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Contextualising the 2020 Malian coup d’état: a view on international intervention

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By Jemma Challenger

Mali, Flag, Map, Geography, Outline, Africa, Country
Outline of Mali in the colours of the Malian flag (Pixabay, 2021)

The coup d’état

On the morning of 18th August 2020, mutinous elements of the Malian Armed Forces stormed a military base in the town of Kati, in what constituted the onset of the country’s second coup d’état in under 10 years. Seized military vehicles then headed to the country’s capital, Bamako, where putschists succeeded in detaining a number of key government officials including President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. By midnight, Keïta had conceded his presidency and dissolved the government. 

Leaders of the coup fired celebratory gunshots as swathes of anti-government protestors rallied around a central square in Bamako to applaud the triumph. The ‘June 5 Movement-Assembly of Patriotic Forces’ (M5-RFP) opposition coalition, formed in mid-2020 to coordinate escalating demonstrations and civil disobedience, supported the toppling; group spokesperson, Nouhoum Togo, announced it constituted “not a military coup but a popular insurrection”.  Simultaneously, however, the mutineers were confronted by a unanimous surge of admonition from the international community. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) pressed soldiers to release detained officials immediately, and “return to their barracks without delay”. The African Union’s (AU’s) President, Cyril Ramaphosa, called for the “immediate return to civilian rule,” briefly suspending Mali from the bloc. The fifteen-nation strong  Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced neighbouring members would close their borders with Mali, and stipulated sanctions against “all the putschists and their partners and collaborators”. France, the US, China, Turkey, Germany, South Africa and Nigeria were amongst a wealth of nations to publicly condemn the coup independently. 

Several months down the line, the military junta continues to grapple with its commitment to establish a comprehensive transition to democratic rule that adequately conciliates this international community. It remains, therefore, an apt time to reflect upon the protracted role international actors have played in Mali, and to assess their accountability vis-à-vis the latest coup. Indeed, the international community at large has long been directly embroiled within Malian affairs, to the extent that to dissect the country’s political landscape without seriously reflecting upon its external stakeholders is to abandon half the picture. How did the political scene evolve in such a way that posed conditions ripe for a coup that enjoyed such a degree of popular domestic support? And how did these quite cataclysmic developments emerge right under the nose of a corpus of intervenors comprising well over 15,000 international troops in Mali? 

This article will demonstrate that key intervenors – the United Nations (UN) and France – are prioritising short-term military, and tacitly pro-incumbent solutions to a highly political conflict. Accordingly, they jeopardise prospects for security, fail to hold leaders to account, and permit political grievances to spiral. It is vital that the 2020 coup is understood against this backdrop. 

The international community in Mali 

For scholar Nina Wilén, the coup is a stark reminder of how local political conflict endures in spite of a weighty external presence. Embodying a ‘logic of its own’, engagement in Mali – that is, a militarily well-endowed French-led counter-terrorist operation, a sizeable and robust UN peacekeeping operation, a United States (US) Africa Command drone base, three European Union (EU) missions, and the creation of a new Special Forces Joint Task Force – is insufficiently cognisant of local realities and dynamics on the ground. The intervention is, by and large, inherently state-centric and military dominated. This fails to differentiate between the needs of a range of complex parallel crises in Mali. It also fails to address local, grassroots grievances and conflicts, which in turn offer a valuable source of mobilisation for the extremists and criminal networks that external actors so committedly endeavour to eradicate. 

For instance, the UN operation was, until recently, situated almost exclusively in line with the explicit jihadist threat in the north of Mali. Meanwhile, localised agricultural conflict plaguing Central communities escalated rapidly for a number of years, into what now constitutes the epicentre of violence in Mali. This is a flagrant missed opportunity for the intervention. In prioritising symptoms over causes, and short-term security imperatives over long-term diplomatic and grassroots political efforts, the UN failed to prevent a dire security crisis from unfurling under its nose. Jihadists were able to successfully draw upon a political vacuum, popular grievances, and cleavages along ethnic lines to mobilise support from occluded rural populations. This rendered UN efforts to ‘impede, impair and isolate’ the terrorist threat’ in the North rather futile. In inadequately responding to grievance-based local conflicts, external intervention has done little to quell the root of popular unrest, whilst adding fuel to the flames of jihadist networks and transnational criminal organisations. 

Simultaneously, the permanent external military presence reduces incentives for the state to engage in crucial reforms and productive political dialogue. In what one scholar of Sahelian politics, Yvan Guichaoua, describes as the ‘bitter harvest of French interventionism’, France’s entrenched armed presence – dominated foremostly by enemy-centric security agendas – is acting as a ‘de facto military guarantor’ of the security of the Malian regime. In doing so, France effectively disincentivises any sitting government in Mali to engage in dialogue with its adversaries in order to reach political compromises. As Michael Shurkin of RAND fittingly suggests, France’s operational objective is, as of now, little more than the creation of ‘strategic possibilities’ that some other partner might be able to exploit. Thus far, the intervention has shown little inclination to hold a sitting regime to account, or push even for the somewhat lacklustre reforms proposed in a 2015 peace agreement. Against this backdrop, external intervention has something to answer for with regards to the popular discontent that paved the way for the coup it denounced so quickly last August. 

The coming months will undoubtedly play a critical role in defining the trajectory of the crisis in Mali. Colonel Major Ismaël Wagué, spokesman for the self-proclaimed National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) military junta, explicitly pledged cooperation with the international community from the outset; for him, the UN and France are “partners in the restoration of stability.” Yet, for all that the CNSP avow their dedication to maintain military collaboration with intervenors, and for all intervenors assure their sustained armed presence on the Sahel, lasting security without popular support and a comprehensive political strategy will doubtless prove untenable. Intervenors in Mali must acknowledge that the crisis of the ‘weak state’ in Mali lies not at the hands of a discontented citizenry, but in the radical social distance between this citizenry and its political class. Viewed through this optic, the coup has but foregrounded longstanding shortcomings of the international community in Mali that must be conceded and transformed in order to make meaningful progress towards stability. 

 

Jemma Challenger is an MA student of International Conflict Studies at King’s College London and a graduate of the University of Leeds, where she studied a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Her central research interests include UN intervention in conflict, peacebuilding and state-building processes, and the qualitative study of comparative civil wars. You can find her on Twitter @jemmachallenger. 

Drawing in the dragon: China's involvement in Africa's peace & security

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By Semiha Abdulmelik:

Chinese engineers serving with UNAMID in Darfur, Sudan. UN Photo/Stuart Price.
Chinese engineers serving with UNAMID in Darfur, Sudan. UN Photo/Stuart Price (creative commons).

‘Meaningful participation in African conflict-resolution processes is not an important aspect of China’s current Africa relations. China is becoming increasingly important in the landscape of African politics, including in conflict-affected theatres, but is not as significant an actor as external perceptions contend. Nor has the Chinese government shown any particular inclination for more active engagement beyond spheres such as Sudan where the need is more compelling’’.[1]

Dan Large (SOAS), 2008, in China’s role in the mediation and resolution of conflict in Africa.

These words, written just seven years ago, now seem out of date. We are now witnessing what might be described as a significant if incremental evolution in China’s involvement in Africa’s peace and security. It is more structured, purposeful, and beyond countries of immediate interest, if still exploratory.

China’s peace and security engagement on the continent has predominantly been characterised as driven by economic interests in countries in which it has significant investments. This is the narrative most commonly seen in the Western media and academia: strict adherence to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of countries and comprising of bi-lateral military cooperation and arms trade. How this has evolved will be the focus of this piece.

With China’s increasing focus on its global power and the associated reputational risks, as well as the emerging realities of its deepening political engagement in Africa, a number of defining shifts can be observed. China’s concerted efforts to resolve the South Sudanese conflict is a case in point. China has dispatched its Special Representative for African Affairs, Zhong Jianhua, to conduct shuttle diplomacy, support the Inter-governmental Authority on Development’s (IGAD) efforts, and create forums for dialogue between the parties.[2] He noted that China’s meeting with South Sudanese opposition was ‘pretty dramatic for us. I think for the last two or three decades we were quite rigid about non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries… this is a typical domestic conflict. Usually when this happens, we try to avoid making direct contact with the opposition because, to some extent we think, it’s a rebel force. When you talk to a rebel force that means stepping into internal affairs.’ [3]

But Chinese mediation efforts in South Sudan suggest that China is reconsidering its long-standing belief in non-interference as part of its commitment to support peace and security in Africa.[4] This change comes from an understanding that it is essential for the achievement of its development policy and goals in Africa that there be peace and security.

Interestingly, Jiahua was also clear that China did not have the academic or analytical expertise to understand internal African conflicts.[5] Indeed, China’s approach has been less about a nuanced understanding of the conflict dynamics but a kind of ‘oil diplomacy’ grounded in its ability to appeal to the economic rationale and incentives of the warring parties.[6] In this regard, the Chinese government is currently promoting African Studies[7i] in its academic and research institutions – pointing to the growing importance of non-state (academic/research) linkages between China and Africa in mediating and informing this growing engagement.[8]

In contrast to Sudan and South Sudan, where China has a significant economic presence, and hence more evident engagement in conflict mediation efforts, there are other parts of Africa where China does not have the same immediate interests yet is still involved in fostering peace and security. In Mali, China has contributed over 500 military troops to the UN peacekeeping mission (a quarter of its total UN troop contributions).[9] This is significant because China does not often deploy military personnel; previously it had only deployed logistical and medical personnel.[10] Interestingly, given the lack of significant Chinese interests in the country, Chinese efforts appear more in pursuit of broader regional stability where it has varied interests.

This attention to China’s role in UN peacekeeping in Africa suggests that China is now placing greater emphasis on multilateral approaches to peace and security partnerships in Africa. While this has often been seen by Chinese commentators and others following Chinese foreign policy[11] as an attempt by China to consolidate its ascendancy as a global power, this involvement has arguably been ‘evolving in an open-ended way’.[12] China has, for instance, proven more progressive in supporting the use of force to protect civilians in through the UN mission in the DRC while at the same time continuing its traditional resistance to the establishment of a human rights office for the UN mission in Sudan.[13]

China’s increasingly multilateral approach to peace and security cooperation in Africa is not only through the UN but also through regional organizations – the African Union (AU) in particular. The admission of the African Union Commission in October 2011 as a full member of the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) has undoubtedly paved the way from more concrete cooperation in the area of peace and security between China and the African Union (AU).

Three years later, the Government of China and the AU co-launched the AU-China Strategic Dialogue for Peace and Security in Africa.[14] This regional multilateral cooperation is predicated on two pillars. Firstly, financial and technical support for various aspects of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), including AU peace support operations and mechanisms such as the African Standby Force and African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crises. Secondly, cooperation at an international level, particularly on African positions at the UN Security Council and on UN Security Council reform.

Chris Alden, one of the few writers to analyse China’s multilateral engagement with the African Union on peace and security issues, argues that China’s desire for more systematic and institutionalized cooperation on peace and security in Africa is in tension with Chinese foreign policy principles and economic interests. This is particularly so given the underlying normative basis for APSA, namely the principle of non-indifference and provision for intervention in Member States.[15] As such, he sees three emerging ways in which China could engage with the APSA, all of which it already exhibits to varying degrees: as architects (through the formulation of new or refinement of existing foreign policy and security norms); builders (through participation in multilateral security and peacekeeping operations); and/or as subcontractors (through offering specific and time-bound solutions for security challenges) of the APSA.[16]

It is clear that China’s engagement in Africa’s peace and security has evolved, both with regards to its principles of engagement, geographic scope, and institutional interlocutors. As Alden’s exploratory research has indicated, there will continue to be interest – and a research agenda – in seeing how this evolves further and consolidates in the long-term with regards to Chinese foreign policy. Of further interest will be how this plays out in international efforts to secure peace and security in Africa, from possible tensions or cooperation between the West – Africa’s traditional peace and security partner – and China, to UN Security Council level reforms. Yet what is missing and crucial is African perspectives and experiences: this should preoccupy the new generation of African academics and researchers.

Semiha Abdulmelik is currently a Fellow at the African Leadership Centre in Kenya. Her research interests include humanitarian diplomacy, regional organizations, post-conflict reconstruction, and the security dynamics of the Horn. You can follow her on Twitter at @SAbdulmelik.

NOTES [1] Large, D. (2008), China’s role in the mediation and resolution of conflict in Africa, Oslo Forum Network of Mediators, accessed at http://www.hdcentre.org/uploads/tx_news/20DanLargeChinainAfricaWEB.pdf, pp. 35-41. China’s significant resource interests in Sudan, including its substantial economic investment, presence of nationals and oil operations and facilities, particularly in Darfur, has put the Sudan conflict and its resolution as a top interest for the Chinese government.

[2] China to hold consultative conference on South Sudan in Khartoum, Sudan Tribune, January 6, 2015 accessed at http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article53569

[3] Fabricius, P. (2014), China plays mediator in Africa, The Sunday Independent, November 2, 2014, accessed at http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/china-plays-peacemaker-in-africa-1.1774195#.VK0zOyuUcT8

[4] Indeed, Chinese officials have been quick to point to the Chinese commitment during the 2012 Forum of China-African Cooperation (FOCAC) to do more in the area of peace and security in Africa.

[5] Ibid

[6] Fabricius, P. (2014). In Fabricius’s interview with him, Jiahua admits that that he does not know the triggers for the South Sudanese civil war or who is to blame. Instead the approach has been to reiterate what was conveyed to both parties when oil production was shut down in 2012. “I persuaded them that this is the most important property not only of the government but also of the people of South Sudan. Look at this country; the biggest, the most important for the survival of the people is this oilfield. For some like Large (2008) however, this is an indication to a lesser degree of China’s lack of experience in ‘applied conflict resolution’ and more a demonstration of China engaging on ‘its own terms for its own ends’.

[7] Ibid

[8] China-Africa scholarly exchanges and fora are not new. These are long-standing and have historical links to state-sponsored efforts to support communist Africa states. However, this was largely focused on technical areas such as agriculture and engineering. This concerted state effort to strengthen China’s knowledge and analytical capacity in the area of Africa’s peace and security, as well as non-state efforts to build linkages between Chinese and African researchers and institutions, such as Fahamu’s Emerging Powers Programme, are indicative of shifts that respond to current realities in the China-Africa relationship.

[9] http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors.shtml

[10] Cordano, D. (2014), China’s role in Africa’s conflicts: Military cooperation, arms transfers and involvement in peacekeeping operations, 11 April, Consultancy Africa Intelligence, accessed at http://www.consultancyafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1672:chinas-role-in-africas-conflicts-military-cooperation-arms-transfers-and-involvement-in-peacekeeping-operations&catid=60:conflict-terrorism-discussion-papers&Itemid=265

[11] Wong, C. (2013), China Embraces Peacekeeping Missions, The Diplomat, August 9, accessed at http://thediplomat.com/2013/08/china-embraces-peacekeeping-missions/

[12] Fabricius, P. (2014),

[13] Cordano, D. (2014)

[14] http://www.peaceau.org/en/article/commissioner-chergui-concludes-official-visit-to-china-launches-au-china-strategic-dialogue-for-peace-and-security-in-africa

[15] Alden, C. (2014), China’s evolving approach to the African Peace and Security Architecture, Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, accessed at http://www.saiia.org.za/news/chinas-evolving-approach-to-the-african-peace-and-security-architecture

[16] Ibid

Following France: a new formula for military intervention

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By Jackson Webster:

French soldiers in Bamako, Mali. September 2013. Photo: MINUSMA: Marco Dormino (creative commons)
French soldiers in Bamako, Mali, in September 2013. Photo: MINUSMA: Marco Dormino (creative commons)

Since the end of the Cold War, American and European military forces have struggled to find a new purpose. Today’s military policy choices are driven by two conflicting philosophies.

The first is continued concentration on the maintenance of large conventional forces by NATO powers. Accompanying this maintenance of hard power capability is its frequent application since the mid-1990s in long-term military commitments to unconventional conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. Interventions of arguably limited success from Lebanon to Afghanistan, Iraq to Somalia are the most publicised and perhaps most controversial feature of many NATO member states’ foreign policies.

The second, more populist realm of thought is one of reluctance. Western voters, and consequentially the politicians which cater to them, speak vehemently against expensive wars on foreign soil. The Bush and Blair administrations were defined largely by their overseas entanglements, not by their domestic or diplomatic policies. If the West is to reconcile its competing paradigms concerning interventions and military action, it must look to a place that military thinkers rarely consider: France.

Over the past decade, Paris has slowly reasserted itself, primarily in Northern Africa and the Sahel, through a number of relatively quiet and relatively successful military interventions. French military capacity is often ignored in popular discourse; Paris’ capabilities include one of the world’s most modern naval and air forces and an average overseas deployment of 30,000 troops at any given time. France’s continued military presence in a number of outlying former colonial states affords Paris power-projection capabilities far beyond ‘France-Métropole’.

The causes of recent French military ventures have differed greatly from case to case, but they share three essential characteristics. Firstly, Paris generally pursues actions which receive global diplomatic approval. Both the Libyan and Malian interventions were sanctioned by UN resolutions and France achieved diplomatic consent for action from regional powers: the Arab League in the case of Libya and Nigeria, Chad, and Niger in the case of Mali. By exercising this kind of restraint, Paris is able to add political legitimacy to its applications of hard power in a way that American-style unilateral military deployments have not.

Secondly, the interventions themselves have been carried out by small numbers of elite forces with specific, tactical goals. French forces conduct combat operations with little pomp and circumstance. The press was initially not allowed to follow French special forces into the tribal Toureg regions of Mali and was only allowed to cover in earnest the insertion and departure of French forces in Bamako. Furthermore, French troops are generally not sent abroad for nation-building purposes. Paris gives its forces tactical objectives and withdraws once security is achieved.

Thirdly, and most importantly, Paris has only sought intervention when a viable power structure exists to take over once the presence of French troops has stabilised the situation. Due to the previously discussed sparse press coverage, France’s interventions are typically less concerned with performing a political stunt and instead focus on the limited goal of stability and security. This is most clearly exemplified by the choice to intervene in Chad in 1983-84, not on the basis of humanitarianism, but with the goal of ending violence and stabilising the local security situation. François Mitterand’s intervention in Chad saw a rapid deployment of 3500 French troops to draw a ‘line in the sand’ at the 16th parallel across which neither Libyan nor Chadian forces would be allowed to perform military operations.

The crucial aspect of Paris’ military adventures has been the viability of an exit strategy. American interventions in Vietnam, Korea, and Iraq predated a clear understanding of strategies of limited warfare. In these examples, conventional forces were deployed with no ultimate vision for the operation beyond an initial conventional victory. This resulted in the all-too-familiar American exit strategy of first declaring victory, then unceremoniously ending the intervention, such as Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ blunder in Iraq.

With each case for post-colonial France, Paris has allowed for a locally-driven exit strategy. In Chad, the French ‘line in the sand’ created a de facto ceasefire line and quickly ended the conflict, preserving the sovereignty and stability of both states involved. In Mali, French troops are being replaced by ECOWAS forces and the Malian government in Bamako has successfully remained in power.

The French formula of low profile, low-troop commitments, exit-viable interventions should be the future of Western conventional military operations. These recent examples are especially appropriate to examine as the Syrian Civil War enters its fourth bloody year, and as the coalition attacks on ISIS have proved insufficient thus far. When the choice to avoid ground intervention in Syria is eventually examined by the academics of the future, the analysts will have to ask themselves what kind of forces would have been appropriate and if a viable exit strategy was ever possible. Many criticise the very institution of military intervention, but if Western military forces are to be worth the significant resources required to sustain them, policy-makers will have to assess how best to apply their tools at hand to assure stability in the international order.

Jackson Webster is a student of International Relations at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.

Is Mali set to be the next Afghanistan?

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By Peter Douglas

With Mrs Clinton holdings talks with Algerian President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika to secure Algeria’s backing for military force against militants in northern Mali the possibility of a serious international intervention in the region is increasing.

Reports of new Jihadist fighters flooding into Northern Mali from Algeria, Sudan, and the Western Sahara the destabilisation of the Sahel is becoming an increasingly urgent issue.  Since April,  al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Algerian originating fundamentalist group, and Tuareg allies Ansar Dine and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) have taken over Northern Mali, partitioning the region and imposing Islamist Sharia law.  Shock waves are rippling through the international community as this rebel movement steadily gains momentum with insurgents flowing into the region from Libya and Sudan. Wikimedia provides an informative map showing the areas of Mali currently occupied, alongside key towns and cities under rebel control.

Malian government ineffective

Mali it appears is incapable of a legitimate response. Recovering from a recent military coup in March, the central government are far from achieving any level unity or political capacity sufficient to produce decisive action against the increasingly established rebel groups. Political chaos defines the Malian capital Bamako and neither the highly unpopular interim president Dioncounda Traoré, nor Cheick modibo Diarra, the prime minister – who left his job as a astrophysicist  at NASA to take on the role – have managed to produce a unified response to the crisis. With Mali politically and militarily unable to deal with this increasingly diverse rebel force now running the northern region, calls have been made for a transnational response. The UN Security Council has called on West African nations to ready a military force against AQIM, and on October 12th approved a resolution urging West African states to prepare a force of up to 3,000 troops that would attempt to recapture northern Mali. Both France and the United Nations insist any invasion of Mali’s north must be led by African troops.

Whilst Algeria, with its powerful army, was at first opposed to any military intervention in Mali, a stance which the US has been successfully attempting to budge.

Fears of a ‘new Afghanistan’

Western states are right to be concerned. Many fear that northern Mali could become the new Afghanistan. The vast arid expanse beyond Timbuktu provides the perfect no-man’s-land where extremists can freely train, traffic arms and plot terror attacks abroad. The partitioned area has essentially become a pseudo state for Islamic fundamentalists. However, it is not necessarily the US who are most fearful of a lawless Mali. France, the former colonial ruler of countries across the Sahel is seen as a prime target. With French hostages being held in the country, and fears of French Islamic militants receiving training in the region, the European state whose president recently promised “a new chapter” in engagement on the continent may well have a controversially significant role in any military operations in Mali.

Moral validation

Alongside diplomatic dialogue, horror stories from this insurgent controlled region stories are coming thick and fast, laying a terrifying and bloody ethical justification for future military intervention. In the northern regions beyond government control, a harsh version of sharia law operates, where robbers and drunks have had hands, feet and even heads cut off. Equally dreadful accounts of Islamists buying child soldiers from their families and compiling a list of exploitable unmarried women who are pregnant or had borne children set emotive moral grounds to accompany Western security concerns.

Future Western Intervention

On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany would be prepared to take part in a European mission to train and provide logistical support for Malian security forces. European Union members are considering a noncombat training mission to help the interim Malian government. This accompanies reports of France putting surveillance drones in the region.

The all to predictable, but by no means unjustified criticism of post-colonial intent has been posited, Algerian Tuareg chief, MP Mahmud Guemama, arguing in the Algerian newspaper, Elkhabar that: “What the United States and France are asking will cause a lot of problems,” warning that such action had “colonial objectives.”

The official line is that a planned military push to reclaim northern Mali from armed rebel groups is unlikely to begin before next year. However, with rebel groups gaining strength, and the emergence of an Islamic fundamentalist, Al-Qaeda controlled pseudo-state drawing ever closer, it would be unwise to take this stance too seriously.

Is “war” in Mali “inevitable”?

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By Melisa Tezcan

A military coup earlier this year saw the northern region of Mali fall into the hands of Islamic and separatist rebels. Eight months on and the rebels have maintained their hold, causing thousands of citizens to flee their homes and sparking an international humanitarian crisis.

Taking back the northern region of Mali from the rebels looks set to result in bloodshed. With the U.N. backing a military intervention and the rebels prepared to retaliate at all costs, commentators have argued that “war” in Mali is now “inevitable”. The assumption here is that the intervention will lead to prolonged and intense violence amongst the rebels.

Arguably, were E.U. and U.N. countries willing to deploy troops, and Algeria willing to offer military assistance, the intervention would be considerably more effective and the risk of sustained conflict significantly reduced. Increased military presence in the region may provoke settlement negotiations with some rebel groups, whilst bolstering the chance of success against others. According to Gregory Mann, Mali commentator and professor at Columbia University, “If the military skill set and political willpower is there… it would not be enormously difficult to remove the[se] Islamist fighters”.

At this stage however, policy makers are limited in both these regards. Mali itself is politically fragile. The government infrastructure rests upon a tentative coalition between the military and the executive. Both factions are relatively unpopular and lack political clout. Given this, the U.N deemed that strategic responsibility for the intervention should lie with the wider regional group ECOWAS (The Economic Community of West African States).

This in itself has proved problematic and reaching a consensus has not been easy. According to ECOWAS director for external relations, Abdel Fatau Musah, there are a number of “stakeholders” whose values need to be reflected in the policy, namely those of neighbouring countries, Algeria and Mauritania, the former of which is particularly opposed to any form of military intervention.

Furthermore, even if a policy is devised within ECOWAS, it may be met with scepticism on the grounds that the organisation does not have a sound human rights record when it comes to the deployment of troops. If it is to gather the support of the international community, and thereby swift implementation, accountability must be built into the proposal.

Looking to the military component, there are additional limitations that need to be considered. As previously mentioned, Western nations including France and U.S will not be offering support in the form of military personnel.  These constituents will come directly from Mali and its regional allies in ECOWAS; around 6000 troops in total. When we consider the vast terrain of northern Mali, around the size of Texas, together with thousands of miles of borderland – this military provision is relatively underwhelming. Looking at these figures in relation to the number of rebel recruits thought to be in the region, there is certainly cause for concern.

Furthermore, the military infrastructure itself is flawed. There are deep fissures between military ranks that need to be reformed before deployment can take place. Many troops remain disillusioned with the central government, and the possibility of their defection remains high. Policy makers need to be wary of the dangers that heavily armed, yet unprincipled, personnel may pose, as there is a risk that these individuals will disperse and leave their weapons in the hands of the rebels.

At this stage, we can be relatively certain that a military intervention in northern Mali is on the cards. What is still up for debate is whether or not this will lead to an outright conflict. Certainly, according to some rebel leaders, intervention means war. Hamaha, head of security for rebel group MUJAO, has threatened retaliation: “If an international or Malian military force attacks us, we will take Bamako in 24 hours…the international community is slow to strike because it knows that if it does, it will spark a worldwide jihad”.

In order to minimise the likelihood and potency of these threats, the intervention itself would need to be swift, well managed and properly equipped. As it stands, with Algeria withholding its resources, the West withholding its troops and the Malian military in tatters, the intervention may serve only to ignite a spark that it is unable to put out.