Do no harm: assessing a military approach to the Lord's Resistance Army

Abstract

In October 2011 the US announced the deployment of 100 special force troops to assist the Ugandan army against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). For several years the originally northern Ugandan rebel group has been active in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan. The announcement generated mixed responses, but has generally triggered a strong upsurge in support for an international military approach to deal with the LRA, almost invariably accompanied by a call for enhanced civilian protection. Among the strongest supporters of the deployment, and the military approach that this embodies, have been humanitarian groups who have advocated such a policy in the name of the humanitarian use of force. The present article points out that the promotion of this approach has occurred without a careful assessment of the military requirements necessary for its success, even against a weakened LRA. The article provides this military assessment and concludes, after examining the many challenges and limitations confronting the anti-LRA forces, that the necessary requirements for success are highly unlikely to be met. Given that unsuccessful military operations against the rebels have typically resulted in LRA retaliation against civilians, the paper urges caution in pursuing such options and awareness of likely civilian consequences. First, do no harm.

Keywords:

• East-Central Africa
• Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)
• US troop deployment
• humanitarian use of force
• military analysis

The US military initiative and reactions: an internationalized military approach ascendant

On 14 October 2011 President Obama sent a letter to Congress outlining his authorization for the deployment to Central Africa of about 100 “combat-equipped” US Special Forces “to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of [Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader] Joseph Kony from the battlefield”. He prefaced his authorization by referencing The Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009, in which Congress “expressed support for increased, comprehensive U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability”. He then justified the authorization by stating his belief “that deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa”.1

During the first days and weeks following the announcement, the deployment and its stated targets – the LRA and the group's elusive and infamous leader, Joseph Kony – were the subject of a brief upsurge of news accounts, commentary and analyses in the media, advocacy and policy blogs, and NGO reports. For a short time, Kony and the LRA were thrust back into international prominence after months of being mostly invisible – an international invisibility that largely soon descended again (much as had been the case for all but the last few years of the 20-year conflict in northern Uganda that spawned the LRA). Even in Uganda, after the initial reactions immediately after the announcement, the US troop presence has received little media – or in northern Uganda, at least, little public – attention.

Most news accounts were predictably brief, providing limited context and assessment that rarely ventured beyond recycled, de-politicized and de-historicized stereotypes of the LRA and the northern Uganda conflict that set the stage for the current situation. Crucially, two fundamental features of that conflict were almost invariably overlooked. These were its origins in widespread abuses by Ugandan government troops, and the many years subsequently when civilians suffered not only from the brutal violence of the LRA, but the at least equally deadly, if quieter, damage caused by Ugandan troops and government policy of forced displacement. And LRA combatants (and leader Joseph Kony) were routinely depicted, explicitly or implicitly, as irrational primitives inflicting incomprehensible and wanton destruction, interpretations that are as distorted as they are unfortunately pervasive in categorizing African conflict.2

The basic Associated Press (AP) version, appearing in the Guardian (UK) and elsewhere, was better than most, at least incorporating some bare-bones background information (though still with little context and frequent stereotypes):

Long considered one of Africa's most brutal rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army began its attacks in Uganda more than 20 years ago but has been pushing westward.

The administration and human rights groups say its atrocities have left thousands dead and have put as many as 300,000 Africans to flight. They have charged the group with seizing children to bolster its ranks of soldiers and sometimes forcing them to become sex slaves.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court under a 2005 warrant for crimes against humanity in his native Uganda.3

More detailed recent statistics than the AP or most other news sources provided were included in a report published in mid-November 2011 by the International Crisis Group (ICG): since December 2008, the LRA had been responsible for killing probably more than 2400 civilians, abducting perhaps another 3400, and displacing as of August 2011 some 440,000.4 The trigger that set in motion the events producing these numbers was a US-supported Ugandan military strike against the LRA that scattered the rebels across wide swaths of the three countries in which they are currently operating – the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), and the world's newest nation, South Sudan. This attack ended stalled peace talks that had begun in 2006, during which most of the rebels relocated to camps in the DRC, and which brought an end to conflict in northern Uganda. But conflict has not ended; it has instead been displaced to the neighboring countries just noted.

Commentary and analyses, meanwhile, have ranged from the absurd to the thoughtful and knowledgeable. Perhaps the most obvious of the former came from right-wing US radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, who followed up the Obama announcement of the troop deployment to criticize the President the next day in a ludicrously misinformed segment of his radio show headlined “Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians”.5 Among the latter were blog postings by Ledio Cakaj on the resolve.org website and by Marieke Schomerus, Tim Allen and Koen Vlassenroot on foreignaffairs.com.6 Though brief, these postings included both essential historical and political context on the LRA as well as insightful analysis of the background and timing of this most recent instance of US involvement on the side of the Ugandan government and military – the Uganda Peoples Defence Force, or UPDF – against the LRA.

Cakaj's and Schomerus, Allen and Vlassenroot's postings are both deeply skeptical and otherwise critical of the US troop deployment. This negative assessment is shared by a number of others, though a distinct minority. These include some academics, religious and civil society groups in northern Uganda – the epicenter of conflict from 1986 to 2006 – and a small number of other such groups in the three neighboring countries where the LRA is currently active.7 The vast majority of commentators, however, including many civil society groups and others in the current LRA-affected areas, have been supportive of the US action, sometimes ardently so, sometimes with concerns and caveats.8

Among the most fervent supporters have been the advocacy groups that helped to initiate and then strongly promote the congressional bill on the LRA which led to the troop deployment and Obama's support of it. Among these groups was Human Rights Watch, and their strong stance on the matter was articulated in a statement, just two days before Obama's announcement, by the group's president, Kenneth Roth:

In May, Obama signed a bill committing the United States to help arrest Kony and his commanders and protect the affected population. Now it is high time to act. Arresting Kony would reaffirm that mass murder cannot be committed with impunity. And it would show that, despite the difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the humanitarian use of force remains a live option at the Obama White House.9

The mid-November 2011 ICG report was the latest in a series on the LRA, and was published at least in part in response to the announcement of the US troop deployment. The report weighed in staunchly on the side of the majority supporting a military approach to the LRA.10

It does so even after explicitly acknowledging that the “Ugandan army, even with U.S. advisers, is a flawed and uncertain instrument for defeating the LRA”, most basically because “its record of abuses and failures to protect civilians [have caused] the governments and populations of the LRA-affected countries [to] distrust it”, distrust also stemming from allegations of UPDF illegal exploitation of high-value resources.11

The ICG report also notes a daunting list of other obstacles to the current and “half-hearted” operations in the three years since the botched December 2008 UPDF military strike noted above (dubbed Operation Lightning Thunder), especially the near total failure in the aftermath of the strikes to provide civilian protection against retaliatory rebel attacks as the LRA scattered across the vast territory in which they continue to operate.12 Additional problems identified range from the suspect political will – though for varying reasons – of all four governments involved in dealing with the LRA to the poor and limited coordination and cooperation amongst the four national armies.

Still, despite the documented past and current allegations of UPDF misbehavior and other impediments, the ICG urges that “Uganda, with U.S. advice and support, should … lose no time in launching a reinvigorated attack on the LRA”. Moreover, the report then recommends essentially giving the UPDF carte blanche to pursue such an attack: “Presidents Kabila (DRC), Bozizé (CAR) and Kiir (South Sudan) to grant the Ugandan army access to all areas where the LRA is active for six months, reviewable after five months”, although it does add the now-standard caveat of those advocating military approaches to dealing with the LRA, that the presidents should also “instruct their armies to increase civilian protection”.13

The ICG then argues for the African Union (AU) to fulfill an obligation agreed to last year to take on a diplomatic and military coordinating role to help create a more efficient and “robust” anti-LRA military force, before presenting 16 specific, detailed recommendations – to the AU and its international partners; the governments of Uganda, DRC, CAR, South Sudan, and US; the European Union; the UN Stabilisation Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO), the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and the UN Peacebuilding Office in the CAR (BINUCA); and the US, EU, UN, and other donors.14 While this lengthy inventory of comprehensive recommendations is mostly thoughtful and logical – at least from a perspective that accepts the viability and desirability of a military approach – political (and economic) realities on the ground make it almost impossible to imagine the effective implementation of most, if any, of them.

But the basic thrust of the recommendations can be summarized. They emphasize the need to provide political, diplomatic, and financial support to: (1) enhance coordination and intensify military operations against the LRA; (2) implement an effective, region-wide Disarmament, Demobilization, Repatriation, Resettlement, and Reintegration (DDRRR) program; and (3) prioritize better civilian protection.

The ICG report provides greater and more widely ranging detail than most commentaries and analyses that have followed the US deployment of troops to the region. But nearly all of those supporting that deployment would more or less agree with the group's basic proposals, particularly the two that call for a more robust and effective military approach to the LRA while also providing enhanced civilian protection.

At a very basic level, the urge of advocacy groups, and others, to promote an active response to the ongoing suffering of innocent people scattered across the three countries where the LRA are active, is understandable – though the contributions to such suffering made by the governments and militaries arrayed, or supposedly arrayed, against the LRA are also significant, and should not be ignored or underplayed. And given the more than three years of that suffering following the collapse of once seemingly hopeful peace talks and the launch of Operation Lightning Thunder, it is easy to see how the response most commonly advocated is a military one, twinned with the call for greater civilian protection. When the outstanding International Criminal Court warrants for the top LRA leadership are factored into the equation, it difficult to see a clear way forward for an effective peaceful approach, although religious leaders in northern Uganda and others, some in the current LRA-affected areas, have continued to promote such approaches.15

But does the difficulty in seeing a clear peaceful way forward justify the perhaps louder than ever drumbeats for pursuing a military approach to dealing with the LRA, or what Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch in the quotation above called “the humanitarian use of force”?

Our response to this question, laid out in detail in the following section, is to look closely at what would be required for such an approach to be both successful militarily and at the same time provide effective civilian protection. It turns out that what is required is formidable; indeed, given circumstances on the ground, virtually impossible.

Given this reality, we make a strong cautionary plea that advocating for or contributing to a military approach – such as sending 100 US soldiers to assist the UPDF – needs to be cognizant of the difficulties and dangers of pursuing such an approach. We do this in the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath, long enjoined on physicians (and still taken by new doctors at almost all medical schools in the US) as they assess how to intervene to cope with complex, sometimes life threatening individual illness and injury: “First, do no harm”.16 This ancient admonition entered into the development literature in the late 1990s, with the initiation of the Sphere Project in 1996 (and publication of the first Sphere Handbook in 1998), quickly followed by development economist Mary Anderson's widely-read book, Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace – Or War, which challenged aid agency personnel to take responsibility for the ways that their actions affect conflicts. 17 Both the term and the challenge it represents have been a part of the discourse – and debate – about humanitarian intervention ever since.18

A military assessment of a military approach to the LRA: a cautionary plea

Five months before the deployment of US troops to assist in military operations against the LRA, a final draft was completed of a diagnostic study of the LRA, commissioned by the International Working Group on the LRA (comprised of the US, UK, France, the European Union, African Union, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the World Bank). The study built on a series of meetings and discussions over the previous two years by a diverse group of diplomats, representatives of international humanitarian organizations and subject matter experts with relevant knowledge or experience concerning the LRA.19

Two of the central and crucial components of this version of the Diagnostic were an historical review of the structure, organization, and behavior of the LRA and, based on that review, an extensive if not full military assessment of the challenges – and requirements – for a successful military approach to dealing with the rebel group. While the Diagnostic acknowledged that this assessment was not a full, formal military technical analysis, its findings challenged “the notion that successful military operations can be conducted in isolation by any of the military forces currently engaged against the LRA, or that the military requirements to protect civilians and kill or capture the LRA leadership can be separated from each other”.20

In other words, the Diagnostic provides a military assessment of the two dominant themes of supporters of the recent anti-LRA troop deployment by the US: implementing an effective military approach to eliminate the LRA while also providing enhanced civilian protection.

Due to political sensitivities expressed by some members, the military assessment was removed from the final version submitted to the International Working Group and subsequently published on the World Bank website.21 But its relevance at the time, and even more now, seems to us irrefutable. How can there be any intelligent discussion of the merits of a military approach if it is not grounded on careful research and analysis? Yet much of the discussion surrounding the LRA, both before and after the deployment of US troops, takes place without a clear idea of the military dimensions of the problem presented by the LRA.

In the current situation, the basic objectives of any acceptable approach to dealing with the LRA can be boiled down to the two components emphasized above: an effective military campaign against the LRA that also provides effective civilian protection. The remainder of this section will lay out the unpublished Diagnostic's military assessment of what is required to achieve these two objectives, and it will do so at some length, as in this case the detail is crucial to understanding the complexity of the issue.

The contextual grounding for the unpublished Diagnostic's military assessment is based upon an analysis of the structure, organization, and historical patterns of operation of the LRA.22 Summing up, the most relevant (and incontrovertible) of these organizational aspects – even in the rebel group's current reduced and weakened condition – are:

•	A unified command structure with a capacity for central control of small group independent (or semi-independent) operations through a system that combines strategic guidelines with tactical freedom.
•	Charismatic leadership based on skillful use of fear, discipline, demonstrated survival skills and combined cultural and religious beliefs.
•	A demonstrated capacity for analysis and development of attack plans designed for specific purposes such as incapacitating local defenses, terrorizing local populations and exploiting boundaries between opposing forces.
•	A demonstrated preference for extreme physical violence as well as deliberate psychological operations against civilian targets.
•	High off-road mobility on foot. The LRA has been reported as able to cover up to 50 kilometers per day cross country.
•	The ability to understand and read maps as well as incorporate appropriate technologies such as GPS, satellite and cellphones.
•	The capacity to understand the vulnerabilities of the above and to adapt accordingly.
•	The ability to recruit and train new fighters by a combination of force, psychological conditioning and effective training.
•	The capacity to conduct well-coordinated attacks, sometimes very close to government or UN military installations, and to escape.
•	The capacity to operate at night.
•	Excellent battlefield and operational discipline.
•	The proven capacity to thrive in hostile environments and among people who both hate and fear them.
•	A capacity to live off the land indefinitely.23

In addition to these LRA organizational characteristics, a number of other features complicate both an effective military approach and civilian protection. A broad, overarching factor is the complicated national, regional, and international political context.24 Other complicating factors include: (1) the vast territory within which the LRA operate (about the size of the US state of Colorado or half the size of France); (2) the limited number and poor quality of roads; (3) the many rivers that impede movement, especially during the rainy season; (4) the extent of heavy tropical forest cover in the southern portions of LRA-affected areas (cover that thins gradually to the north); (5) the LRA practice of targeting and abducting civilians for recruits, porters, and intelligence; and (6) the dispersed nature of the civilian population.25

Adequate, effective civilian protection in these circumstances would require first of all “an accurate census of the population to be protected, a detailed analysis of terrain and response timings for reserves, the development of adequate communications infrastructure and the availability of appropriate protection forces. These forces,” the unpublished Diagnostic continues, “would need to include:

•	Sufficient numbers of troops to establish a coordinated 24 hour-a-day network of defensive positions around major centers of civilian population.
•	Scouts and sentries posted throughout the region to give early warning of LRA movement and/or attack.
•	Sufficient numbers of reserve forces to react in the event of an impending attack on an unguarded civilian community.
•	Communications between all anti-LRA forces deployed within a functioning command and control system.
•	Civil affairs liaison teams.
•	Effective public communications/information operations. Command, control and coordination across the entire area of operations”.26

Truly effective protection would also require troop escorts for civilians (including merchants, religious leaders, and government officials) when traveling outside protected areas and for people accessing their fields, along with additional mobile reserves to respond to sudden protection needs. And such a system would need to operate across international borders.

Considering all of the above, the unpublished Diagnostic concludes that “it is difficult to imagine how any form of static protection could be effective”.27 This is especially the case “as long as the LRA can choose the time and place of attack. At the moment this is relatively easy as there are simply too many possible target settlements, too few troops to guard them and no systematic pursuit after attacks. A more effective form of protection would include rapid pursuit after every attack. This would reduce the LRA's capacity to abduct new recruits and would force them to limit the amount of loot that they could carry away”.28

But such a strategy “of constant pressure through systematic response and pursuit after attacks”, the unpublished Diagnostic makes clear, would require enormously heavy military (and economic) inputs, including:

•	Rapid reaction forces deployed on a scale appropriate to the dispersion of population, the transport available and the availability of supporting troops.
•	Excellent mobility appropriate to the country and the area covered (including helicopters, all-terrain vehicles and wheeled transport).
•	Second wave support troops available to take over longer term pursuit.
•	Trackers, remote sensing monitors, aerial surveillance.
•	Communications linking response units to the warning system.
•	Command, Control and Coordination capacity appropriate to the challenges of mounting and sustaining rapid pursuit operations and coordinating action from multi-national forces across the boundaries of four countries.
•	Effective public communications/information operations. Civil Affairs liaison teams and translators.

Moreover, in order to strengthen such a rapid response and pursuit strategy, as well as reduce the pursuing forces’ vulnerability to ambush, “indirect fire support and close air support would also be required”.29

“The LRA has a good chance to retain tactical and strategic initiative,” the unpublished Diagnostic continues, “unless it is forced into predictable patterns of behavior”. This could only be achieved through an

ability to monitor multiple information sources and inputs, to analyze their significance and to develop strategies designed to force the LRA into actions not of its own choosing. To this end, a comprehensive intelligence collection, collation and analysis capacity would be required, including:

•	A collection system capable of drawing on all available sources of information both civil and military across the entire area of operations (given the nature of the terrain and the difficulty of differentiating targets using remote observation or remote-sensing technology, a well-developed human intelligence system would be essential).
•	A multi-lingual capacity to interview rescued captives, former fighters and returnees.
•	A collation system capable of assembling all available information into a searchable format.
•	A system to investigate and confirm details of all LRA incidents and to document operational details.
•	A capacity to analyze all available information and to use it to inform the development of counter measures – to be shared with all engaged friendly forces.

And in order to counter the LRA's characteristic use of small, quick attacks to resupply itself and collect recruits and guides, “a policy of rapid and determined pursuit” would be required to “strike at the core of their ability to thrive in their current environment”.30

The unpublished Diagnostic argues (as does the ICG report discussed above), that dealing with these myriad challenges would require “a unified command structure and a headquarters with active participation from all the national armies engaged in anti-LRA operations”. It also concurs with the ICG report in suggesting that such a command structure would best be provided by the African Union, although it lays out some of the difficult logistical, economic, and other practical obstacles to this being implemented in a thorough and effective way, including the various (and serious) limitations of the anti-LRA forces on the ground with whom the AU would have to work.31

And apart from the military and practical difficulties of conducting an adequate military offensive against the LRA, political considerations add an additional layer of complexity, allowing little room for optimism. A few months after the Diagnostic was completed, the DRC government forbade the Ugandan army from entering the DRC despite a relatively large presence of LRA combatants in the northeast of the country. The governments of both CAR and South Sudan have dedicated few troops and little willingness to deal with LRA groups. And the LRA, operating far from Uganda's borders, have slipped down the priority list for the government of Uganda as well. Furthermore, Kony and his top commanders seem perfectly capable of moving in North Sudan – witnesses claim LRA combatants went at least twice into North Sudan in the last two years – a place Ugandan and US troops cannot enter unless prepared to risk open war with Khartoum.32

“In the final analysis,” the military assessment concludes, “all military operations entail risk and the outcomes are never certain”. With respect to the LRA, however,

the consequences of attacking Joseph Kony and missing are most likely to include the slaughter of large enough numbers of civilians, a standard LRA response to demonstrate that they retain the capability to carry out such attacks … The more threatened Joseph Kony feels, the more likely he is to murder civilians. Therefore, unless adequate protection capacity is in place across the affected region, the effectiveness of search-and-destroy or arrest operations against Kony and his top leaders is questionable. A reasonable guarantee of civilian protection could be achieved either by a complete protection network with the resources described in outline above, or an impenetrable cordon around all LRA elements. Both would require an enormous number of troops.33

How likely is it that such an enormous number of troops will be deployed against the LRA, let alone be sufficiently coordinated, organized, supported, and committed to fulfill all of the additional requirements outlined above, requirements essential both to pursue an effective military strategy against the LRA and to adequately protect civilians? And how much can 100 US troops contribute to those daunting requirements?

It is always possible that a lucky military strike might finally kill Joseph Kony or the other top LRA commanders. And as with any diagnosis, a second opinion might suggest different conclusions than the ones presented here. But the provision of American support to a military operation does not seem to be based on any diagnosis at all. Rather, those who support the present military course of action seem to believe that the proposed or promised AU military involvement, along with the now deployed American forces to assist the UPDF, will succeed against the LRA by doing more of what has not yet worked. One is reminded of Allied strategies in World War I – only this time the casualties will more than likely be civilian.

These are more than academic questions. And they are ones that all those supporting the deployment of US troops, and more generally all those advocating a military approach to dealing with the LRA, need seriously to consider. Instead of asking ourselves if 100 US military advisers will be enough to transform the present unsuccessful military approach into an effective military/humanitarian intervention, we should ask what it would take to do the job, look at the resources available, and then figure out how – or even if – the requirements for probable success can be met. To do anything less is to leave ourselves mired in loose talk analogous to the old argument about the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin.

The consequences of continuing to compare alternatives without first defining the conditions for success can only raise the risk of contravening the crucially important humanitarian (as well as medical) dictum of “do no harm”. Going after the LRA leadership, which seems to be the main objective of the current military effort, is like operating on a cancer patient without first planning how to do so in a manner that will protect the patient's life while also attempting to prevent the cancer from spreading. In this case, the current LRA are primarily a problem because they kill civilians. Does it make sense to go after their leaders if the result is liable to be more civilian deaths? To do so will certainly put the patient at risk and, if past history is any indicator, is unlikely to work. The moral hazard in this case is particularly high.

Acknowledgements

The authors, Lancaster, Cakaj and Lacaille, in June 2011 prepared a Diagnostic Study of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) for the International Working Group on the LRA, with editorial input from Atkinson. Significant elements of this Diagnostic were not included in the published version, the importance of which for gauging the effectiveness of the current US intervention, and the risks in general of military approaches to dealing with the LRA, the authors aim to establish in this briefing.

Notes

1. See Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate Regarding the Lord's Resistance Army, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10. The Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 from which he quoted was Public Law 111 172, enacted May 24, 2010.

2. For recent sources on the northern Ugandan conflict – all providing political, cultural and historical context along with critical analysis – see Finnström, Living with Bad Surroundings; Dolan, Social Torture; Allen and Vlassenroot, The Lord's Resistance Army; Atkinson, “Afterword”; and Branch, Displacing Human Rights.

3. Associated Press, “Obama Sends 100 Troops to Combat LRA in Uganda,” The Guardian, October 14, 2011. For a much better news article than most, published only a day after Obama's announcement, see Scott Wilson and Craig Whitlock, “Small U.S. Force to Deploy to Uganda, Aid Fight against Lord's Resistance Army,” Washington Post, October 15, 2011.

4. ICG, The Lord's Resistance Army: End Game?, 1.

5. This embarrassing gaffe was widely reported; see for example, “Limbaugh Defends the Lord's Resistance Army,” The New York Times, The Lede blog, October 17, 2011.

6. Cakaj, “US Should Not Repeat Ugandan Failures”; Schomerus, Allen, and Vlassenroot, “Obama Takes on the LRA.”

7. Among the strongest critics of the US troop deployment have been the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), Response to the Deployment, and the Sudan Catholic bishops – see CISA, Sudan: Bishops Troubled by Ongoing Violence.

8. An example of strong and virtually unqualified support for the US troop deployment was provided by popular US columnist Michael Gerson, “The Worthy Mission to Get Joseph Kony,” Washington Post, October 18, 2011. An event hosted by the US Institute for Peace, including remarks by US Undersecretary of State for African Affairs, Johnny Carson, and comments by Michael Poffenburger, a founder of Resolve, one of the primary lobbying groups behind the troop deployment, was strongly supportive of the US position while acknowledging the many challenges involved – see US Institute for Peace (USIP), The United States’ Efforts to Combat the Lord's Resistance Army. Downie, “Critical Questions: Lord's Resistance Army,” does not oppose the troop deployment, but points out both previous failures and current challenges in military approaches to dealing with the LRA, as well as basic reasons why the US would send troops. UN IRIN, Analysis: Taking on the LRA, depicts the complexity of the situation and presents views of individuals and groups that both support the US deployment and those opposed, while also conveying frequently expressed concerns of the latter.

9. Roth, “A Plan B for President Obama.”

10. ICG, The Lord's Resistance Army: End Game?, 1, note 1 references five earlier ICG reports focused on the LRA.

11. ICG, The Lord's Resistance Army: End Game?, 1, note 1 references five earlier ICG reports focused on the LRA., iii. The reported allegations of UPDF illegal natural resource exploitation by the ICG was angrily renounced by a UPDF spokesman “as a ‘hogwash’ writing tinged with accounts by ‘racist armchair’ researchers” – see “UPDF in fresh plunder claims of Congo's minerals,” Sunday Monitor, November 27, 2011.

12. Atkinson, “From Uganda to the Congo and Beyond: Pursuing the Lord's Resistance Army.”

13. ICG, The Lord's Resistance Army: End Game?, ii.

14. ICG, The Lord's Resistance Army: End Game?, ii–iii.

15. Again, see ARLPI, Response to the Deployment, and CISA, Sudan: Bishops Troubled by Ongoing Violence; Atkinson, “From Uganda to the Congo and Beyond: Pursuing the Lord's Resistance Army,” 16–20.

16. The modern version of the oath taken by physicians was written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University in the US, and includes the clause “I will not be ashamed to say ‘I know not,’ nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery,” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html

17. See Australian Aid, “Effective Assistance – The Sphere Project”; Sphere Project, The Sphere Handbook; Anderson, Do No Harm, 1999.

18. For just a small sample of this ongoing discourse see CDA, The Do No Harm Handbook (and CDA, The Do No Harm Project blog, 2010); Easterly, White Man's Burden; Gibbs, First Do No Harm; DfID, Briefing Paper B: Do No Harm; Polman, War Games; and Delaunay, Aid and Accountability.

19. Lancaster, Lacaille, and Cakaj, “Diagnostic Study of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA),” unpublished final draft June 2011; Ronald R. Atkinson peer reviewed the study and contributed editorial input.

20. Lancaster, Lacaille, and Cakaj, “Diagnostic Study of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA),” unpublished final draft June 2011; Ronald R. Atkinson peer reviewed the study and contributed editorial input., 3.

21. Lancaster, Lacaille, and Cakaj, Diagnostic Study of the Lord's Resistance Army, published version on the World Bank TDRP (Transitional Demobilization and Reintegration Program) website, June 2011.

22. Lancaster, Lacaille and Cakaj, Diagnostic Study, 19–38 both unpublished and published versions.

23. Lancaster, Lacaille and Cakaj, Diagnostic Study, 19–38 both unpublished and published versions., 41 (published version); 47 (unpublished version).

24. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions.

25. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions., 49 (unpublished version).

26. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions., 49 (unpublished version).

27. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions., 49 (unpublished version).

28. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions., 50.

29. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions., 50.

30. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions., 50–1.

31. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions., 51–4.

32. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions., 51–4; its final sections (45–50 in the published version, 55–62 in the unpublished version), critically examine the challenges evident at the time to alternatives to a military approach to the LRA, including the difficulties of finding common ground among the various approaches and the complicated and contentious nature of the broader political contexts – local, national, regional and international.

33. These are summarized in ibid., Section One, 9–21 both versions., 51–4; its final sections (45–50 in the published version, 55–62 in the unpublished version), critically examine the challenges evident at the time to alternatives to a military approach to the LRA, including the difficulties of finding common ground among the various approaches and the complicated and contentious nature of the broader political contexts – local, national, regional and international, 52.