EU power and armed humanitarianism in Africa: evaluating ESDP in Chad

Abstract

This article analyses the European Union's (EU's) largest European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) military mission outside Europe to date; Eufor Tchad/RCA was a 3700-strong force involving personnel from 23 states, deployed to Chad and the Central African Republic for 12 months from March 2008. Far from this mission achieving EU ‘supremacy’ or projecting an ‘imperial’ reach, an evaluation of its objectives and achievements reveals acute limitations in the EU's ability to project power. The article analyses the context in which Eufor was conceived and deployed. It notes that the mission's weaknesses, like those of the United Nations mission to whom the EU transferred its security role in 2009, reflected its convoluted origins and objectives. Finally, the article examines whether the EU as a unitary actor has the desire or the ability to ‘replace’ individual European nations—in this case France—in their post-colonial military and ‘humanitarian’ roles in sub-Saharan Africa.

Notes

¹ The article draws on the author's contacts with Chadian, French and EU officials between 2006 and 2010 as well as Chadian news sources (notably Ndjamena Bi-hebdo) and the initial published evaluations of Eufor. The latter include Olsen (2009), Ganascia and Pouye (2009), Helly (2009) and Núñez Villaverde (2010). For the EU's own comprehensive documentation on its mission, see < www.consilium.europa.eu/showPage.aspx?id = 1366&lang = en>.