrique: Pourquoi la France a intérêt à intervenir,” Nouvel Observateur, 2 December 2013, http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/m onde/20131202.OBS7807/centrafrique-pourquoi-la-france-a-interet-a-interve nir.html. 38 Author interviews with AU and UN officials, Addis Ababa, February 2014. 39 Author interviews with AU officials, Addis Ababa, February 2014. 40 Author interviews with AU, EU, and UN officials and African diplomats, Addis Ababa, 18 February 2014. 41 Author interview with an AU official, Addis Ababa, 26 February 2014. 42 ECCAS Secretariat, press release, 31 January 2014. 43 See John Karlsrud, Natasja Rupesinghe, and Denis M. Tull, “Tangled up in Glue,” Chapter 7, this volume. 44 Yf Reykers, “EU Battlegroups: High Costs, No Benefits,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 457–470. 45 Thomas G. Weiss and Martin Welz, “The UN and AU in Mali and Beyond: A Shotgun Wedding?” International Affairs 90, no. 4 (2014): 889–905; and Martin Welz, “Multi-Actor Peace Operations and Inter-Organizational Relations,” International Peacekeeping 23, no. 4 (2016): 568–591. 46 Interview with a UN official, Addis Ababa, 25 February 2014. 47 Rebecca Ratcliffe, “People Are Dying: Violence Forces Aid Workers out of Central African Republic” Guardian, 1 September 2017, www.theguardian. com/global-development/2017/sep/01/people-are-dying-violence-forces-aid-w orkers-out-of-central-african-republic.

7

Tangled up in glue Multilateral crisis responses in Mali John Karlsrud, Natasja Rupesinghe and Denis M. Tull

      

Phase one: Tuareg and jihadist rebellion (January–December 2012) Phase two: African responses and France’s Operation Serval (January–July 2013) Phase three: enter MINUSMA and EU missions (July 2013–present) Phase four: the Joint Force of the G5 Sahel—a regional solution? (February 2017–present) Has there been a rapid crisis response in Mali? A peace operation patchwork Conclusion

In January 2012, Mali plunged into a multifaceted crisis, triggered by an extraordinary series of events. A separatist Tuareg rebellion, a military coup d’état, and the collapse of state authority paved the way for the Islamist occupation of Mali’s three most northern regions, Gao, Timbuktu, and Kidal. Consequently, Mali quickly rose on the agenda of regional and global actors, initiating several unilateral and multilateral interventions to stabilize the country. Since then, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the African Union (AU), the United Nations (UN), France, the United States, the European Union (EU), and regional players through the Joint Force of the G5 Sahel (FC-G5S) have launched stabilization initiatives. Mali thus provides an opportunity to examine the cooperation, coordination, and potential competition involved in contemporary “crisis response.” This chapter examines these international responses, which can be divided into four, partially overlapping phases: First, the initial reaction to the Tuareg/jihadist rebellion in early 2012 and the coup in Bamako (January–December 2012); second, the French (Operation Serval) and the ECOWAS/AU response to the southern offensive of the jihadists (January 2013–July 2013);

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third, the aftermath of Serval and the deployment of the UN Multidimensional Mission for Stabilization in Mali (MINUSMA) and other missions/operations (July 2013–present); and fourth and finally, the deployment of the FC-G5S (February 2017–present).

Phase one: Tuareg and jihadist rebellion (January–December 2012) The starting point for the crisis was the nationalist Tuareg uprising against the central government,1 spearheaded by the Movement National pour la Liberation de l’Azawad (MNLA), which started with an attack on military installations in Menaka on 17 January 2012. Successive Tuareg rebellions have been launched throughout the postcolonial period largely as a response to the perceived economic and political marginalization of the northern regions, and the government’s failure to implement promises of decentralization agreed upon in previous peace agreements.2 The MNLA were emboldened by an injection of 1,500 to 2,000 Tuareg fighters with military experience from Libya following the 2011 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-led intervention in Libya and subsequent fall of Muammar Qaddafi.3 Frustrated by the government’s inadequate response to the rebellion, a coup was launched against President Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali by a group of low ranking soldiers led by Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, on 22 March 2012. Taking advantage of the ensuing breakdown of central state authority and the collapse of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMA), the MNLA forged an alliance with several radical, armed Islamist groups which had become increasingly important actors in the region. These included Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), with origins in Algeria but which had long been active in the Sahara; the Movement for Divine Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO); and Ansar Dine, a locally rooted jihadist group. Within days, the MNLA and the Islamists took control of Gao, Timbuktu, and Kidal in northern Mali, some two thirds of the country’s national territory. On 6 April 2012, the MNLA proclaimed the “Republic of Azawad,” and the Islamist groups imposed Sharia law on the population. Eventually, fighting broke out between the Islamist alliance and the MNLA, and the MNLA lost control of the positions it held in northern Mali. These events sent shock waves at both regional and continental levels. ECOWAS immediately condemned the coup and sent a mediation team led by Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Campaoré, urging the military junta to hand over power to a civilian-led government by

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applying a series of travel and economic sanctions. On 6 April 2012, a framework agreement was signed with the junta agreeing on the restoration of constitutional order. Dioncounda Traoré, the speaker of the National Assembly, was installed as president and Cheikh Modibo Diarra as prime minister of a transitional government.5 Shortly after, as the situation deteriorated, ECOWAS expressed its readiness to deploy the ECOWAS Standby Force upon the request of the Malian government.6 On 12 June 2012, the AU authorized a regional peace support operation, to be executed by the ECOWAS force,7 and drawing on the model for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) it called on the UN Security Council to authorize a “support package funded by UN-assessed contributions.”8 However, the key states on the Security Council—France as the former colonial power, and the United States as the largest funder of the assessed budget—were not ready to support such an option, with the result that the council only stated that it “Expresses 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.”9 The initiative was also firmly opposed by key actors in Bamako, as well as by Algeria and Mauritania, two of the most influential players in the region, and not members of ECOWAS.10 As a result, “due to disagreements between ECOWAS, Algeria and Mauritania about taking military action, this option did not come to fruition.”11 The process continued to move forward at a very slow pace for the duration of 2012. Finally, in November that year, the UN secretarygeneral endorsed a concept of operations developed by ECOWAS and the AU,12 and on 20 December the UN Security Council authorized the African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA) for an initial period of one year under Resolution 2085.13 AFISMA was mandated, inter alia, to “take all necessary measures … [t]o support the Malian authorities in recovering the areas in the north of its territory under the control of terrorist, extremist and armed groups.”14

Phase two: African responses and France’s Operation Serval (January–July 2013) In January 2013 the situation deteriorated as the jihadist groups started moving southwards. The capture of the town of Konna on 9 January signaled the possibility that the jihadists were intending to take over central Mali (Mopti and Ségou) and move towards Bamako. As

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AFISMA’s deployment was still elusive, the Malian government requested military support from France on 11 January. The French military operation, Serval, was launched that very day, 11 January. Within weeks it had gained control of most of northern Mali, with support from the United States and other NATO members, including strategic airlift capacity, in-flight fueling, and surveillance and intelligence support.15 On the ground, Serval was accompanied by Chadian troops deployed as part of AFISMA, who also enjoyed logistical support from Western partners. The Islamists fled into the mountains, across the borders, or assimilated back into the local populations. It should also be noted that Serval stopped an attempted coup against interim president Dioncounda Traoré.16 Beginning in August 2014, Paris, for its part, transformed Serval into a highly versatile regional expeditionary counter-terrorism force (Operation Barkhane) that would track and neutralize terrorists across the Sahel, including in Mali. Planning for a UN peacekeeping mission in Mali had commenced already in February 2013, in response to the deteriorating security situation and the International Criminal Court’s investigations into possible atrocity crimes committed.17 There was mounting pressure on the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York to act. On 25 April, the Security Council adopted Resolution 2100,18 authorizing the deployment of MINUSMA. This mission assumed authority from AFISMA on 1 July, cutting short AFISMA’s intended deployment period to less than the one year originally envisaged. The Security Council requested “the Secretary-General to include in MINUSMA, in close coordination with the AU and ECOWAS, AFISMA military and police personnel appropriate to United Nations standards.”19 Subsequently, the entire strength of AFISMA—6,587 military and police personnel—was re-hatted on 1 July 2013.20

Phase three: enter MINUSMA and EU missions (July 2013–present) MINUSMA was deployed into an ongoing conflict with no peace to keep, but with clear expectations from the AU and the host government to help in the fight against terrorist and armed groups in the north. In the discussions over the mandate for MINUSMA, the AU asked for a peace enforcement mandate, an “action-oriented assistance to the Malian Government” to “actively sustain efforts aimed at dismantling the terrorist and criminal networks in the north of the country.”21 Unhappy with the mandate that eventually was given to

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MINUSMA by the Security Council, the Malian government in 2014 unsuccessfully asked for the establishment of a regional “rapid intervention force capable of effectively combating terrorists,”22 with three potential constellations in mind: (1) to be included in MINUSMA, modeled on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) in the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO); (2) to be deployed as a separate force, but with logistical support from the UN; or (3) as a parallel force, but with a Security Council resolution or presidential statement “supporting the establishment and deployment of the force, so as to facilitate the mobilization of international support.”23 Although exceptionally robust, MINUSMA’s mandate fell short of these expectations. The Security Council mandated it “to stabilize key population centres, especially in the north of Mali and, in this context, to deter threats and take active steps to prevent the return of armed elements to those areas” and “to support transitional authorities of Mali to extend and re-establish State administration throughout the country.”24 Christopher Chivvis argued that France pushed for its deployment as it “reduced the chances of its troops becoming mired in a long and bloody counter-insurgency operation.”25 It is unclear if France and the UN overestimated the impact of Serval on the jihadist movements, for they reconstituted their capacities relatively quickly. As a result, MINUSMA has been in a counter-insurgency and counterterrorism mode since its inception, without the necessary mandate, or doctrinal and operational tools to deal with such a situation.26 MINUSMA is one of the deadliest peacekeeping operations in the history of the UN, with 95 fatalities due to “malicious attacks” between its inception and 31 December 2017.27 Because of the continuous attacks, MINUSMA’s mandate was sharpened in June 2016, asking the mission “to anticipate, deter and counter threats, including asymmetric threats, and to take robust and active steps to protect civilians … engaging in direct operations pursuant only to serious and credible threats.”28 Western member states have been involved in various ways in the conflict since the deployment of Serval. Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, and Sweden have all made significant troop and capability contributions to MINUSMA since 2013,29 partly in conjunction with their bids for a place on the UN Security Council, but also as part of their international engagement and burden-sharing with the United States in the global “war on terror,” relabeled as preventing and countering violent extremism.30 These contributions were motivated by the fear of a spread of global terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and figured prominently in the pronouncements of Western

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leaders when motivating their contributions to, for example, Serval/ Barkhane, MINUSMA, and the EU Training Mission in Mali (EUTM Mali).31 The EU deployed two missions to support security sector reform: EUTM Mali in 2013, comprising roughly 500 personnel to train and assist Mali’s armed forces, and the EU Capacity Building Mission in Mali (EUCAP Sahel Mali) in 2015 with 100 personnel to assist the internal security forces.

Phase four: the Joint Force of the G5 Sahel—a regional solution? (February 2017–present) Except Algeria, which has served as the chief mediator between the government and Tuareg rebels and as the chair of the Peace Accord’s Follow-Up Committee, all neighboring states were involved in Mali mainly as troop contributors to MINUSMA. ECOWAS countries (plus Chad) provide almost two thirds (62.7 percent) of MINUSMA’s 11,609 military.32 In 2017, however, regional actors stepped up their game when the countries of the Group of Five for the Sahel (the G5S, consisting of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger) decided to establish a joint force, the FC-G5S, to fight terrorist groups and organized crime in their joint border areas. The G5S is a sub-regional arrangement that was founded in February 2014 to address development and security challenges by enhancing cross-border cooperation. Discussions around an African force had been ongoing since 2013–2014 to respond to escalating insecurity brought on by the increased activity of jihadist groups.33 As neither ECOWAS nor the AU articulated any clear vision of a force, the G5S heads of state, inspired by the model of the Chadian–Sudanese Mixed Force as well as the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) authorized in 2015 to combat Boko Haram in Nigeria, decided to create a joint force.34 The AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) authorized the force’s deployment on 13 April 2017 for a 12-month period, with a troop strength of 5,000. Following intense political negotiation, the UN Security Council “welcomed” the G5 Sahel as a new model of “regional counter-terrorism cooperation,” falling short of the UN Charter’s Chapter VII mandate the French had been pushing for.35 The FC-G5S was officially launched in Bamako on 2 July 2017. The force was mandated to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and human trafficking, contribute to the restoration of state authority and the return of displaced persons and refugees, facilitate humanitarian operations and the delivery of aid, and contribute to the implementation of development actions.36 The FC-G5S set up its force

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headquarters in Sévaré, in Mopti, central Mali. With significant support from Barkhane, the force had completed two “operations” by March 2018. Full operational capacity was announced in May 2018. France was instrumental in mobilizing international financial support for the joint force, which the UN Security Council, most notably the United States, had refused to provide. A donor conference in Paris on 23 February that year had brought a total of $509 million of pledges for the force.37 See Table 7.1 below for a timeline of international responses to the crisis in Mali between January 2013 and March 2018.

Has there been a rapid crisis response in Mali? If rapid crisis response is conceptualized as “a quick reaction to the outbreak of a crisis,” the answer is no. However, in Mali, and arguably many other places (the Central African Republic, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others), the onset of the crisis did not represent the high-water mark of violence or political turmoil. For the most part, the crisis in Mali has not given impetus to rapid military response. Though initial diplomatic reactions from ECOWAS were swift, progress in deploying an intervention force was decidedly slow throughout 2012, partially due to the unwillingness of the UN Security Council to provide funding. However, the quick and determined intervention of France (Operation Serval) in January 2013, and the parallel deployment of AFISMA, could be characterized as rapid responses. Sparked by the offensive of the jihadist forces southwards, Serval was largely a consequence of the failure of what had been expected to be the initial crisis response, i.e. the intervention by ECOWAS and the AU. From a military point of view, the quick recapture of most of northern Mali could be considered significant in preventing atrocities from taking place.38 The subsequent deployment of MINUSMA was supposed to signal the start of stabilization and peacebuilding. However, five years later, no significant strategic progress has been achieved in Mali, and there is instead evidence of a securitization of the situation. The peace agreement in 2015 between the Malian government and Tuareg rebels was another step forward on paper, but progress on the ground has been painstakingly slow. Instability has spread to central Mali, where violent extremist jihadist groups, claiming allegiance to the “Katiba Macina” (also known as the Macina Liberation Front) have become increasingly entrenched in local communities, by exploiting long-standing grievances against the state and existing conflicts around resources.39 Instability has also spread along the borders of

Table 7.1 Timeline of international responses to the crisis in Mali, January 2013–March 2018 Note that the initial mandated strength of AFISMA was 3,300, but this was rapidly increased as the situation unfolded in Q1 2013.

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Burkina Faso and Niger, which became priority axes of the FC-G5S. The newly formed “Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims” (Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin’ or JNIM), which was announced in March 2017, an Al Qaeda-led umbrella organization including Ansar Dine, AQIM, the Katibat Macina, and Al-Mourabitoun, have also demonstrated increased coordination and sophistication in their attacks, and claim to be reorganizing to confront the FC-G5S. The international intervention should thus only be considered a partial or short-term success achieved in early 2013, whilst a more comprehensive, inclusive, and sustainable settlement remains elusive.

A peace operation patchwork In considering rapid response mechanisms and subsequent stabilization efforts, we will discuss four broader issues that are relevant in the case of Mali:40 1 2 3 4

Inter-organizational rivalries among competing interveners; An extremely challenging national and regional intervention environment; Cooperation challenges amongst numerous parallel deployments, which included military, civilian, and diplomatic tools; and The FC-G5S and the future of African crisis response.

Sequenced entries and inter-organizational competition: ECOWAS–AU–UN The first issue which stands out is the inter-organizational rivalries that hindered responsiveness at the onset and throughout the Mali crisis. This concerned relations between ECOWAS and the AU, and later between these African actors and the UN. In the initial stages of the Mali meltdown, crisis response mechanisms were deployed in a relatively straightforward fashion. In accordance with the AU’s principles, procedures, and practices, ECOWAS, as the subsidiary regional body, seized the leadership in addressing the rebellion in northern Mali and the subsequent coup in Bamako. However, as the question of a military intervention gained traction, interAfrican tensions grew pronounced. The AU and ECOWAS struggled to agree on “whether the AU or ECOWAS should be responsible for the mission,”41 a bone of contention that was partly a result of geography insofar as the crisis also concerned Mali’s neighbors Mauritania and Algeria, which are not members of ECOWAS. But political

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and institutional interests were also at stake. The AU was wary of ECOWAS seeking authorization directly from the UN Security Council, and wanted to firm up the principle of subsidiarity between the regional economic communities/regional mechanisms (RECs/RMs) and the AU Peace and Security Council.42 The absence of a determined African intervention finally forced the hand of France, which deployed Serval as a rapid reaction force to stop the jihadist advance in its tracks. Serval sparked more interorganizational tensions and competitions, this time between the AU and ECOWAS on the one hand, and the UN on the other. Subsequent to Serval, African participation in crisis management was marginal, with the exception of peace negotiations between Tuareg rebels and the Malian government, in which African players (ECOWAS, Burkina Faso, and Algeria) were actively involved. Frustrated by the inability of ECOWAS and the AU to deploy a robust intervention, France and other players firmly and perhaps pragmatically pushed for the deployment of a UN peace operation, regardless of the AFISMA troops, which had arrived shortly after the onset of Serval. Question marks about African capabilities, equipment and finance certainly played a role in the sidelining of African actors. Nonetheless, the political fallout with African organizations and partners proved harmful on many counts, especially as it came right on the heels of the NATO-led intervention in Libya, where African agency had likewise been marginalized by Western countries. Perhaps in the knowledge of their own limited capabilities, ECOWAS and the AU were not principally opposed to the transition from AFISMA to MINUSMA. However, they did seek participation and leadership to assert African ownership of the crisis. African support for the transition from AFISMA to MINUSMA hinged on the following expectations: a central political role for African players, including leadership positions in the new mission; a UN support package for AFISMA; and the idea that MINUSMA would receive a counter-terrorism mandate. However, none of these demands were met.43 Only hours before Resolution 2100 was adopted on 25 April 2013, the AU protested that “Africa was not appropriately consulted in the drafting and consultation process that led to the adoption of the UN Security Council resolution [2100] authorizing the deployment of a UN Multidimensional Mission for Stabilization in Mali (MINUSMA) to take over AFISMA.”44 The AU wanted to be consulted and argued for the UN primarily taking on political and development tasks, with AFISMA continuing to cover the security pillar together with Serval until security benchmarks were met.45 This

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exclusion de facto ended the African involvement in the Malian crisis, except for the weighty contribution of troops for MINUSMA. In the long run, the crowding out of African institutional players in conflict resolution, and thus the absence of substantial international (UN) and regional cooperation, has no doubt weakened crisis response and stabilization efforts in Mali. With its limited resources and an illsuited mandate, MINUSMA became a convenient scapegoat for Malian and regional leaders bemoaning the political impasse in Mali, the steady deterioration of the security situation and its spill-over effects into neighboring countries.46 A challenging environment: local and regional resistance While responsibility for the lack of coordination and cooperation rests with the numerous actors involved, it needs to be emphasized that the political context in Mali and the region was a particularly challenging one. The fact that the external crisis response was not unanimously welcomed by Malian actors created a difficult playing field for outsiders. Malian reluctance to cooperate with crisis responders, much less invite them, was evident in the attitude of the March 2012 coup leaders, who correctly assumed that ECOWAS was intent on forcing them out of government. But Malian resistance went deeper than that. The coup had been greeted by popular support, nourishing popular expectations that a corrupt and incompetent political class would be ousted for good. In this sense, the ECOWAS goal of re-establishing constitutional order was widely equated with the status quo ante and the return of a corrupt political class.47 It was only in the final quarter of 2012 that the government, ECOWAS, the AU and other international partners agreed on a road map for the deployment of AFISMA to stabilize Mali, the rebuilding of the Malian armed forces (by EUTM Mali), and a subsequent offensive to liberate the north. However, this agreement remained ambiguous and reluctance persisted inside Mali’s political class. Even after the military junta had given way to the transitional government, the latter was hesitant to invite outside intervention, including by France.48 The euphoria around Serval only briefly suspended Malian unease about external intervention. In the wake of Serval, the ambiguous relationship between outside actors and Mali came once more to the fore. The interim government was only willing to accept a UN peacekeeping force with a narrow and offensive mandate that would focus on the north, due to concerns regarding the UN’s potential interference with politics in Bamako.49

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Over time, many Malians, political elites, and ordinary citizens have come to scrutinize the effectiveness and even the objectives of outside interveners. The debate about the appropriateness of MINUSMA’s mandate has created political frictions that have undermined the legitimacy of the mission, both in Mali and the sub-region. It is against this background of mounting critiques of MINUSMA that the creation of the FC-G5S gained momentum, with the governments of the G5 Sahel states suggesting that regional leadership—and a counterterrorist mandate—would provide a comparative advantage in addressing the crisis accumulating particularly in Mali’s border zones with Niger and Burkina Faso. The FC-G5S thus added another layer of military intervention in the region, further amplifying the challenges of coordination and cooperation. “Plug and play”? Parallel deployments If inter-organizational competition has hindered rapid crisis response, subsequent events in Mali are a textbook case of how multi-organizational competition hampers effectiveness. In Mali, the sheer number of external interventions has prompted observers to describe the situation as a “security traffic jam” to highlight not only the myriad actors and initiatives involved, but also that this multitude of overlapping, competing, and at times contradictory interests renders ineffective international efforts to address Mali’s security challenges.50 Parallel deployments are particularly evident. In early 2018, no less than five different military operations or civil-military missions were present in Mali: the French counter-terrorism Operation Barkhane (whose regional mandate includes Mali), the UN stabilization mission MINUSMA, two EU Training Missions (EUTM and EUCAP Sahel Mali), and the FC-G5S. That these layers of security actors created complexity and therefore coordination and cooperation challenges was only to be expected. In hindsight, it seems plausible to argue that the remarkably sweeping success of Serval created a false sense of accomplishment and even hubris. On the Malian side, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who won the 2013 elections held immediately in the aftermath of the liberation of the north, gave every impression that the polls and the return to constitutional order also signaled the return to political normalcy. A sense of urgency and a willingness to interrogate the causes of the crisis was never perceptible. It was certainly not expressed in terms of policies and structural reforms, to the disappointment of voters and external partners.51 The liberation of northern Mali sparked widespread international enthusiasm that drew in a wide range of external

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partners eager to play a role in Mali’s recovery, partly perhaps because of Mali’s donor darling status previous to the crisis. France certainly played its part in mobilizing the UN and the EU, similar to the aftermath of its Sangaris operation in the Central African Republic (CAR) that was to follow later in 2013.52 As would be the case in the CAR, the French understanding of burden-sharing envisioned stabilization activities by a UN mission and the rebuilding of the security sector by EU missions. Operation Barkhane, for its part, would focus on the kinetic end of the spectrum, carrying out counterterrorist operations across the Sahel. It remains open to debate whether this division of labor reflected a larger strategic design. As of 2018, the impression is rather one of a patchwork of parallel, individual missions and operations that were loosely connected at best.53 Informationsharing and limited mutual assistance agreements, as for example between MINUSMA and Barkhane, were hardly reflective of a comprehensive, well-coordinated approach. Limited ability or willingness to coordinate a multitude of actors and their activities extended beyond the military. In the realm of security sector assistance, for example, no fewer than 70 different projects to assist Mali’s security sector (justice, defense, and internal security) were being implemented by various internal partners in early 2017. However, most of these initiatives were not based on concerted action, let alone a common strategy. There was little coordination between these partners or between them and the Malian side.54 In addition, all of these actors found themselves stymied by adverse Malian realities: MINUSMA’s strategic priority—the implementation of the peace agreement—made little if any progress, while the mission itself was under constant attack by jihadist forces. Barkhane achieved many tactical successes, but was unable to translate these into broader strategic gains, a perhaps predictable outcome given its limited objective (counter-terrorism) and vast area of operations. In the absence of a peace process, any effort by EU training and advisory missions to rebuild Mali’s security forces met limited success, and certainly did not change the broader political and security dynamics. Yet another layer: the FC-G5S Although the G5 Sahel is part of a trend of ad hoc coalitions to deal with crises,55 and may not be regarded as a crisis response mechanism, there are good reasons to pay attention to it. First, the FC-G5S is clearly a reaction to the dramatic deterioration of security in Mali and its regional ramifications. Second, a study of the dynamics and

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consequences of the FC-G5S creation also provides more insight into inter-organizational cooperation in Mali, and the evolving peace and security architecture in Africa.56 The FC-G5S can be considered as a military response to a particular dimension of the Malian conflict, namely the cross-border spilling of insecurity, crime, and terrorism into neighboring countries.57 Thus, its 5,000 soldiers focus on the three (internal) border regions of the G5 states: Mauritania–Mali; Mali– Niger–Burkina Faso; and Niger–Chad. Touted as a regional solution to a truly regional problem, the FC-G5S will probably have a limited impact on the Mali crisis as such, though it may help to contain the further expansion of insecurity across the region. But even attaining this limited objective will require significant efforts: unprecedented cross-border military cooperation between the five Sahel states, and significant outside assistance in terms of finance, logistics, and equipment. At the time of writing, the modalities for coordination and cooperation between the FC-G5S were still being determined. MINUSMA should support the FC-G5S operations through an operational and logistical support plan, subject to financial reimbursement to the UN through an EU‑coordinated mechanism,58 given the persistent opposition of the United States to additional UN expenditures on peacekeeping. However, it is important to stress that MINUSMA already lacked the capacity to effectively implement its own mandate. MINUSMA and the FC-G5S divided the theater of operations into “operational boxes,” which basically indicated the geographical space each force occupies, to ensure deconfliction during operations.59 The FC-G5S and MINUSMA also aimed to develop a memorandum of understanding to determine the scope of operational coordination. It remains to be seen whether the FC-G5S and MINUSMA will reach a level of coordination that sees joint strategies developed to contain and reduce the threat of non-state armed groups, and any such cooperation would probably remain unofficial, as this could further blur the line between MINUSMA’s “peacekeeping” and the FC-G5S “counterterrorism” posture. Another factor blurring this line was the extensive involvement of the G5 Sahel countries in MINUSMA. At the time of writing, the G5 countries contributed a significant portion of MINUSMA’s troops and police: 1,711 military and 162 police from Burkina Faso; 1,394 military and 17 police from Chad; four military from Mauritania; and 859 military and 33 police from Niger.60 There were concerns that if the FC-G5S succeeded in attracting sustainable funding, Sahelian troop contributors might downsize their participation MINUSMA’s military component, as G5 Sahel member states may

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prefer to put their soldiers in an “African” force, with a more robust counter-terrorism mandate. Beyond the short- and medium-term cooperation challenges, the format of the G5 raised a number of questions about the future of African-led crisis responses. Africa’s claim to regional ownership in crisis response and management within the framework of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) is still far from effective, as the Mali crisis itself and the weakness of the long-awaited African Standby Force (ASF) have demonstrated.61 The intermittent launch of the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis (ACIRC) was conceived as a transitional arrangement until the ASF would be ready. Some have argued that the ACIRC initiative was a reaction to the “embarrassment” provoked by the inability of ECOWAS and the AU to launch their own Mali intervention.62 This sentiment had been amplified by the irony that the effective troubleshooter to step in was France, the former colonial power. If the relationship and responsibilities between the AU and the RECs in terms of crisis response remains a matter of uncertainty,63 the launch of the FC-G5S injected a novel dimension into the institutional politics of the APSA. Indeed, the authorization of the FC-G5S by the AU Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council spurred some critical reflections at the level of the AU Commission on the continued relevance of the APSA and the ASF. On the one hand, regional ad hoc coalitions conform to the spirit of collective self-defense of the APSA, boost national capacities to fight organized crime and terrorism, and are therefore welcomed as initiatives to end armed conflict. On the other hand, the FC-G5S did not position itself within the formal APSA. However, regional ad hoc coalitions such as the Regional Joint Task Force against the Lord’s Resistance Army (RCI-LRA), the Multinational Joint Task Force against Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin and now the FC-G5S transcend the geographical and arguably arbitrary boundaries of the RECs/RMs. This calls into question their continued relevance as the building blocks and implementing agents of the APSA. While the threats confronting the G5 Sahel states technically fall within the geographical boundaries of ECOWAS, the West African REC was not consulted in the discussions around the FC-G5S, and ideas about the force were not brought up at any ECOWAS summit,64 suggesting that the G5 Sahel states intentionally sought to bypass ECOWAS. Neither do operations like the FC-G5S conform to the traditional peace-support-operations model envisaged in the ASF, which was officially declared to have achieved full operational capacity in 2015. In fact it led many to

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question why huge investments are still being made in an African rapid reaction capacity.65 In addition, the FC-G5S called into question the political authority of the AU as the continental body responsible for mandating and deploying peace support operations. Yet it must be recognized that without the approval of the PSC and the transmission of the request for the force to be approved by the UN Security Council, it is unlikely the FC-G5S would have been “welcomed” at all by the council. The G5 Sahel states sought PSC authorization to garner political legitimacy, and create a perception that they are still operating within a multilateral framework—something which would be imperative for fundraising purposes. Indeed, donor support is a significant aspect considering the aid dependency of the African security architecture. It was perhaps for this reason that neither the AU nor ECOWAS showed much enthusiasm for the FC-G5S, although the PSC finally approved its concept of operations,66 thus somehow and belatedly appropriating the FC-G5S as a tool of AU-associated conflict resolution. In the uncertain event that the AU and the RECs may no longer impose themselves as the first port of call, competition between the AU, RECs/RMs, and informal ad hoc coalitions becomes a likely prospect.67 If, from a donor perspective, ad hoc coalitions in Africa prove effective, as the MNJTF has shown, European partners and others may see little reason to continue providing financial support to the AU and its APSA.68 In other words, if the FC-G5S and the MNJTF were to come to mark a new and promising trend, and while the AUC insists these are tools that can enhance the APSA, they pose a significant political and institutional challenge to APSA and the ongoing efforts to operationalize the ASF.

Conclusion Mali, and the wider Sahel region, are laboratories for international interventions similar to the Balkans situation during the 1990s and beginning of the 2000s. There are myriad actors and organizations, old and new, and all eager to prove their relevance. Coordination is already a challenge within these multilateral organizations which cover a large geographical space with multinational military forces seeking to deliver ambitious mandates in complex and increasingly hostile mission settings. Coordination between them, their Malian counterparts and the array of other unilateral security actors is therefore a mammoth task. Tensions run on many levels. The UN is in doctrinally uncharted waters, mandated to deploy in parallel to the counter-terrorist Operation Barkhane, and support the counter-terrorism operation of the FC-G5S.

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European states have been eager to participate in MINUSMA, although the result has been a token contribution on the ground. France, which has been perhaps the principal orchestrator, pushing for the successive deployments of MINUSMA, EUTM, EUCAP, and the FC-G5S, has shown little interest in coordination between these operations and Serval/Barkhane. Although all these deployments have been (successive) parts of an exit strategy for Barkhane, its drawdown seems increasingly elusive. In fact, the situation has steadily deteriorated, with security rapidly deteriorating in central Mali, which is likely to become the new strategic focus of a belated crisis response. In Niger, troops from France, the United States, and Germany are deployed, and others are joining the fray. The Mali case thus holds important lessons for the evolving APSA and rapid response on the African continent. Sub-regional organizations like ECOWAS have been the natural building blocks of this architecture, but every crisis will have a unique set of interests crisis-crossing the formal boundaries between these blocs. Ad hoc coalitions have the advantage of gathering the member states that are willing to put their troops in harm’s way. Furthermore, they do not create an inconvenient financial or procedural precedence that may hamper flexibility and selfinterest when the next crisis arises. However, in the longer term, a turn to ad hoc coalitions as the standard modus operandi is likely to undercut interest and funding in the building blocks of APSA, although it may be the investment in these that has created the necessary interoperability, doctrinal frameworks, and training for ad hoc coalitions to be deployed and succeed on the ground. Applying the analytical framework provided by this volume’s editors, we argue that the four phases of the Mali crisis have mostly been marked by dysfunctional competition, with the possible exception of the quick deployment of France and AFISMA at the beginning of 2013. This is due to the continued lack of agreement on the objectives of international deployment, particularly in the case of MINUSMA, with an expectation from the host state, its neighbors, and the AU that the mission should shoulder a greater part of the hard end of the security tasks, and be given a counter-terrorism mandate. In the absence of such a mandate, the FC-G5S has been formed. While it could contribute to a functional burden-sharing of the security tasks on the ground, it also adds to the mutual hampering and dysfunctional competition between sub-regional and regional organizations, as it poses a possible existential threat to the long-term viability of the African Standby Force, the African Peace and Security Architecture as it is currently envisaged, and ultimately the AU.

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Notes 1 Tuareg rebellions against the state were launched between 1963 and 1964, 1990 and 1996, and 2006 and 2009. 2 Susan D. Wing, “A New Hope for Peace, but Old Challenges Remain in Mali,” IPI Global Observatory, 10 March 2015, https://theglobalobservatory. org/2015/03/hope-peace-talks-mali-bamako-unrest; and Grégory Chauzal Thibault van Damme, The Roots of Mali’s Conflict: Moving beyond the 2012 Crisis (The Hague: Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, 2015), www.clingendael.nl/sites/default/files/The_roots_of_ Malis_conflict.pdf. 3 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Transnational Organized Crime in West Africa: A Threat Assessment (Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2013), 37. 4 Marina Caparini, “The Mali Crisis and Responses by Regional Actors,” NUPI Working Paper no. 849, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, 2015, 7. 5 Sten Hagberg and Gabriella Körling, “Socio-Political Turmoil in Mali: The Public Debate Following the Coup d’État on 22 March 2012,” Africa Spectrum 47, nos. 2–3 (2012): 119. 6 Economic Community of West African States, Final Communiqué, 26 April 2012, www.ecowas.int/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/2012-Extr-April1.pdf. 7 African Union, Communiqué, document SC/MIN/DECL.(CCCXIV), 20 March 2012. 8 AU, Communiqué, document PSC/PR/COMM.(CCCXXIII), 12 June 2012, 3. 9 United Nations Security Council, UN document S/RES/2056, 5 July 2012, para. 18. 10 Caparini, “The Mali Crisis and Responses by Regional Actors,” 7–8. 11 Adam M. Fejerskov, Signe Cold-Ravnkilde, and Peter Albrecht, Regional Interests in African Peace Operations (Copenhagen: Danish Institute for International Studies, 2017), 43. 12 UN, Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Mali, UN document S/2012/894, 28 November 2012. 13 UN Security Council, UN document S/RES/2085, 20 December 2012; and Wolfram Lacher and Denis M. Tull, “Mali: Beyond Counterterrorism,” SWP Comments 7, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, 2013. 14 UN Security Council, UN document S/RES/2085, para. 9(b). 15 Nicole Ameline, “A Crescent of Crisis on Europe’s Doorstep: A New North/South Strategic Partnership for the Sahel,” draft report, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Brussels, 10 April 2013, 8; and BBC, “Mali: RAF Surveillance Aircraft Sentinel Deployed,” 25 January 2013, www.bbc. com/news/uk-21200718. 16 Roland Marchal, “Briefing: Military (Mis)Adventures in Mali,” African Affairs 112, no. 448 (2013): 486–497. 17 International Criminal Court, “ICC Prosecutor Opens Investigation into War Crimes in Mali: ‘The Legal Requirements Have Been Met. We Will Investigate,’” press release, 16 January 2013, www.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/icc/press%20a nd%20media/press%20releases/news%20and%20highlights/Pages/pr869.aspx.

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18 UN Security Council, UN document S/RES/2100, 25 April 2013. 19 Ibid., para. 7. 20 UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, Evaluation of Re-Hatting in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), Evaluation Report, Assignment no. IED-18–002, 12 February 2018, 10. 21 UN Security Council, Letter Dated 15 March 2013 from the SecretaryGeneral Addressed to the President of the Security Council, UN document S/2013/163, 15 March 2013, 2. 22 Security Council Report, “Informal Interactive Dialogue on UN Mission in Mali’s Mandate,” What’s in Blue, 10 November 2014, www.whatsinblue. org/2014/11/informal-interactive-dialogue-on-un-mission-in-malis-mandate. php#. 23 AU, Report of the Commission of the African Union on the Follow-up to the Relevant Provisions of the Declaration of the Summit of the Member Countries of the Nouakchott Process of 18 December 2014, 2–4 September 2015, 22. See also Institute for Security Studies (ISS), “PSC Interview: ‘Algiers Agreement a Positive Step Forward for Mali,’” 18 March 2015, https://issafrica.org/pscreport/addis-insights/psc-interview-algiers-agreement -a-positive-step-forward-for-mali. 24 UN Security Council, UN document S/RES/2100, para. 16(a)(ii). 25 Christopher Chivvis, The French War on al Qa’ida in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 6. 26 John Karlsrud, “The UN at War: Examining the Consequences of Peace Enforcement Mandates for the UN Peacekeeping Operations in the CAR, the DRC and Mali,” Third World Quarterly 36, no. 1 (2015): 40–54, and “Towards UN Counter-Terrorism Operations?” Third World Quarterly 38, no. 6 (2017): 1215–1231. 27 UN, “(4a) Fatalities by Mission, Year and Incident Type up to 31 Dec 2017,” 2017, http://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/statsbymissionyea rincidenttype_4a_6.pdf. 28 UN Security Council, UN document S/RES/2295, 29 June 2016, para. 19 (c)(ii). 29 John Karlsrud and Adam C. Smith, “Europe’s Return to UN Peacekeeping in Africa? Lessons from Mali,” Providing for Peacekeeping no. 11, International Peace Institute, New York, 2015; and Joachim A. Koops and Giulia Tercovich, “A European Return to United Nations Peacekeeping? Opportunities, Challenges and Ways Ahead,” International Peacekeeping 23, no. 5 (2016): 597–609. 30 John Karlsrud, The UN at War: Peace Operations in a New Era (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018). 31 Le Monde, “Hollande: l’opération au Mali ‘n’a pas d’autre but que la lutte contre le terrorisme,’” 12 January 2013, www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/ 2013/01/12/la-france-demande-une-acceleration-de-la-mise-en-place-de-la-fo rce-internationale-au-mali_1816033_3212.html; [The Netherlands] Ministry of Defence, “Mali: background,” https://english.defensie.nl/topics/mali/ma li-background; Radio Sweden, “Swedish Troops Could Be Heading for Mali,” 14 February 2014, http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?program id=2054&artikel=5787517; and Rune T. Ege, “Norge sender hysj-soldater

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36 37

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til Mali,” VG, 6 June 2013, www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/forsvaret/norgesender-hysj-soldater-til-mali/a/10117054. UN, Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Mali, UN document S/2017/1105, 26 December 2017. Author interview, Bamako, November 2017. Author interviews, Bamako, November 2017 and January 2018; and Cyril Robinet, “Genèse de la force conjointe du G5 Sahel,” Ultima Ratio Blog, 16 January 2018, http://ultimaratio-blog.org/archives/8650. UN Security Council, UN document S/RES/2359, 21 June 2017; and Jennifer G. Cooke, Boris Toucas, and Katrin Heger, “Commentary: Understanding the G5 Sahel Joint Force: Fighting Terror, Building Regional Security?” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 15 November 2017, www. csis.org/analysis/understanding-g5-sahel-joint-force-fighting-terror-buildingregional-security. AU, Communiqué, document PSC/PR/COMM.(DCLXXIX), 13 April 2017. Alissa de Carbonnel and Robin Emmott, “Donors Pledge $500 Million for Troops in West Africa’s Sahel,” Reuters, 23 February 2018, www.reuters. com/article/us-africa-security-sahel-eu/donors-pledge-500-million-for-troops -in-west-africas-sahel-idUSKCN1G70J7?utm_source=Active+Subscribers& utm_campaign=d393dc07b2-MR_02232018&utm_medium=email&utm_te rm=0_35c49cbd51-d393dc07b2-62626809. The AU has been active in supporting the operationalization of the FC-G5S through its liaison office and political mission, MISAHEL, headed by former president Pierre Buyoya of Burundi. Its visibility is limited to its participation in the follow-up committee of the Algiers peace accord. John Karlsrud, “Mali,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect, ed. Alex Bellamy and Timothy Dunne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 786–800. Arthur Boutellis and Marie-Joëlle Zahar, A Process in Search of Peace: Lessons from the Inter-Malian Agreement (New York: International Peace Institute, 2017); and Natasja Rupesinghe and Morten Bøås, “Local Drivers of Violent Extremism in Central Mali,” UNDP Policy Brief (2018): forthcoming. Addis Ababa: UNDP. The term “peace operation patchwork” is borrowed from Martin Welz and Angela Meyer, “Empty Acronyms: Why the Central African Republic Has Many Peacekeepers, But No Peace,” Foreign Affairs, 24 July 2014. Thomas G. Weiss and Martin Welz, “The UN and the African Union in Mali and Beyond: A Shotgun Wedding?” International Affairs 90, no. 4 (2014): 896. Michelle Ndiaye, “The Relationship between the AU and the RECs/RMs in Relation to Peace and Security in Africa: Subsidiarity and Inevitable Common Destiny,” in The Future of African Peace Operations, ed. Cedric de Coning, Linnea Gelot, and John Karlsrud (London: Zed Books, 2016), 52–64. See more broadly the contributions to that volume. Weiss and Welz, “The UN and the African Union in Mali and Beyond,” 898. AU, Communiqué, document PSC/PR/COMM. (CCCLXXI), 25 April 2013. Walter Lotze, “United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA),” in The Oxford Handbook of UN Peacekeeping Operations, ed. Joachim A. Koops, Norrie MacQueen, Thierry Tardy, and Paul D. Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 854–864;

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50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60 61 62

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and UN, Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Mali, UN document S/2013/189, 26 March 2013. The speeches and interventions of African leaders and officials (AU, ECOWAS, and Mali) during the Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security in Africa (Dakar, Senegal, 13–14 November 2017) provide ample illustrations in this regard. Lori-Anne Theroux-Benoni, Mali in the Aftermath of the French Military Operation: New Opportunities or Back to Square One? ISS Situation Report, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, 25 February 2013, 2. Author interview with former adviser to the transitional government, Bamako, December 2017. Denis M. Tull, “When They Overstay Their Welcome: UN Peacekeepers in Africa,” Journal of International Peacekeeping 17, nos. 3–4 (2013): 179– 200; and Security Council Report, “March 2013 Monthly Forecast: Mali,” 28 February 2012, www.securitycouncilreport.org/monthly-forecast/2013-03 /mali_5.php. Jean-Hervé Jezequel and Hamza Cherbib, “Niger Clash Kills U.S. and Nigerian Troops,” International Crisis Group, 2017, www.crisisgroup.org/a frica/west-africa/niger/niger-clash-kills-us-and-nigerien-troops. Author interviews, Bamako, 2016 and 2017. See Martin Welz, “Rapid Response and Inter-Organizational Competition,” Chapter 6, this volume. Richard Gowan, “Is the Patchwork Approach in the Sahel the Future of Crisis Management?” World Politics Review, 22 January 2018. Denis M. Tull, “Mali, G5 and Security Sector Assistance,” SWP Comments 52, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, December 2017. Other examples include the Force Intervention Brigade included in the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (see Thomas Mandrup, “Multinational Rapid Response Forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Chapter 5, this volume); regional coalitions such as the Regional Joint Task Force against the LRA; and the Multinational Joint Task Force against Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin. See also Linda Darkwa, “Tools in a Toolbox,” Chapter 1, this volume. Karolina Gasinska and Elias Bohman, Joint Force of the Group of Five: A Review of Multiple Challenges (Stockholm: Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOI, 2017). UN Security Council, UN document S/RES/2391, 8 December 2017. Interview, Official, Bamako, January 2018. “Deconfliction” is a military term used to describe the avoidance of a potential clash with non-enemy military operations. UN, Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Mali, UN document S/2017/1105, Annex. See also Darkwa, Chapter 1, this volume. Katharina P. W. Göring, “The Changing ASF Geography: From the Intervention Experience in Mali to the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises and the Nouakchott Process,” African Security (forthcoming). Ndiaye, “The Relationship between the AU and the RECs/RMs”; and Yann Bedzigui, “AU Summit 30: Clearer Lines Are Needed Between the

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AU and RECs,” ISS Today, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, 2018, https://issafrica.org/iss-today/au-summit-30-clearer-lines-are-needed-between -the-au-and-recs. Author interview, Bamako, January 2018. See also Darkwa, Chapter 1, this volume. AU, Communiqué, document PSC/PR/COMM.(DCLXXIX), 13 April 2017. John Karlsrud, “Are UN Peacekeeping Missions Moving Toward ‘Chapter Seven and a Half ’ Operations?” Global Observatory, 12 February 2018, https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/02/peacekeeping-chapter-seven-half. International Crisis Group, “Time to Reset African Union–European Union Relations,” Africa Report nos. 255, 2017, 12 and 23.

8

EU–NATO inter-organizational relations in counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa Ruxandra-Laura Boșilca˘ and Marianne Riddervold

   

The rising threat of piracy and the run-up to NATO and EU maritime operations off the Horn of Africa The first phase: the launch—political competition The second phase: EU–NATO in-theater interaction—tactical and operational cooperation Conclusion: the future of maritime rapid response mechanisms

During the past decade, the rising frequency and intensity of pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden have led to a massive naval mobilization in the Indian Ocean, with over 40 countries engaging in military counter-piracy interventions on a national basis or as part of multinational coalitions.1 Among this multitude of international efforts, regional actors such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) have become central participants in counter-piracy global security governance. Both organizations have been actively involved in the main forum for discussion and coordination to suppress piracy in the region—the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS). Additionally, both have collected and disseminated information on piracy to the wider shipping community through the NATO Shipping Centre (NSC) and the Maritime Security Centre–Horn of Africa (MSCHOA). The two organizations have also participated in the International Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC) and contributed to best management practices (BMPs), while seeking to strengthen maritime capacity-building through different measures, such as NATO’s training and cooperative exercises with regional states, and the EU’s maritime Capacity Building Mission in Somalia (EUCAP Somalia). Last but not least, NATO and the EU launched two of the “big three” naval operations in the area alongside the US-led Combined Task Force 151 (CTF 151), namely Operation Ocean Shield

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(preceded by Operation Allied Provider and Operation Allied Protector), and the European Union Naval Force (EUNAVFOR) Operation Atalanta. As the main building block of the European security architecture, the EU–NATO dyad has been extensively covered in the literature on European security and defense, with various works focusing specifically on counter-piracy.2 Yet, despite this wide scholarly attention devoted to the topic, EU–NATO security dynamics in the counter-piracy realm have been analyzed so far without being linked to the broader issue of crisis response and rapid response mechanisms within the two organizations. This omission is striking considering that the EU–NATO security relations have attracted substantial academic interest, while rapidly deployable multinational forces have been seen as a key component of the EU and NATO toolkit for addressing various crisis scenarios, including in the maritime ambit.3 Moreover, maritime rapid forces are expected to play an increasingly salient role in EU and NATO operations, as well as in the cooperation schemes between the two organizations in general. In the case of the EU, although the maritime dimension of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) is a rather recent policy development, naval forces have been regularly mentioned as essential parts of high-intensity military operations. For example, an EU Maritime Rapid Response Concept was adopted in November 2007 (and revised in January 2015), to enable “the rapid generation of EU maritime assets and capabilities” following the acknowledgement that the early presence of naval forces could significantly enhance the political and military clout of the Union during a crisis.4 Similarly, the EU Global Strategy emphasizes the need for a “more rapid and effective” CSDP, and the EU`s central role in supporting the universal application of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), protecting major global trade routes and rapidly responding to maritime crises.5 To this end, the EU conveys a new sense of confidence, noting that it “will contribute to global maritime security, building on its experience in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, and exploring possibilities in the Gulf of Guinea, the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca.”6 At the sectoral level, the EU Maritime Security Strategy (EUMSS) also stressed the need for enhanced responsiveness and resilience,7 while the corresponding Action Plan mapped out a number of concrete measures, including the assessment of a “possible further improvement of the Rapid Response mechanism for a rapid reaction at sea” to ensure a more timely and

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effective reaction to developments which might impinge on the Union`s strategic interests.8 In a similar vein, NATO’s Alliance Maritime Strategy underscores the importance of maintaining “modern, credible and rapid response joint forces” that would participate in sea control and denial, naval strikes, amphibious operations, command and control for land-based forces, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and a wide range of “crisis or emerging crisis situations.”9A renewed political interest in maritime rapid response capabilities surged after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the growing migration and refugee influx in the Mediterranean, in response to which a Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) was set up within the NATO Response Force (NRF), also including multinational maritime forces able to deploy within just a few days.10 As a relatively recent policy field, counterpiracy hence represents a promising research arena not only for observing EU–NATO interactions and cooperation in this domain, but also for better understanding their inter-organizational relations in crisis management more broadly. To contribute in this regard, the chapter examines the relations between the EU and NATO in their counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa by scrutinizing two interconnected phases of these operations: the political phase comprising the political decision to launch these initiatives; and the tactical phase capturing the in-theater interaction between the EU and NATO. To this end, we address two questions. First, why did European states choose to assign their limited resources to two counter-piracy operations with similar mandates and in the same area? In particular, what accounts for the EU’s decision to launch an autonomous operation in the first place, given NATO’s already established presence in the region and many of the European states’ preference for handling crises through the Alliance? And second, how have the relations between the two organizations unfolded on the ground? The chapter is structured as follows. The next section sets the context for the maritime operations launched by NATO and the EU, providing a brief chronological outline of the ascendancy of piracy as a global economic and security threat, and of the corresponding international response. The following sections contain the main body of the analysis and are organized around the two phases and related questions outlined above. Finally, the concluding section summarizes the key points and distils the main lessons learned. See Table 8.1 below for a timeline of international counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa.

Table 8.1 Timeline of international counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa, 2007–2018 Source: The French Armed Forces Ministry (www.defense.gouv.fr); NATO website (www. NATO. int); EUNAVFOR website (www. eunavfor.eu); CMF website (www.combinedmaritimeforces.com), accessed 15 May 2018.

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The rising threat of piracy and the run-up to NATO and EU maritime operations off the Horn of Africa In the waters off the coast of Somalia, modern-day piracy forcefully emerged as a significant security issue in the mid-1990s, against the backdrop of the collapse of the Siad Barre government in 1991, which threw the country into a full-blown civil war.11 In the absence of an effective central government able to retain control over the territory and patrol its maritime borders, heterogeneous factions, including fishermen, rebel groups, and warlords, exploited the state of lawlessness reigning over Somalia in order to plunder foreign fishing trawlers. The initial assaults were occasional, opportunistic, and rudimentary in technique, often taking the form of mugging executed by small armed groups in rickety skiffs near the shore.12 This, however, changed by the mid-2000s when the “hijack-forransom” model became the main modus operandi of Somali pirates.13 Marking a departure from previous amateur “smash and grab” strategies in which attackers seized the valuable assets aboard and then abandoned the vessels, veteran pirates gradually shifted to professionalized criminal practices driven by the opportunity for rapid illicit gains.14 The new wave of attacks became increasingly sophisticated and dangerous, with pirates using mother ships to launch raids as far as 1,500 nautical miles away from the Somali shore, armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.15 Through these actions, pirates put an increasing strain on the maritime economy, by generating exorbitant expenses related to the payment of ransoms, armed protection, rerouting, and naval deployment, as well as the prosecution and imprisonment of suspects.16 The dire effects of piracy were also exacerbated by the strategic importance of the region: more than 40 percent of global trade passes through the Indian Ocean, while approximately 20,000 vessels navigate the Gulf of Aden yearly, carrying as much as 12 percent of the world’s daily oil supply.17 Around the same time, pirates began hijacking UN World Food Programme (WFP) vessels which transported relief aid to Somalia.18 From 2006 to 2011, both the frequency and geographical range of assaults increased every year.19 In 2007 alone, three WFP vessels were hijacked or attacked.20 Following these events, the WFP called for international assistance to protect its cargo ships, warning that failure to act would result in an aggravated humanitarian crisis. Most warships operating in Somali waters responded by seeking to counter piracy either on an individual basis, or as part of different multinational coalitions, such as the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), particularly through the

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Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150) which had expanded its initial counter-terrorism focus to include a broader category of maritime security operations.21 Other naval contributions evolved from a unilateral initiative into multinational deployments, as in the case of Operation Alcyon, deployed by France in 2007, and then continued by Denmark and The Netherlands in early 2008, followed by Canada in August 2008.22 Notwithstanding these efforts, the need for more forceful and concerted action within the UN framework to curb Somali piracy was increasingly felt after 2008, in the context of the sharp rise in attacks and several high-profile hijackings, such as the raids against the French luxury yacht Le Ponant and the interception of the Spanish tuna fishing boat Playa de Bakio in April that year.23 In addition, the CTF-150 lacked a specific counter-piracy mandate, while the vessel escort operations remained narrow in scope. As a result, France and the United States, supported by the United Kingdom and Panama, circulated a UN Security Council draft resolution which authorized states cooperating with the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia to conduct counter-piracy operations in the territorial waters of the country under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.24 Resolution 1816 was unanimously adopted in June 2008. The text dealt exclusively with piracy and encouraged states to cooperate more closely and share information about pirate attacks; to assist vessels in danger of being attacked or hijacked by pirates; and to conduct maritime capacitybuilding tasks in Somalia and other coastal states in the region, upon the request of these states.25 The resolution also called for all states to work together to investigate and prosecute persons suspected of committing acts of piracy and armed robbery in the Somali seas, according to the relevant provisions of international law.26 Through this resolution and a series of others adopted between May and December that year, the Security Council laid the foundations of a robust legal framework which enabled individual states and multinational coalitions—including the EU and NATO—to engage in counter-piracy operations. Unlike other situations in which NATO and/or the EU were slow and hesitant in their responses to complex emergencies and crises, their reaction to the surge in piracy off the Horn of Africa was surprisingly fast. Soon after the adoption of Resolution 1816 and a direct request from UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon on 25 September 2008, NATO defense ministers agreed to dispatch naval forces to accompany the WFP convoys, as a temporary measure to ensure a smooth transition between Canada’s provision of escorts and the EU’s plans to assume this responsibility.27 On 15 October, assets of the Standing

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NATO Maritime Group Two (SNMG2), which had been scheduled to conduct port visits in the Persian Gulf, were diverted instead to patrol the waters surrounding Somalia.28 The first contribution of NATO’s military forces to the international counter-piracy efforts was Operation Allied Provider (October– December 2008), which protected the vessels transporting humanitarian aid to Somalia, while also deterring acts of piracy and armed robbery in the area. At a later date, NATO decided to resume its military engagement through Operation Allied Protector (March–August 2009), and then through the much longer-lived Operation Ocean Shield (August 2009–December 2016). The Ocean Shield operation included monitoring the shipping activity off the coast of Somalia; preventing, deterring and repressing piracy; and participating in regional capacitybuilding efforts. All NATO member states contributed to the operation, either through common funding or by making available ships and maritime patrol aircraft to NATO Standing Maritime Groups, which allocated a given number of assets to Ocean Shield on a rotational basis. The operational area covered the Gulf of Aden and the western Indian Ocean up to the Strait of Hormuz, summing more than 2 million square miles.29 Operation EUNAVFOR Atalanta, which was still ongoing at the time of writing (May 2018), was formally established by the Council of the EU on 10 November 2008, and deployed in December that year.30 Similar to Ocean Shield, Atalanta was mandated to accompany the WFP vessels to safely deliver humanitarian aid to Somalia; protect merchant ships crossing the area; deter, prevent, and disrupt pirate attacks; arrest, detain, and transfer suspected pirates; and cooperate with third states and organizations in carrying out counter-piracy tasks.31 Conducted within the EU’s intergovernmental security and defense framework, member states contribute forces on a voluntary basis. Most EU states have participated in the operation, alongside third countries such as Norway, Montenegro, Serbia, Ukraine, and New Zealand, while various states, including the United States, Russia, China, and India have provided external support to protect WFP vessels.32 The operation has usually consisted of four to six combat vessels and two to three maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft. It has also operated in a much wider area compared to Ocean Shield: approximately 4.7 million square nautical miles across the south of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and a large part of the Indian Ocean.33 The EU has also been active within Somali territorial and internal waters, which has enabled member states to target the pirates’ onshore supplies, ships and facilities. Moreover, while NATO ships remained subject to national

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control when detaining and transferring suspected pirates, the EU has concluded a number of regional agreements with Kenya and the Seychelles (2009), Mauritius (2011), and Tanzania (2014), which facilitated the rapid transfer of apprehended suspects. Last but not least, whereas in NATO European and US vessels could potentially apply different human rights standards to captured pirates, the EU operation has been strictly bound by a common set of provisions, such as those enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.34

The first phase: the launch—political competition The European states’ decision to launch two operations to curb Somali piracy is puzzling for several reasons. First, given the largely overlapping membership of the EU and NATO and the fact that states only possess a limited number of naval capabilities that can be deployed simultaneously, the launch of an EU operation was politically controversial and met with opposition both in NATO and among EU member states.35 For instance, the United Kingdom was particularly skeptical about naval security cooperation within the EU. Yet, the British fleet eventually not only supported, but also took the operational lead in an EU military crisis management mission off the Horn of Africa. Second, adding to the puzzle, when the EU launched Atalanta, NATO was already militarily engaged in the area. Hence, deploying an autonomous operation with a similar mandate under the EU flag might seem redundant and ineffective at a cursory glance. Third, before launching Atalanta, the EU had acquired little experience in conducting military crisis management operations, and none involving naval capabilities. Thus, what factors have contributed to the member states’ decision to initiate a parallel EU naval operation in the area? In the EU, the issue of piracy entered the official agenda in April 2008 when, following attacks against French and Spanish vessels, ministers of foreign affairs announced in Luxembourg that they “had an exchange of views on Spain’s initiative on ways to contribute, notably in the UN framework, to an international response to prevent and fight against such acts.”36 As a follow-up, France and Spain formulated an initiative to establish an EU naval coordination cell that would harmonize the member states’ unilateral deployments in theater. However, this arrangement represented just a provisional measure, as “France wanted to have something in place as soon as possible” until a full naval mission could be launched during the following months.37 Nevertheless, France had recently participated in three operations in

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Africa and was confronted with steep defense budget cuts, which prevented it from assuming the leadership of a new mission.38 In addition, countries such as Greece, Portugal, The Netherlands, and Sweden expressed their support for the French initiative, yet none of them made a firm commitment to contribute naval assets or to assume command and control responsibilities. The absence of a framework nation possessing strong maritime capabilities to support the operation meant that the EU had to rely on NATO’s assets, which was not a valid option considering France’s preference for a European solution, as well as due to the perennial stand-off between Cyprus and Turkey.39 However, not all member states were in favor of a naval operation under the leadership of the EU. British officials, for example, were surprised by the French drive to set up an autonomous operation without any thorough analysis of costs, coordination with other actors, or control and command aspects, and therefore initially rejected the proposal.40 Instead, and in line with its traditional political attachment, the United Kingdom supported a NATO-led intervention, especially since the organization had already deployed naval assets in the region. As a result, London purposefully delayed the planning process by approximately one month, hoping that France and Spain would eventually abandon their original plans.41 Officials in Paris and Madrid, however, continued to push hard for an EU operation.42 The United Kingdom’s position eventually changed as the idea of an EU naval force gained political traction among member states, with British officials becoming increasingly aware of the need to accommodate Germany and France—the latter being likely to veto a “NATO-only” deployment in the area anyhow.43 As a result, the United Kingdom offered to take the lead in the operation, which enabled it to retain control over subsequent developments and ensure a closer coordination with NATO and the CTF-150.44 This initiative was welcomed by the other member states, as Britain possessed the requisite expertise and credibility to oversee the conduct of the operation, while the Northwood military headquarters facility already hosted NATO’s naval operations.45 The most important factor for understanding the United Kingdom’s support of Atalanta, however, is linked to normative concerns. Even before the idea of Atalanta was envisaged and before NATO’s Allied Provider was launched, British policy-makers had been concerned with finding a way of dealing with captured pirates in accordance with UNCLOS and international human rights laws. This requirement could be best fulfilled inside the EU, which could draw on its development tools to establish agreements with third countries in the region on

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the transfer of captured pirates, guaranteeing fair treatment for apprehended suspects in accordance with their human rights. NATO, in contrast, did not possess such tools, and could therefore not establish the same type of agreements. For many European states, this turned out to be decisive for their choice of mission.46 Other European states sharing similar human rights concerns were rapidly persuaded that the EU represented a particularly suitable venue for carrying out this type of law-enforcement activity in a multilateral setting.47 For instance, aspects related to the operation’s legal framework for dealing with suspected pirates were essential in explaining Germany’s support of Atalanta. According to German law, any involvement of the navy in counter-piracy operations requires a mandate from the lower house of the German federal parliament, the Bundestag. For this reason, other options, such as conducting counter-piracy activities as part of a NATO task force or through the EU coordination center, were dismissed.48 However, the emphasis on the dire humanitarian situation in Somalia, and the certainty that an EU mission would be conducted in full compliance with high human rights standards, led to the Bundestag’s endorsement of the operation and to Germany’s deployment of forces in December 2008.

The second phase: EU–NATO in-theater interaction—tactical and operational cooperation As previously seen, the political decision to launch an EU operation at the expense of strengthening a NATO initiative was controversial among several EU member states. With NATO and the EU often competing for scarce resources, the member states’ decisions to opt for an EU mission were mainly taken on the basis of political and normative considerations. While countries such as Spain, France, Greece, Italy, and Portugal favored a stronger EU maritime security integration, more reluctant member states such as the United Kingdom and Germany supported an EU operation as this was perceived as more legitimate due to its strong emphasis on human rights. Moving forward, what can be said about the relationship between the two organizations in the actual conduct of the operation? Has this been characterized by fierce rivalry, or on the contrary, by close cooperation? For some observers, the two autonomous operations have led to unnecessary duplications, resulting in an institutional “beauty contest” despite declared intentions of burden-sharing and division of labor in protecting the maritime space—which after all had amounted to little

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tangible reciprocal action. For others, however, Ocean Shield was “nothing less than a revolution in how NATO carries out operations in collaboration with others,” including the EU,50 while Atalanta was seen as “an exemplar for maritime cooperation with the other two missions in the area.”51 While the reality lies between these two extremes, overall, the EU and NATO have closely coordinated their actions in theater and have established an effective cooperation to curb piracy. As in numerous other crisis management situations, the EU–NATO liaison was stronger in some areas and weaker in others, varying from tacit coordination, inter-agency cooperation and information sharing, to indirect support. The following sections briefly illustrate these forms of interaction across three different arenas: command and control; deconfliction and information sharing; and finally, capacity-building. Command and control As soon as the issue of piracy climbed the EU member states’ official agenda in April 2008, France and Spain formulated an initiative to establish a naval coordination cell under the EU’s CSDP structure (EU NAVCO) and soon managed to gain the approval of the rest of the EU member states, NATO allies, and other countries with maritime interests in the area, including Australia, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Oman.52 Tasked to support the EU’s surveillance and protection activities in the region, the cell only served coordination purposes, without acting as an operational command center per se; instead, each participating state retained complete control of its warships.53 Specifically, the coordination unit was expected to fulfill three tasks: protect the WFP convoys transporting aid relief to Somalia; escort the vulnerable vessels passing through the Gulf of Aden, where France wanted to eradicate the epicenter of pirate activity; and monitor the fishing areas along the southern coasts of Somalia, which were of particular interest to Spain.54 However, once the United Kingdom assumed leadership of the operation, the coordination duties were transferred to Northwood (which, as mentioned above, already hosted NATO’s naval forces) in December 2008. Although the operational commands of Atalanta and Ocean Shield remained formally separated, the common headquarters facilitated coordination, preventing “unnecessary—and expensive—duplication of command structure,” as well as an overly intricate counter-piracy architecture.55 Informal settings, such as the shared officers’ mess, also eased the exchange of counterpiracy information among naval staff.56 In addition, the headquarters

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were strategically located in close proximity to the shipping industry in London, which ensured strong liaisons with the Chamber of Shipping and a good knowledge of the industry’s position on counter-piracy activities.57 Deconfliction and information sharing Given the multitude of national and multinational efforts to counter and repress piracy in the region, close coordination and cooperation of forces under different command structures was vital. For this purpose, several UN Security Council resolutions called upon states and regional organizations to conduct their counter-piracy activities off Somalia “in cooperation with each other, the IMO [International Maritime Organization], the international shipping community, flag states, and the TFG.”58 As a result, different international cooperation and coordination mechanisms have been established, in which both the EU and NATO have been actively involved. The Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia was set up in 2009 as the main site of counter-piracy governance in the region, bringing together a multitude of states, international organizations, industry representatives, naval operations, and Somali authorities in an ad-hoc international forum.59 For two consecutive years (2014 and 2015), the EU chaired the group, which enabled the Union to raise its international profile to match its development and capacity-building contribution to the Horn of Africa.60 Similarly, representatives from NATO have participated in the CGPCS meetings, including after Operation Ocean Shield ended in December 2016. Alongside the CMF, EUNAVFOR and NATO have also cochaired on a rotational basis the Shared Awareness and Deconfliction (SHADE) group which has coordinated and de-conflicted the counterpiracy activities carried out by states and coalitions in the Gulf of Aden since 2008.61 In order to protect shipping in the region, EU member states have moreover launched various initiatives, such as the Maritime Security Centre Horn of Africa and the Mercury chat system—web platforms which monitor shipping traffic, communicate anti-piracy guidance in real time, and enable the immediate exchange of operational communication among all navies participating in counter-piracy efforts. In addition, the EU has been actively involved in the elaboration of a set of best management practices to ensure the protection of the shipping industry against Somali piracy, as well as in the introduction of the “Group Transits,” which facilitate vessels’ safe passage through the

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IRTC. Moreover, in 2012, the EU activated its first Operations Centre (EU OPCEN) to streamline coordination, information exchange, and civil–military cooperation among its three CSDP operations in the Horn of Africa.63 In December 2014, the scope of the Operations Centre was extended to the entire Sahel region, and three other CSDP missions in Mali and Niger were added. Since then, the EU’s multidimensional engagement in the region has been coordinated by a special representative for the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on Somalia and the issue of piracy. While lacking a similar degree of integration, NATO also maintained a close relationship with the international shipping community, through NSC, which provided updated information on alerts and warnings, regular piracy assessments, and news about related conferences and workshops.64 In general, the EU–NATO exchange of operational information and coordination in theater has been considered effective, evident not least in the close cooperation in the use of capabilities, such as the Maritime Patrol Aircraft, in locating major piracy “hot spots,” and in undertaking coordinated actions to protect vulnerable shipping and apprehend suspected pirates.65 For this purpose, the EU and NATO harmonized their efforts in mounting various naval patrols and organizing a safe transit corridor in the Gulf of Aden (coordinated by EUNAVFOR Somalia). Due to the EU’s transfer agreements with third countries in the region, NATO also handed over suspected pirates to the Union for transport to countries where they could be tried for their crimes.66 In other words, ships sailing under the EU and NATO flags, respectively, have operated side by side, sometimes almost as if they were part of a single mission. 62

Capacity-building: a comprehensive approach to piracy and maritime insecurity off the Horn of Africa While naval deployments provided a short-term response to the attacks plaguing the waters off the coast of Somalia, piracy represents a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon requiring a sustainable commitment to political stabilization and socio-economic development in close coordination with individual states, multinational coalitions, international and regional organizations, the shipping industry, and Somali authorities.67 In principle, both the EU and NATO agreed that an effective counter-piracy strategy involved a holistic mix of instruments, as well as cooperation with a wide network of actors, both offshore and on land. However, they have held somewhat different perspectives on the actual scope of such an approach.

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Operation Atalanta is embedded in what the European External Action Service (EEAS) depicts as “a comprehensive approach to Somalia,” based on a combination of political, diplomatic, military, legal, and development efforts which aim to address “both the current symptoms and root causes of the problem.”68 As a result, the EU has supported a wide array of initiatives in the region in areas such as humanitarian aid, development assistance, political dialogue, security sector reform, capacity-building, law enforcement and governance, as well as military and civilian training through its EUTM Somalia and its EUCAP Nestor/EUCAP Somalia missions.69 For its part, NATO also acknowledged the need for a comprehensive approach, striving for a “lasting maritime security solution off the Horn of Africa.”70 As explained by Admiral Stavridis, at the time NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, piracy “is a complex problem that will not be solved at sea alone,” which meant that naval forces were limited in their actions and could only “treat the symptoms there.”71 Despite this rhetoric, NATO retained a rather limited role in counter-piracy, usually confined to “discussions, delegation visits, and exercise observations” accompanied by various “training programs and cooperative exercises.”72 While NATO member states undertook such measures as part of the international efforts to end piracy, their regional capacity-building activities could be best described as “limited and focused,” and carried out within scarce “means and capabilities.”73 After all, NATO lacks the EU’s flexibility and rich toolkit in smallscale, complex interventions which entail a mix of military, political, humanitarian, development and legal instruments. In addition, NATO does not enjoy the same degree of legitimacy and support as the EU in the politically sensitive region of Africa.74 Despite these existing differences, both NATO and the EU have cooperated closely within Working Group 1 of the CGPCS, together with other actors establishing regional priorities for capacity-building.75 Another evocative example of EU–NATO cooperation at the international political level was the creation of a “Training Awareness and Deconfliction” mechanism (TRADE) in 2010, co-chaired by NATO and EUNAVFOR, which coordinated the maritime training capabilities of providing states in the Western Indian Ocean.76

Conclusion: the future of maritime rapid response mechanisms This chapter set out to explore the inter-organizational relations between NATO and the EU in their efforts to combat piracy off the Horn of Africa. Distinguishing between two distinct phases of Ocean

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Shield and Atalanta—their launch and their operational interaction— the analysis indicates that while at the political level, EU–NATO relations were initially marked by a sense of competition and duplication, at the operational level their cooperation has been effective. Despite a turbulent start due to concerns related to their overlapping mandates and resources, NATO and the EU have succeeded in accomplishing their tasks off the Horn of Africa. Indeed, from a total of 18 recorded hijackings and 67 attacks in 2009, the number plummeted to one attack and two incidents in 2013, which suggests a strong record for both counter-piracy operations.77 Whereas in 2011, at the apex of piratical activity, 736 hostages were held and 32 ships were hijacked, no hostages and ships were recorded in 2016.78 The initiatives are also considered success stories by the European states themselves. For instance, when NATO decided to end Ocean Shield in December 2016, following the drastic reduction of incidents and mounting pressures on its naval assets, it announced the completion of one of its “most successful ever operations.”79 In a similar vein, nine years after its deployment, Atalanta has protected all WFP and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) shipments into the country, has transferred suspected pirates for prosecution to third states in the region, and has conducted a number of rescue missions off Somalia, in addition to its broader deterrence and protection tasks. As one report issued by the House of Lords of the United Kingdom concluded, it is “widely recognized that Operation Atalanta has been a success.”80 In terms of the four ideal types of inter-organizational relations set out in the Introduction to this volume, EU–NATO relations have moved from mutual hampering to fruitful cooperation. While the initial political phase was characterized by “inter-organizational competition … and overlap”, the subsequent operational phase was defined by a situation of “inter-organizational cooperation with elements of inter-organizational dysfunction, competition and overlap, but where stated objectives are reached with an acceptable level of use of material, human and financial resources, positively affecting the legitimacy of the organizations involved.”81 In the case of the EU and NATO’s counter-piracy operations, cooperation has clearly facilitated effective responsiveness.82 These findings have several broader implications. First, they contribute to a more accurate grasping of the inter-organizational aspects of military rapid response mechanisms, an area that, as John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers discuss in their Introduction to this volume, has so far remained largely unaddressed. The present chapter adds further to this debate by suggesting that both the political and the operational level

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should be taken into account when exploring inter-organizational security relations, including rapid response operations. While our analysis on the one hand confirms previous conclusions indicating an increasing level of political competition between the two organizations—not least due to the fact that the EU is gradually becoming a stronger and more independent security actor—on the other hand it shows that their in-theater level relations have been effective. After all, the military personnel often attend the same schools and training programs, regularly meet within EU and NATO frameworks, and the same ships frequently participate in operations under the aegis of both organizations. Referring to Heidi Hardt’s work on the factors that facilitate or hamper the speed of military deployments, one might therefore argue that “the strength of personal relationships, social networks, and norms” are essential not only for understanding a fast or slow deployment of forces but also for offering a closer glimpse into the efficiency of inter-organizational cooperation during such operations.83 The “fruitful cooperation” established to deal with piracy might also affect the prospect of future rapid reaction cooperation between the two organizations, as the repeated interactions create a sense of mutual trust, consolidate cooperation channels, and increase interoperability in future rapid response deployments.84 Whereas these findings support the claim that a strong element of “ad hocism” persists in the launch of international missions, the interorganizational cooperation might actually become stronger over time due to informal norms and bonds. Whether such cooperation in the case of the EU and NATO will formalize remains to be answered. At present, EU–NATO relations are one of the key issues being discussed as the EU moves further with its foreign and security policy integration in light of numerous crises such as Brexit and a US administration urging European member states to take more responsibility for their own security.85 Second, our findings challenge the conventional assumption that the EU is first and foremost a civilian crisis-management actor, with NATO representing the European states’ preferred platform for military cooperation.86 The fact that the EU was considered better equipped to address the issue of piracy suggests that it might also remain a salient venue for dealing with complex global security tasks in the future, despite the rupture in European integration brought by Brexit. Although it is still too early to anticipate the outcomes of the negotiation process, the United Kingdom has already expressed its interest in working closely with the EU in the areas of foreign affairs, security and defense, which also entails lending support to the EU’s military

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rapid reaction missions. Compared to NATO, the EU is endowed with a more diverse and complex array of tools, and might in many cases enjoy a greater degree of legitimacy in sensitive political contexts—while enabling member states to pursue particular foreign policy goals.88 Finally, a third implication is that the changing maritime security environment, coupled with the expansive political ambitions of the EU and NATO in the maritime domain, might suggest a rising importance of maritime rapid forces in the future. On the one hand, the two organizations are confronted with myriad security challenges both in their immediate neighborhood and beyond, ranging from regional militarization, instability, restrictions on the freedom of navigation, conflict escalation, and violations of international law, to emergent menaces including mass migration, trafficking and smuggling, piracy and armed robbery, pollution and climate change, overfishing, and energy insecurity.89 On the other hand, within the past decade, the EU and NATO have asserted their global ambitions in maritime affairs, by expanding their portfolio of security tasks, adopting maritime security strategies, and launching naval operations in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. Taken together, these swift and sweeping changes point to an increasingly active participation of both organizations in addressing regional and global maritime crises—which are also likely to require credible and robust rapid reaction forces.

Notes 1 World Bank, The Pirates of Somalia: Ending the Threat, Rebuilding a Nation (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013), xxi. 2 Basil Germond and Michael Smith, “Re-thinking European Security Interests and the ESDP: Explaining the EU’s Anti-Piracy Operation,” Contemporary Security Policy 30, no. 3 (2009): 573–593; Andrew Muratore, “EU–NATO Cooperation and the Pirates of the Gulf of Aden,” Australian Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs 2, no. 2 (2010): 90–102; Marianne Riddervold, “Finally Flexing Its Muscles? Atalanta: The European Union’s Naval Military Operation against Piracy,” European Security 20, no. 3 (2011): 385–404, and “New Threats—Different Response: EU and NATO and Somali Piracy,” European Security 23, no. 4 (2014): 546– 564; and Carmen Gebhard and Simon Smith, “The Two Faces of EU– NATO Cooperation: Counter-Piracy Operations off the Somali Coast,” Cooperation and Conflict 50, no. 1 (2015): 107–127. 3 On EU–NATO relations, see, e.g., Jolyon Howorth, “ESDP and NATO: Wedlock or Deadlock?” Cooperation and Conflict 38, no. 3 (2003): 235– 254; Simon Duke, “The Future of EU–NATO Relations: A Case of Mutual Irrelevance through Competition?” Journal of European Integration

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12 13

14 15

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30, no. 1 (2008): 27–43; Johannes Varwick and Joachim A. Koops, “The European Union and NATO: ‘Shrewd Interorganizationalism’ in the Making?” in The European Union and International Organizations, ed. Knud Erik Jørgensen (London: Routledge, 2009), 101–130; Simon Smith, “EU–NATO Cooperation: A Case of Institutional Fatigue?” European Security 20, no. 2 (2011): 243–264; Nina Græger and Kristin Haugevik, “EU–NATO Relations,” in Routledge Handbook on the European Union and International Institutions, ed. Knud Erik Jørgensen and Katie Verlin Laatikainen (London: Routledge, 2013), 259–270; and Margriet Drent, “EU–NATO Relations in Crisis Management Operations: The Practice of Informality,” in Managing Crises, Making Peace: Towards a Strategic EU Vision for Security, ed. Maria R. Freire and Maria G. Galantino (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 91–110. Council of the European Union, EU Maritime Rapid Response Concept, document 15294/07, 15 November 2007, Art. 4. European External Action Service, “A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy: ‘Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe,’” June 2016. Ibid., 41. Council of the European Union, European Union Maritime Security Strategy, document 11205/14, 24 June 2014. Council of the European Union, European Union Maritime Security Strategy (EUMSS): Action Plan, document17002/14, 16 December 2014, Art. 1.5. NATO, Alliance Maritime Strategy, 18 March 2011. Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), “NATO Response Force/Very High Readiness Joint Task Force,” 2016, https://shape.nato.int/ nato-response-force–very-high-readiness-joint-task-force; and Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning, “NATO Response Force,” in Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms: Inter-Organizational Cooperation and Competition, ed. John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Gary E. Weir, “Fish, Family and Profit,” in Piracy and Maritime Crime: Historical and Modern Case Studies, ed. Bruce A. Ellerman, Andrew Forbes, and David Rosenberg (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 2011), 207–222. Jay Bahadur, The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World (New York: Pantheon Books, 2011). International Expert Group on Piracy off the Somali Coast, Final Report: Workshop Commissioned by the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the UN to Somalia Ambassador Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, 10–21 November 2008. Ibid. World Shipping Council, “Piracy,” 2016, www.worldshipping.org/indus try-issues/security/piracy; and Pascal Le Pautremat, “Forces spéciales contre piraterie: entre dissuasion et coercition,” Sécurité globale 1, no. 7 (2009): 49–60. World Bank, The Pirates of Somalia. Denis Rumley and Timothy Doyle, eds., Indian Ocean Regionalism (London: Routledge, 2015); Safety4Sea, “EUNAVFOR and NATO Work

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19 20 21 22

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24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

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Together to Apprehend Twelve Suspect Pirates,” 2013, https://safety4sea. com/eunavfor-and-nato-work-together-to-apprehend-twelve-suspect-pirates; and James Kraska and Brian Wilson, “Combating Piracy in International Waters,” World Policy, 23 February 2011, www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2011/ 02/23/combatting-piracy-international-waters. Emma Quinn, “Logistics for Food Assistance: Delivering Innovations in Complex Environments,” in Revolution: From Food Aid to Food Assistance, ed. Steven Omamo, Ugo Gentilini, and Susanna Sandström (Rome: WFP, 2010), 307–328. Edward R. Lucas, “Somalia’s ‘Pirate Cycle’: The Three Phases of Somali Piracy,” Journal of Strategic Security 1, no. 6 (2013): 55–63. Martin Penner, “Two New Piracy Incidents Underline Threat to WFP Shipments,” WFP, 15 April 2009, www.wfp.org/stories/two-new-piracy-inci dents-underline-threat-wfp-shipments. Combined Maritime Forces, “CTF 150: Maritime Security,” 2018, www. combinedmaritimeforces.com/ctf-150-maritime-security. Government of France, Ministère des Armées, “L’action de la France dans la lutte contre la piraterie,” 12 July 2010, www.defense.gouv.fr/operations/ operations/piraterie/dossier-de-presentation-des-operations/l-action-de-la-fra nce-dans-la-lutte-contre-la-piraterie. Ruxandra Bos¸ilca˘ , “An EU Maritime Security Policy in the Making: The Case of Military CSDP Operations at Sea,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo and the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, 2017. US Secretary of State, “United Nations Security Resolution on Somali Piracy,” Wikileaks, 5 May 2008. UN Security Council, Resolution 1816, 2 June 2008, paras. 3–5. Ibid., para. 11. CNN, “NATO Sending Ships to Tackle Somali Pirates,” 9 October 2008, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/10/09/pirates.nato/index.html. NATO, “Counter-Piracy Operations,” 19 December 2016, www.nato.int/cp s/en/natohq/topics_48815.htm. NATO, “Operation Ocean Shield: Fact Sheet,” March 2012, www.nato.int/ nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_topics/20120405_120405-operation-oceanshield.pdf. EEAS, “EUNAVFOR Somalia: Mission,” 2017, http://eunavfor.eu/mission. Council of the European Union, Council Joint Action 2008/749/CFSP of 19 September 2008 on the European Union Military Coordination Action in Support of UN Security Council Resolution 1816 (2008) (EU NAVCO), document L 252/39, 20 September 2008, Art. 2. Ricardo Gosalbo-Bono and Sonja Boelaert, “The European Union’s Comprehensive Approach to Combating Piracy at Sea: Legal Aspects,” in The Law and Practice of Piracy at Sea: European and International Perspectives, ed. Panos Koutrakos and Achilles Skordas (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2014), 90. EEAS, “EUNAVFOR Somalia: Mission.” Frederick Lorenz and Laura Eshbach, “Transfer of Suspected and Convicted Pirates,” in Prosecuting Maritime Piracy: Domestic Solutions to International Crimes, ed. Michael P. Scharf, Michael A. Newton, and Milena Sterio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 150–171.

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35 Riddervold, “New Threats—Different Response.” 36 Council of the European Union, Council Joint Action 2008/749/CFSP of 19 September 2008. 37 US Embassy to France, “Somalia: UNSC Sanctions and Piracy,” Wikileaks, 15 September 2008. 38 Maria Hellman, “Assuming Great Power Responsibility: French Strategic Culture and International Military Operations,” in European Participation in International Operations: The Role of Strategic Culture, ed. Malena Britz (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 23–48. 39 US Mission to the EU, “EU Preparing for Piracy Mission: No Plan for Captured Pirates,” Wikileaks, 17 November 2008. 40 Author interview with staff at EEAS, 19 February 2018. 41 Niklas Nováky, “Deploying Military Force under CSDP: The Case of EU NAVFOR Atalanta,” paper presented at the 2012 UACES Annual Conference, Passau, Germany, 3–5 September 2012. 42 Riddervold, “New Threats—Different Response.” 43 Tim Butcher, “Somali Pirates Try to Seize British Ship,” The Telegraph, 18 November 2008. 44 Nováky, “Deploying Military Force under CSDP.” 45 House of Lords, EU Committee. “Combating Somali Piracy: the EU`s Naval Operation Atalanta,” 12th Report of 2009–10, London, 6 April 2010. 46 Riddervold, “New Threats—Different Response.” 47 Ibid. 48 Nováky, “Deploying Military Force under CSDP.” 49 Bjoern Seibert, “Avoiding the Institutional ‘Beauty Contest’ in Countering Piracy,” Commentary, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), 15 December 2008; and Madeleine Moon, NATO and the Future of Naval Power, Defence and Security Committee, NATO Parliamentary Assembly, document 162 DSCFC 16 E rev.1 fin, 19 November 2016. 50 Christian Bueger, “NATO’s Fight against Somali Pirates: The End of an Unsung Success Story,” 21 December 2016, http://piracy-studies.org/natosfight-against-somali-pirates-the-end-of-an-unsung-success-story. 51 Government of the United Kingdom, House of Lords, Turning the Tide on Piracy, Building Somalia’s Future: Follow-Up Report on the EU’s Operation Atalanta and Beyond, 3rd Report of Session 2012–13, 2012, Q 67. “Q” refers to a question in oral evidence. 52 Carme Chacón, Comparecencia de la ministra de Defensa, Carme Chacón, ante el Pleno del Congreso para solicitar la participación de España en la Operación “Atalanta,” Madrid, 21 January 2009. 53 Council of the European Union, Council Joint Action 2008/749/CFSP of 19 September 2008. 54 US Embassy to France, “Somalia: UNSC Sanctions and Piracy.” 55 Seibert, “Avoiding the Institutional ‘Beauty Contest’ in Countering Piracy.” 56 Sarah Percy, “Counter-Piracy in the Indian Ocean: Networks and Multinational Military Cooperation,” in The New Power Politics: Networks and Transnational Security Governance, ed. Deborah Avant and Oliver Westerwinter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 251. 57 Government of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, Tenth Report of Session 2010–12, 2012, Ev. 62. “Ev.” refers to an evidence page number within the document.

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58 UN Security Council, Resolution 1816. 59 Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia, “Lessons from Piracy,” 2017, www.lessonsfrompiracy.net. 60 European External Action Service, “EU 2014 Chairmanship Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia,” 2014, https://eeas.europa.eu/ headquarters/headquarters-homepage/8457/eu-2014-chairmanship-contact-g roup-piracy-coast-somalia_en 61 Oceans Beyond Piracy, “Shared Awareness and Deconfliction (SHADE),” 2017, http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/matrix/shared-awareness-and-deconflic tion-shade. 62 Maritime Security Centre—Horn of Africa, “About Us,” 2016, www. mschoa.org/on-shore/about-us. 63 Council of the European Union, Council Decision 2012/173/CFSP of 23 March 2012 on the Activation of the EU Operations Centre for the Common Security and Defence Policy Missions and Operations in the Horn of Africa, document L 89/66, 27 March 2012. 64 Oceans Beyond Piracy, “NATO Shipping Centre (NSC),” 2017, http://ocea nsbeyondpiracy.org/matrix/nato-shipping-centre-nsc. 65 EEAS, “Unity of Effort between EU and NATO in Counter Piracy,” 13 December 2011, http://eunavfor.eu/unity-of-effort-between-eu-and-nato-incounter-piracy; and Safety4Sea, “EUNAVFOR and NATO Work Together to Apprehend Twelve Suspect Pirates.” 66 Basil Germond and Michael E. Smith, “Re-thinking European Security Interests and the ESDP: Explaining the EU’s Anti-piracy Operation,” Contemporary Security Policy 30, no. 3 (2009): 573–593. 67 Kraska and Wilson,“Combating Piracy in International Waters.” 68 EEAS, “EUNAVFOR Somalia: Mission.” 69 Ibid. 70 Mail and Guardian, “NATO Launches New Anti-Piracy Drive off Somalia,” 17 August 2009, https://mg.co.za/article/2009-08-17-nato-launches-new -antipiracy-drive-off-somalia. 71 Jim Stavridis, “Comprehensive Approach to Countering Piracy,” blog post, United States European Command (EUCOM), 3 October 2011, www. eucom.mil/media-library/blogpost/22644/comprehensive-approach-to-count ering-piracy. 72 James Bridger, “Safe Seas at What Price? The Costs, Benefits and Future of NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield,” NATO Research Paper no. 95, September 2013, 5. 73 Michel Soula, “Regional Capacity Building in Countering Maritime Terrorism and Piracy: Influence to Future Maritime Interdiction Operations,” paper presented at NATO Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Centre (NMIOTC) Annual Conference, 28–30 June 2011. 74 Government of the United Kingdom, House of Lords, Turning the Tide on Piracy, Building Somalia’s Future, 37. 75 Soula, “Regional Capacity Building in Countering Maritime Terrorism and Piracy.” 76 Oceans Beyond Piracy, “Training Awareness and Deconfliction,” 2018, http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/matrix/training-awareness-and-deconflictiontrade. 77 Moon, NATO and the Future of Naval Power.

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78 Ibid. 79 NATO, “NATO Concludes Successful Counter-Piracy Mission,” 15 December 2016, www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_139420.htm. 80 Government of the United Kingdom, House of Lords, Turning the Tide on Piracy, Building Somalia’s Future, 10. 81 John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers, “Introduction,” this volume. 82 Yf Reykers and John Karlsrud, “Conclusion,” this volume. 83 Heidi Hardt, “Time to React: The Efficiency of International Organizations in Crisis Response” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 198, cited in Karlsrud and Reykers, “Introduction,” this volume. 84 Yf Reykers and John Karlsrud, “Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms: Past Promises and Future Prospects,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 420–426. 85 Marianne Riddervold and Akasemi Newsome, “Transatlantic Relations in Times of Uncertainty: Crises and EU–US Relations,” introduction to special issue of Journal of European Integration (forthcoming, October 2018). 86 Riddervold, “New Threats—Different Response.” 87 Government of the United Kingdom (HM Government), “Foreign Policy, Defence and Development: A Future Partnership Paper,” September 2017, 18–19, www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fi le/643924/Foreign_policy_defence_and_development_paper.pdf. 88 Riddervold, “New Threats—Different Response.” 89 Timo Behr, E. Brattberg, J. Kallio, M. Aaltola, C. Salonius-Pasternak, A. Raspotnik, and M. Salonen, “The Maritime Dimension of CSDP: Geostrategic Maritime Challenges and their Implications for the European Union,” Study of the European Parliament, Director-General for External Policies, document PE 433.839, January 2013.

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Conclusion Military rapid response—from institutional investment to ad hoc solutions John Karlsrud and Yf Reykers

   

Institutionalized rapid response mechanisms Rapid response in practice Institutional exploitation and ad hocism General conclusion and future research

While there has been a mushrooming of institutional arrangements for military rapid response, the formal deployments of the rapid response mechanisms of the African Union (AU), European Union (EU), and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are few and far between. Since the dissolution of the Standby High Readiness Brigade (SHIRBRIG), the United Nations (UN) does not even have an available rapid response capacity anymore. This edited volume started from the puzzling observation that despite this operational near-standstill, there have been few efforts undertaken to date to bring together insights on the obstacles to deployment and to compare between these organizations.1 Neither has there been much scholarly attention to issues of inter-organizational cooperation and competition in the field in this increasingly institutionalized domain of military rapid response. This is clearly a missed opportunity, both in terms of cross-learning for overcoming shared obstacles and for assessing the future of military rapid response. The growing awareness of the necessity of rapidly responding to emerging crises, for protecting the lives of vulnerable populations but equally for protecting borders, and subsequent efforts to generate rapid response capacities, has resulted in a dense web of inter-organizational practice and relations. This volume has offered one of the first comprehensive and comparative contributions on military rapid response mechanisms to date by providing an assessment of the institutionalized mechanisms for rapid response (in Chapters 1–4) and the inter-organizational relations that shape crisis responses in practice (Chapters 5–8).

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We believe that the findings in this volume are of value to academics, students, and policymakers interested in the rapid response capacities of the AU, EU, NATO, and UN. Obstacles to deployment, such as voluntary standby frameworks, dysfunctional consensus arrangements, or unfair burden-sharing provisions, are common to each of these organizations. By means of this comprehensive effort, this volume has aimed to contribute to the knowledge gap on shared obstacles and mutual benefits of the existing and developing rapid response mechanisms, ultimately with the goal of contributing to interorganizational learning in order to achieve credible, deployable, and effective rapid response mechanisms. But this volume’s relevance also goes beyond the niche of military rapid response. The institutional proliferation on rapid response that has emerged over the past few decades has inherently set in motion inter-organizational dynamics, though not necessarily to the benefit of rapid intervention in emerging or escalating crises. Moving beyond the binary divide between cooperation and competition that has guided much of the literature on inter-organizational relations, we have introduced a new typology composed of four categories, ranging from mutual cooperation and synergy at one end of the scale to dysfunctional competition at the other: (1) mutual enhancement, (2) fruitful cooperation, (3) mutual hampering, and (4) dysfunctional competition. While examples of each of these categories were noticeable in the interorganizational responses to the conflicts in the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the anti-piracy activities in the Indian Ocean, the case studies in this volume strikingly illustrate how international and (sub-)regional organizations manage to set up international interventions that often not only hamper an effective rapid response, but sometimes engage in dysfunctional competition in conflict settings.

Institutionalized rapid response mechanisms Chapters 1–4 of this book brought together the rapid response mechanisms of the AU, EU, NATO, and UN. By doing so, the authors have offered unique insights in terms of identifying shared obstacles and mutual benefits, filling a critical knowledge gap. Shared obstacles Three key obstacles have hindered (nearly) all of the existing rapid response mechanisms to be deployed: a lack of political will to put

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one’s troops at risk, uneven funding provisions, and dysfunctional decision-making and command structures. First, most of the discussed rapid response mechanisms have been built upon voluntary troop commitments by their member states. As voluntarism probably will prevail, actual deployment will continue to remain dependent upon the political will of the standby nations, not only to simply commit standby troops on paper but ultimately also to put their troops at risk when a crisis emerges. As a result, deployment of most of the discussed rapid response mechanisms depends on a rather unlikely match between the interests of the standby nations and the conflict at hand. The increasingly prominent fight against terrorism in Africa is in that sense considered a key obstacle for the future of the African Standby Force (ASF). The high human and financial costs that come with addressing these new security challenges make responses all the more dependent upon those states that are under imminent threat or that see core interests at stake, as shown by Linda Darkwa in Chapter 1. Also the reluctance of EU Battlegroup standby nations to deploy their troops to Mali or the CAR were clear illustrations of this lack of political willingness. Moreover, both the EU and NATO have experienced great difficulties in getting member states to commit troops, resulting in gaps in the standby schemes. It is in that sense an interesting observation by Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning in Chapter 2 that the NATO Response Force has revived since the alliance refocused on one of its core tasks— providing deterrence against (potential) violent peers at its borders, a goal which most Eastern European NATO member states can more easily identify with themselves than with an expeditionary mindset focused on seemingly distant conflicts. Overall, there is an increasing awareness of the problematic character of the voluntary basis upon which these mechanisms are built, as illustrated by the adoption of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) agreements in the EU, which imply a move away from this strictly voluntary nature towards more (legally) binding commitments. Despite these efforts, a gap will always remain between (publicly) committing troops and taking the political risk of actually putting one’s troops at risk when necessary, as Joachim Koops and Alexandra Novosseloff stressed in Chapter 4, discussing a UN “Vanguard Force.” The second key obstacle is that the funding provisions of most of these rapid response mechanisms do not reflect a fair system of burden-sharing. The dominant “costs lie where they fall” principle, such as in the EU and NATO, inhibits rather than facilitates deployment. It implies that standby nations not only have to carry the burden

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of the political costs of putting their troops at risk, but also have to cover most of the financial costs. Likewise, the AU’s dependence upon funding from third actors is hardly sustainable, necessitating solutions for greater financial autonomy. Although these flawed funding provisions are a commonly recognized obstacle to deployment, proposals for alternative funding formulas have to date always been unsuccessful. Reflecting on the future of the ASF, Darkwa therefore made a case for a more predictable funding system of UN-assessed contributions as an acknowledgment of the contribution of AU missions to international peace and security, balanced by the weak commitment of increased self-funding by African member states, although self-funding is undergoing a slight increase.2 Overall, the dependence upon scarce human, material, and financial resources raises the importance of the presence of lead nations. Strong states with considerable defense budgets and military capabilities, politically willing to carry the bulk of the costs, are indispensable for the deployment of each of these mechanisms. Third, dysfunctional decision-making rules, bureaucratic red tape and incomplete command and control structures have repeatedly obstructed actual deployment. Decision-making built on consensus or unanimity voting arrangements, such as in NATO and the EU, give single member states the opportunity to slow down or even paralyze an organizational response. Deviant opinions or diverging strategic interests, even of marginal member states, can in that sense become a liability to any deployment decision. In addition, ambiguity about command and control structures is inherent to intergovernmental mechanisms. Problems of authority have arisen in each of these organizations, and delegating command and control authority to the multinational level remains a contentious issue. Ringsmose and Rynning have in that regard pointed at discussions on granting NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) deployment authority or upgrading the North Atlantic Council’s ability to anticipate crises, while in Chapter 2 Yf Reykers highlighted the continuing disagreement among EU members on a European permanent command and control structure. SHIRBRIG was a promising and thought-provoking exercise in that regard, as shown in Chapter 4. Serving as a rapidly deployable headquarters integrated into UN missions and command, it was in some sense even way ahead of where, for instance, the EU is at this point. Unfortunately, since SHIRBRIG’s dissolution in 2009, progress in terms of the rapid provision of an effective command and control structure at the UN level has been slow. It should, however, be noted that inter-organizational relations can meanwhile also serve as a driver

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to overcome institutional shortcomings like these, as illustrated by NATO making available its command and control structures to the EU through the Berlin Plus Agreement. Mutual benefits Despite these deficiencies and their lack of deployment, the authors in this volume agree that the AU Standby Force, the EU Battlegroups, the NATO Response Force, and the UN SHIRBRIG should not necessarily be treated as outright failures (the UN Vanguard Force is still an aspirational project). Institutional proliferation in the domain of rapid response has had several positive effects. The success of rapid response mechanisms should not only be measured against their actual deployment—their often underestimated and perhaps underappreciated function as windows of opportunity for force modernization and regional integration tools should be taken into account as well. The nature of conflicts and crises has been changing over the past decade, necessitating a different military approach. Expeditionary mind-sets and interoperability have become crucial assets to which the institutionalization of rapid response mechanisms has surely contributed. The NATO Response Force and the EU Battlegroups have proven their value as engines of force modernization in Europe in that direction. Disregarding some laggards, most of the European states have gradually transformed their armies towards more expeditionary forces, benefitting their readiness—at least on paper. Likewise, joint training and certification efforts in the context of these mechanisms enhance interoperability of military forces, doctrinal alignment, and the development of sub-regional, regional, and even global standards. The gradual development of sub-regional partnerships, within both the EU and the AU, further illustrates how these rapid response mechanisms also have a function as integration tools, building mutual trust among peers at regional and sub-regional levels. Challenges for the future In line with Daniel Drezner’s assumption highlighted in the Introduction to this volume, institutional proliferation in the domain of military rapid response comes with opportunities for forum-shopping.3 Membership and mandate overlap, in principle, allow states to pick and choose the framework which is deemed most appropriate, or best matches the national interests of the initiators for action. The chapters in this volume have shown that institutional proliferation in rapid

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response is in fact a two-edged sword, already at the standby stage, as it also puts pressure on the often already limited financial and material capabilities of these states. This is especially the case for the large majority of countries within the AU, EU, and NATO, which operate with only a single set of (expeditionary) forces and often rather modest defense budgets. Institutional proliferation hence raises questions of prioritization, forcing states with small or medium-sized military capacities to strategically decide about which multinational format they wish to commit their resources and earmark troops to. A risk of competition over scarce resources between these rapid response mechanisms is therefore permanently present. However, small and medium-power member states alike tend to commit, at least in principle, to overlapping mechanisms as this strategy enables access to various institutions, and also can increase the status of small and middle powers.4 Similarly, proliferation comes with the potential for contestation of legitimacy and competition for credibility, as illustrated by the political tug of war over different rapid deployment mechanisms on the African continent. While the development of rapid response capacities by the African regional economic communities can be positively interpreted as an indication of African defense integration, competition with the regional economic communities and their regional response mechanisms is a defining feature throughout the development of the ASF, as strikingly illustrated in Chapter 1. Although perhaps less contentious, the added value of having two rapid response mechanisms on the European continent has equally led to debate about duplication and credibility. Ambiguity concerning potential deployment scenarios is another issue that poses a challenge for the future and which requires tackling in all these organizations. This implies better matching deployment scenarios and goals with the institutional characteristics of the rapid response mechanisms, including taking into account their limitations when defining the array of operations they should be able to cover. The EU Battlegroups’ small size has in that sense repeatedly served as an obstacle, raising doubts about the credibility of the long list of operation types which they should be able to undertake. Likewise, as indicated in Chapter 1, the ASF framework also reflects this ambiguity, with six potential deployment scenarios.

Rapid response in practice Despite frequent opportunities, the aforementioned rapid response mechanisms have to date seldom been deployed. As a result, it is difficult to establish consistent evidence of their effectiveness, let alone of

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their capacity to rapidly deploy to an escalating crisis situation. Nonetheless, the African continent has been the focus of attention for many security institutions and arrangements, often in response to escalating crisis situations. Over the past decade, crises in Mali, the CAR, and the DRC, to mention a few, have been responded to via a series of multiorganizational interventions. As noted by Thomas Mandrup in Chapter 5 on the DRC, some of these deployments have indeed also been rapid, although this is not the general trend. The multi-actor international response to conflicts in the CAR has been described elsewhere by Martin Welz, and reiterated in Chapter 6, as “patchwork interventionism,” a term which can in fact be applied to any of these conflicts. John Karlsrud, Natasja Rupesinghe, and Denis Tull in Chapter 7 similarly highlighted the “security traffic jam” that emerged in response to the Mali crises. All this to illustrate how the increasingly dense web of international institutions in international security and crisis management comes with growing pressures to ensure at least a fruitful inter-organizational cooperation, as we called it in the Introduction to this volume. This has become all the more important now that it is generally accepted that a rapid response to emerging or escalating crises not only can save lives, but equally serves as a crucial determinant for the success of parallel and successive peace efforts. Although not necessarily rapid—often even slow—the parallel and sequenced multinational deployments analyzed in Chapters 5–8 of the book provide fertile ground for drawing lessons on rapid response. The case studies have provided striking insights into the responsiveness of the international community to mounting crises on the African continent and allow for drawing three key conclusions about how the institutional proliferation in security affairs often functions more as an obstacle rather than a catalyst of rapid response. First, geographical and functional inter-organizational overlap has been a key driver of competition between institutions. Second, international institutional responses have on multiple occasions moved beyond just mutual hampering, with dysfunctional competition seriously affecting responsiveness. Third, these dysfunctional inter-organizational dynamics have repeatedly created a security vacuum which was only filled on short notice by ad hoc initiatives, mostly from states or coalitions of states with a strategic interest at stake. From overlap to dysfunctional competition Institutional proliferation in responding to security challenges creates room for forum-shopping, but geographical and functional overlap

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equally contain a risk of leading to inter-organizational rivalry over resources, leadership, and legitimacy. In that regard, the case studies contribute a great deal of empirical material to the literature on interorganizational relations, which has to date suffered from a lack of casebased empirical evidence. In Chapter 8, Ruxandra-Laura Boșilca˘ and Marianne Riddervold highlighted how competition over resources between the EU and NATO have hampered political decision-making. Concerns about duplication over both organizations’ planned antipiracy activities in the Indian Ocean strikingly illustrate how overlap risks deployment decisions being hampered by normative and political calculations from member states with different institutional preferences. Overlapping mandates between organizations, ambiguous division of labor, and subsequent rivalry over leadership have repeatedly even slowed down an international response to an escalating crisis. This has on several occasions been apparent through the competition between the AU and the sub-regional African organizations. Despite sub-regional organizations such as the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) or the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) not always having the required military capacity, nor the experience, to credibly and effectively deal with an emerging or escalating crisis, their mandate to maintain peace in the region overlaps with that of the AU, repeatedly leading to competition over leadership. Welz strikingly illustrated how inter-organizational rivalry between ECCAS and the AU has had detrimental effects on the international community’s response to the gradually escalating crisis in the CAR, where competition arose between ECCAS and the AU, and subsequently between the AU and the UN. The latter is a puzzling observation when placed against the background of repeated political messages from the UN about the added value of regional arrangements for maintaining international peace and security and even for guaranteeing a rapid response to escalating crises. Likewise, inter-organizational rivalries between ECOWAS and the AU, and later—again—between the AU and the UN have undermined many of the interventions in Mali, as shown by Karlsrud, Rupesinghe, and Tull in Chapter 7. Linking back to the continuum proposed in the Introduction to this volume, the case studies have shown that competition and rivalry between several of the organizations involved in these crises did not stop at just mutual hampering. Instead, competition has repeatedly been dysfunctional, often leading to slower responses to escalating conflicts and mutual delegitimization between actors in theater. The rivalry over leadership in the international response to the CAR

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between ECCAS and the AU is likely the most striking example thereof, as it even created a political vacuum which had worsened the crisis by the end of 2013. Meanwhile, these findings should not necessarily lead to the conclusion that fruitful in-theater cooperation between institutions with overlapping mandates is simply impossible. In fact, the EU and NATO have shown themselves to be capable of rapidly deploying anti-piracy operations to the Indian Ocean, as well as effectively operating side by side at the level of command and control, information sharing, and even capacity building. EUNAVFOR Atalanta and NATO’s Operation Ocean Shield can in that sense be considered unique examples of how fruitful cooperation has facilitated effective responsiveness. As noted by Boșilca˘ and Riddervold, these successful inter-organizational activities might even come with enhanced mutual trust between both organizations. Overall, regional arrangements are increasingly important and prominent building blocks in the global peace and security architecture. The AU, EU, and NATO have all engaged in some form of cooperation and in sequenced deployments with the UN and often also with each other. As institutional arrangements strengthen cooperation channels that can be of use in times of crisis, the presence of regional rapid response mechanisms is a capacity that should hence not be left unused. Sequential deployments can go both ways, and transition is one area that is in desperate need of more work on organizational and member-state levels. Lead nations as necessary drivers of rapid response In the absence of deployment of the institutionalized rapid response mechanisms, and against the background of rivalry among regional security arrangements and even the UN, an actual rapid response to the conflicts addressed in this volume has nearly always only taken place upon the initiative of a lead nation, willing to take the political risk, carry the financial burden, and deploy the necessary troops at short notice. In general, both for the deployment of the rapid response mechanisms of the AU, EU, and NATO, as well as for more ad hoc initiatives in response to a mounting conflict, the support of a lead nation which is willing to carry the bulk of the financial and political costs seems to be an indispensable condition. Lead nations can either offer the necessary push within a regional organization for taking action or they can undertake an ad hoc initiative themselves. This also implies that the absence of support from these influential member states is a nearinsurmountable obstacle to a regional organization wishing to play an

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active role and claim leadership, as illustrated by the delays in the AU’s response to the CAR conflict shown by Welz. In the addressed cases, the few interventions that can be classified as a genuine rapid response mostly took place on an ad hoc basis, outside the frameworks of an international or (sub-)regional organization. Crucially, these rapid interventions were dependent upon the initiative of a single state, backed up by (often logistical) international support from an ad hoc coalition and local support from a regional player. This has most strikingly been shown in the CAR and Mali conflicts, where France launched Operation Sangaris and Operation Serval in response to delayed African-led initiatives. But the EU’s rapid responses to crises in the DRC in the 2000s also illustrate the importance of lead nations, with France either taking a lead role or putting pressure on other nations to take up this role. Interestingly, those lead nations were often primarily driven by specific national interests, such as historical links or a fear of spill-over effects, which provided strategic motivation for them to demonstrate the necessary political will to put their troops in harm’s way.

Institutional exploitation and ad hocism It is a puzzling observation that despite the significant investments that have been made in institutionalizing military rapid response mechanisms, a tendency exists to nonetheless operate through ad hoc initiatives and coalitions when faced with an emerging or escalating crisis that necessitates an international intervention. Also beyond the domain of rapid reaction are regional ad hoc coalitions—an increasingly frequent feature of security responses in Africa, often in bilateral or multilateral partnerships. We have seen the Force Intervention Brigade in the DRC, Operation Serval and later Barkhane in Mali, Operation Sangaris in the CAR, and the Joint Force of the G5 Sahel (FC-G5S) in the Sahel region. A similar example in a conflict which has not been addressed in this volume is the Multinational Joint Task Force to fight Boko Haram, which is an ad hoc coalition of Nigeria, Niger, and Chad, operating with financial and material support from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other donors. This ad hoc tendency reflects the rational-institutionalist view that states only decide to work through international organizations if the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs of operating alone or in an ad hoc coalition.5 Perhaps counterintuitively, the findings from this volume in that sense seem to indicate that institutional proliferation in military rapid response, and in international security more broadly, has

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increased the opportunities for pragmatic ad hocism, leading to institutional exploitation. Instead of forum-shopping between the existing institutional arrangements for rapid response, the contributions to this volume have provided some striking illustrations of how states pragmatically use the institutional constructs of rapid response mechanisms. What these operations have in common is that they draw upon the investments that have been made in developing regional rapid response capabilities at continental and sub-regional levels, including interoperability, development of doctrine, and access to external partners. The advantages of this approach are, inter alia, flexible participation based on self-interest, eluding bureaucratic red tape, and avoiding path dependencies in terms of future deployments, both in terms of the potentially increased legitimacy of the tool, as well as costs. The ad hoc coalitions and the member states supporting them are also seeking the support of bilateral and multilateral partners. The UN has repeatedly been asked by the AU, Mali, and the Group of Five Sahel to adjust the mandate of its peacekeeping operation UN Multidimensional Mission for Stabilization in Mali (MINUSMA) to enable direct support to the FC-G5S counter-terrorism force, although this would be a clear violation of its peacekeeping principles and likely undermine its mediation and humanitarian work.6 Moreover, these ad hoc interventions have shown that any ad hoc response requires effective follow-up. The case studies illustrated in particular that not only small or medium-sized states are hampered by limited resources. The lead nations also have to be careful of financial, material, or political overstretch. France’s active search for an exit strategy after Operation Sangaris in the CAR, Operation Serval in Mali, and Operation Barkhane in the wider region are clear illustrations of this. In that sense, prioritization is a reality for every actor involved in crisis management, necessitating sustainable follow-up.

General conclusion and future research The increasingly “thick” nature of the overlapping networks of international regimes and formal and informal cooperation—all normally considered evidence of increasing cooperation in international relations—provide greater flexibility for member states when they decide when and how to pursue their national interest. As we finalize this volume, the policy and scholarly discourse is deeply engaged in debates about what are perceived as current challenges to the liberal world order—populism, protectionism, and a shift in focus from liberal statebuilding and peacebuilding to more limited security-oriented

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ambitions in fragile and conflict-affected states.7 The move towards increased ad hocism is a perhaps counterintuitive but integral part of this development. In the domain of military rapid response, ad hoc coalitions can: draw on previous joint training, and efforts toward doctrinal coherence and interoperability; bring the benefits of burdensharing, international political, military, and financial support; and avoid creating precedents for future deployments. In that sense, institutional proliferation in rapid response seems to have led to a situation in which a pick-and-choose approach prevails, and institutional constructs but not the end products are used. On the negative side, the continued inactivity of the EU Battlegroups undermines their legitimacy, and unavoidably also that of the EU. The continued investment by Western donors in the ASF will also be questionable if it is never deployed, while ad hoc coalitions are deployed instead. In addition, ad hoc coalitions may also undermine efforts to create lasting political and military structures at the regional and global levels, leading to more short-termism in the long run. Lack of deployment and the prominence of ad hoc responses not only risk delegitimizing the institutionalized rapid response mechanisms, they also risk undermining the credibility of the organizations themselves. Questions about the EU’s role as a crisis manager repeatedly arose after yet another slow response. And as shown throughout the case studies, sub-regional African organizations do not hesitate to publicly question the AU’s leadership in maintaining peace and security. We have introduced a novel framework for assessing inter-organizational cooperation and competition, which has a value that goes far beyond the analysis of the institutional dynamics of military rapid response that has been at the core of this volume. In fact, the continuum from mutual enhancement to dysfunctional competition can be used as a heuristic device for capturing inter-organizational relations in all stages of crisis management activities, from conflict prevention to statebuilding activities. In addition, the suggested framework explicitly draws attention to inter-organizational dynamics in the use of material, human, and financial resources, the impact thereof on goal attainment and, ultimately, the extent to which this legitimizes or delegitimizes the organizations concerned. On a more generic level, it can therefore be argued that the scholarship on inter-organizational relations could benefit greatly from moving beyond the dyadic status quo of cooperation and competition. Our conceptual framework allows for sketching a more nuanced and empirically rich picture of inter-organizational relations in the field of peace and security and beyond, adding to the expanding inter-organizational research agenda.

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Returning to Drezner’s line of thinking, this volume has shown that not only does institutional proliferation increase the chances of forumshopping, it also prepares the ground for increasing ad hocism and institutional exploitation in international relations. Not seldom, this has proven to come with dysfunctional consequences, both in terms of effectiveness and legitimacy. The field of military rapid response, in that regard, strikingly illustrates the pragmatism that is inherent in the institutional proliferation in international security, and more generally in international politics in the twenty-first century.

Notes 1 Yf Reykers and John Karlsrud, “Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms: Past Promises and Future Prospects,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 420–426. 2 As of January 2018, 20 member states had started to implement the agreed 0.2 percent levy on imports (see Linda Darkwa, Chapter 1, this volume), and of these, 14 had started to deposit funds in an account dedicated to the AU in their respective national banks. See Republic of Rwanda, “Finance Ministers Meet to Discuss African Union Financing Progress,” Meeting of the Committee of Ministers of Finance, 11 January 2018, www.minecofin. gov.rw/index.php?id=12&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=649&cHash=5f3b34043 739f5c746e172ea1c448cd0. 3 Daniel W. Drezner, “The Viscosity of Global Governance: When Is Forumshopping Expensive?” unpublished conference paper, Princeton University, November 2006, www.princeton.edu/~pcglobal/conferences/IPES/papers/dre zner_S1100_16.pdf. 4 Nina Græger, “From ‘Forces for Good’ to ‘Forces for Status’? Small State Military Status Seeking,” in Small State Status Seeking: Norway’s Quest for International Standing, ed. Benjamin de Carvalho and Iver B. Neumann (London: Routledge, 2016); John Karlsrud and Kari M. Osland, “Between Self-Interest and Solidarity: Norway’s Return to UN Peacekeeping?” International Peacekeeping 23, no. 5 (2016): 784–803; Rasmus B. Pedersen, “Bandwagon for Status: Changing Patterns in the Nordic States StatusSeeking Strategies?” International Peacekeeping 25, no. 2 (2017): 217–241; and William Wohlforth, Benjamin de Carvalho, Halvard Leira, and Iver B. Neumann, “Moral Authority and Status in International Relations: Good States and the Social Dimension of Status Seeking,” Review of International Studies 44, no. 3 (2017): 1–21. 5 See Kenneth W. Abbott and Duncan Snidal, “Why States Act through Formal International Organizations,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 42, no. 1 (1998): 3–32. 6 John Karlsrud, The UN at War: Peace Operations in a New Era (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018). 7 John Karlsrud, “From Liberal Peacebuilding to Stabilization and CounterTerrorism,” International Peacekeeping (2018) [online first].

Index

ad hocism 2, 10–11, 14, 51, 170, 177, 186–189 African Peace and Security Architecture 20, 147–149 African Union 1, 4, 18–40, 68, 76, 82–83, 94, 116, 118, 120–130, 133, 135–137, 141–143, 148–149, 179, 180, 183, 184, 188; ad hoc coalitions 8, 147, 188; African Standby Force (ASF) 1–2, 7–8, 11, 18–40, 83, 85, 94, 147, 149, 179, 188; African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis (ACIRC) 19–22, 25, 36–39, 147; Organisation of African Unity 19, 32, 36; Peace and Security Council 19, 22, 28, 126, 138; Peace Fund 35 Agenda for Peace 77–78 Al-Shabaab 93 Angola 34 Arab Spring 124 Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) 96, 101, 103, 105, 106, 108 armed violence 20 armored brigade 66–67 AU African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA) 124, 128, 134–154 AU African-led International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) 118, 124–130 AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) 35, 93, 135, 169

Australia 4, 165 Austria 81, 161 Baltics 48, 67 Ban Ki-moon 2, 160 Benin 26 Berlin Plus arrangements 46, 47, 181 Boko Haram 2, 25, 26, 124, 138, 147, 186 Bosnia-Herzegovina 81 Boutros Boutros-Ghali 77 Brahimi Report 3, 76, 79, 10 Brexit 41, 48, 49, 170 Bulgaria 62 burden-sharing, political, material, financial 1, 7, 9, 10, 69–70, 137, 145, 149, 164, 178–179 bureaucratization 4, 180, 187 Burkina Faso 26, 134, 138, 141, 142, 144, 148 Burundi 22, 30, 31, 35, 37, 88, 122, 125 Cameroon 33, 125 capability gap 37, 58 Central African Republic 2, 26, 41, 116–132, 139, 145, 178, 184 Chad 26, 46, 101, 115–127, 138, 146, 186 Chapter VI 20, 105 Chapter VII, mandates 93, 97, 101, 104, 125, 138, 160 Chile 81 China 76, 84–85 coalition of the willing 27, 75, 103

Index collective defense 19, 24, 35, 57, 62, 67, 68, 71 collective security 19, 24, 35, 36 command and control structures 6, 19, 32, 35, 60–62, 108, 157, 163, 165, 180–181, 185 commitments: political 21, 70, 86, 94; financial 6 communication infrastructure 34 complementary mechanisms 8 conflict management 5, 115, 117–122, 125–129 conflict prevention 43, 93, 188 counter-insurgency 93, 108, 137 counter-piracy 12, 155–167 counter-terrorism 25, 136, 138, 142, 144–149, 160, 187 Crimea, annexation of 41, 48, 157 crimes against humanity 32 crisis response, cooperation, coordination and competition 133–154, 177 cyber 71 Cyprus 163 defence integration 5, 11, 41–42, 48, 51, 182 Democratic Republic of Congo 12, 26–27, 42, 91–114, 116–117, 137, 139, 178 Department of Peacekeeping Operations 78, 82, 84, 85, 86 deterrence posture 59, 62, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70 Djibouti 35 Dos Santos Cruz report 83, 106, 108, 109 East African region 35 ECCAS Mission for the consolidation of peace in Central African Republic (MICOPAX) 117–118, 120–124, 129–130 Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) 115–116, 117–125, 127, 129, 184–185 ECOWAS, Standby Force (ESF) 13, 26, 27, 36, 82–83, 133–143, 147–149, 184 Egypt 81, 124

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elections 46, 47, 96, 98, 116, 144 Enhanced Rapidly Deployable Capacity 79 Equatorial Guinea 125 Estonia 50, 62–69, 161 Ethiopia 35, 82, 85, 96 ethnic, conflict, favoritism 94, 97, 116 EU Capacity Building Mission in Mali (EUCAP Sahel Mali) 138, 148, 149 EU Training Mission in Mali (EUTM Mali) 138, 143 EUFOR CAR 118 EUFOR RCA 81 EUFOR RDCongo 81, 96–101 EUFOR Tchad/RCA 81 European Union: Battlegroups 2, 8, 14, 22, 41–56, 61, 81, 86, 181–182, 188; Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) 41, 47, 49, 51, 81, 156, 165; Global Strategy 2, 41, 48, 49, 51, 156; European Council 42, 43, 86, 98; Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) 2, 41, 48–52, 179 Field Training Exercise, AMANI Africa II 18, 21, 34 fight against terrorism 24, 179 Finland 68, 81 formation of cooperation partnerships 5 forum-shopping 5, 9–11, 47, 181, 183, 187 framework nation 7, 42–43, 45, 163 France 13, 42–43, 50, 81, 86, 101, 113–132, 133–150, 160–166, 186–187 Franco-German Battlegroup 47 Franco-German integration/axis 41, 48 functional overlap 5, 51, 183 Gabon 99–101, 117, 125 genocide 3, 20, 32, 94, 97, 115, 125, 130 Georgia 128 Germany 43, 47, 50, 63, 66, 77, 81, 86, 98, 101, 126, 137, 149, 163–164

192

Index

governance 36, 106, 107, 155, 166, 166 Great Lakes region 26–27, 102 Greece 77, 163–164 Gulf of Aden 155, 158, 161, 165, 166, 167 hegemonic interests 7 High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations 2, 3, 76, 79, 83–84 Horn of Africa 12, 14, 46, 155–176 human rights violations 31, 75 humanitarian, aid, interventions 24, 43, 105, 124, 126, 138, 157–161, 164, 168, 187 Hungary 62 India 79, 84, 102, 105 Indian Ocean 13, 155–176, 178, 184, 185 Institutional: preferences 7–184; prioritization 42, 47, 182, 187; proliferation 9–11, 14, 178, 181–188 insurgent groups, see also armed groups 92, 93, 104, 108 international: interventions 9, 13, 14, 118, 148, 178; law 32, 160, 171; organizations 1–17, 115, 129–130, 166, 186 interoperability 4, 31, 33, 61, 70, 87, 110, 149, 170, 181, 187, 188 inter-organizational: institution-building 9; burden sharing 7–10, 178, 179, 185, 188; specialization 9; overlap 6, 42, 51, 183; cooperation and competition 1–17, 177–188 inter-organizationalism 1, 5, 6, 8 Iraq 60, 70, 100–101, 108 Italy 48, 66, 68, 80–81, 164 Japan 68, 165 Javier Solana 98–100 Joint Force of the Group of Five Sahel 2, 146, 187 Jordan 81

Kagame Report 30 Kenya 35, 162 Kofi Annan 3, 42, 97 Kosovo war 58 Lake Chad Basin 2, 4, 24, 26, 147 Latvia 62–63, 65 Lesotho 26, 37 Liberia 18, 27, 82 Libya 37, 45, 61, 70, 124, 128, 134, 142 Lisbon Treaty 48 Lithuania 62–63, 65, 81 Luxembourg 162 Malawi 35, 103 Mali 2, 4, 12–13, 25–26, 33, 37, 40, 35–47, 93, 127–129, 133–154, 167, 178–179, 183–187 mandates 5, 8, 28, 75, 87, 93, 102, 108, 116, 130, 148, 157, 169, 184, 185 maritime, capabilities, crisis 155–176 mass atrocities 75 Mauritania 26, 135, 138–141, 146 Mauritius 162 Michel Djotodia 120, 123, 127 military cooperation 4, 44, 146, 167, 170 monitoring system 31 Montenegro 161 multidimensional interventions 4 multinational battalions, brigades 2, 63, 64, 65, 83, 86 Multinational Joint Task Force for Boko Haram 2, 28, 138, 147 NATO 1–17, 34, 45, 46, 47, 51–52, 57–74, 75, 76, 86, 88, 108, 134, 142, 177–188 NATO Response Force (NRF) 1, 2, 7, 11, 22, 44, 51, 57–74, 85, 155–176, 179, 181 natural resources 116 naval assets 163, 169 Nepal 84 networks 3, 136, 170, 187 New Zealand 161 Nigeria 25, 34–35, 124, 138, 186

Index Nordic, Nordic military cooperation, Nordic Battlegroup 44, 86 norm/norms, interventions 3, 23, 27, 36, 93, 170 North Atlantic Council 64, 68, 180 Norway 44, 66, 81, 161 Oman 165 Operation Alcyon 160 Operation Allied Protector 156, 161 Operation Allied Provider 156, 161, 163 Operation Artemis 42, 43, 46, 81, 96–101, 105 Operation Atalanta 156, 161–169, 185 Operation Barkhane 136–139, 144–145, 148–149, 186–187 Operation Enduring Freedom 57 Operation Ocean Shield 156–161, 162, 165–166, 169, 185 Operation Sangaris 118, 125, 126, 129–130, 145, 186–187 Operation Serval 127, 133–139, 142–144, 149, 186, 187 organized crime, transnational, prevention, combating 4, 60, 71, 76, 138, 147, 157 out-of-area operations 58, 59 Pakistan 61, 79, 85, 102, 105 peace, agreement, negotiation, process 96, 104, 117, 120, 123, 134, 139, 142, 145 peace support missions 23, 24, 29, 32, 34, 35, 135, 147, 148 peacebuilding (peace-building) 23, 116–118, 139, 187 Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System 84 Petersberg tasks 43 Pierre Nkurunziza 22 Poland 47, 62, 63, 65, 66, 71, 81, 128 police 31–33, 76, 79, 88, 117, 121, 124, 128, 136, 146 political mission 20 political will 4, 25, 37, 47, 49, 51, 60, 70, 80, 85, 88, 128, 130, 178, 186 protection of civilians 93, 124

193

rapid reaction/response mechanisms/ forces 1–17, 50, 57, 60, 66, 75–91, 93, 94, 142, 171, 178–188 Readiness Action Plan 62 regional arrangements 1, 12, 184, 185 Regional Economic Communities/ Regional Mechanisms (RECs/ RMs) 19, 22–24, 28–31, 34–37, 142, 147, 148 regional observer mission, organizations, regional standby forces (see e.g. ECOWAS) 3, 4, 10, 12, 18–23, 28–31, 37, 79, 82, 83, 85, 100, 104, 129, 166, 167, 178 reputation building 36 resource dependence 5–11 Resource Dependence Theory 6 road maps 21 Romania 62, 69, 81 Russia 2, 12, 42, 48, 58, 60–67, 72, 157 Rwanda 3, 18, 81, 94, 101, 102, 109, 125 SADC Force Intervention Brigade 13, 92, 96, 101–110, 137 sanctions regime 35 Second Congo War 92 security and defense integration 5 security sector reform 138, 168 Séléka 120, 121, 123, 125, 127 Senegal 81 Serbia 161 Seychelles 162 Sierra Leone 18, 27, 35 Slovakia 62, 161 Slovenia 81 Solomon Islands, Coup. 4 South Africa 102, 120–121, 124, 129–130 South Korea (Korea) 165 South Sudan 27, 82, 88, 116 Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) 26, 29, 34, 92, 101–110, 137 Southern African region 26 Special Fund 20 Sri Lanka 85

194

Index

Stand-By High Readiness Brigade (SHIRBRIG) 2, 75–91, 94, 177, 180, 181 Stephen O’Brien 130 Strategic Force Generation Cell 84 sub-regional organizations, 10, 36, 149, 184 Sudan 82, 96, 116, 121, 138 Sweden 63, 67, 76, 81, 137, 163 Syria 61, 70 technology 68, 69, 71 The Gambia 26, 36–37 The Netherlands 50, 76, 78, 81, 82, 137, 160, 163 transformation 19, 23, 32, 36, 57–62 troop contributors 46, 50, 85, 125, 138, 146 troop deployment 76, 82 Trygve Lie 77 Tuareg rebellion 133, 134 Uganda 27, 35, 96, 101 Ugandan Defence Forces 96 Ukraine 57, 60, 61, 66, 70, 161 UN General Assembly 1, 77, 80, 85, UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea 85 UN Mission in Liberia 82 UN Multidimensional Mission for Stabilization in Mali (MINUSMA) 134, 136–138, 142–149 UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC) 92 UN Security Council (UNSC) 29, 42, 77–83, 87–88, 92, 96, 97, 102, 105,

107, 116, 125, 128, 135–138, 142, 147–148, 160, 166 UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) 102, 104–108, 137 UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) 77 UN Vanguard Force 2, 8, 12, 75–91, 179, 181 United Kingdom 43, 81, 160, 162–165, 169–170, 186 United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINURCA) 116 United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) 118, 128 United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) 42, 92, 97–100, 102, 106 Uruguay 97 USA 48, 58, 63, 66, 69, 71, 101, 123, 127–129, 132, 135–139, 146, 149, 160, 186 Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) 62–65, 67, 71, 157 voluntary commitments 6, 44, 161, 179 war crimes 32, 105 West Africa 13, 26–27, 36–37, 134, 147