Can Limited Intervention Work? Lessons from Britain’s Success Story in Sierra Leone

ABSTRACT

Following frustrating campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Western interventions are becoming more limited, with troops being deployed for short bursts and residual peace-building tasks being left to others. Although this approach limits exposure for the intervening government, it struggles to achieve meaningful political change. Examining the comparatively successful British intervention in Sierra Leone (2000–02), this article identifies the conditions for effectiveness in these campaigns. It challenges the historiography of the case by framing armed confrontations and raids as enablers of politics rather than ends in themselves; indeed, in both the conduct and study of intervention, politics must reign supreme.

KEYWORDS:

• Sierra Leone
• United Kingdom
• Intervention
• United Nations
• Peacekeeping

Acknowledgements

This article was commissioned by the Conflict, Security & Development Research Group (CSDRG) at King’s College London, which is sponsored by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I am thankful for this support and would further like to recognise Kieran Mitton, Mats Berdal, Maxwell Kelly, Gen. Jonathon Riley, and Gen. David Richards for their engagement with the text and argument. I also thank Cayla Jakubowski for her solid research assistance. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the US Department of Defense, or the United States government.

Notes

¹ Thierry Tardy, ‘The Reluctant Peacekeeper: France and the Use of Force in Peace Operations’, Journal of Strategic Studies 37/5 (2014), 788–89.

² David Keen. Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone (Oxford: James Currey 2005), 9.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Krijn Peters, War and the Crisis of Youth in Sierra Leone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011), 45–46.

⁵ Peter Alexander Albrecht, ‘Foundational Hybridity and Its Reproduction: Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone’, PhD dissertation, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Business and Politics 2012, 121.

⁶ Kieran Mitton, ‘Engaging with Disengagement’, in Mats Berdal and David H. Ucko (eds), Reintegrating Armed Groups after Conflict: Politics, Violence and Transition (Abingdon: Routledge 2009), 172.

⁷ Keen, Conflict and Collusion, 253–56.

⁸ Ibid., 259.

⁹ Riley, ‘Sierra Leone, 2000–2001‘, unpublished transcript, 8–9.

¹⁰ Tristan McConnell, ‘Blair gets hero’s welcome in Sierra Leone’, Christian Science Monitor, 1 June 2007.

¹¹ As cited in David Richards, ‘Sierra Leone – Pregnant with Lessons?’, Whitehall Papers 62/1 (2004), 19. See also Alex Renton, ‘Sierra Leone: one place where Tony Blair remains an unquestioned hero’, The Guardian, 17 April 2010.

¹² In his autobiography, Kofi Annan notes that ‘the UN Operation was saved … in large part’ through British intervention. See Kofi Annan, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace (New York: Penguin 2012), 117.

¹³ Andrew Mok, ‘Operation Palliser: Spearheading the Future’, Defence Viewpoints, 7 May 2010.

¹⁴ See Andrew M. Dorman, Blair’s Successful War: British Military Intervention in Sierra Leone (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009); William Fowler, Operation Barras (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012); Larry Woods and Timothy Reese, Military Interventions in Sierra Leone: Lessons from a Failed State (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008), 55–82; or Paul William’s self-proclaimed ‘evaluation of Britain’s military intervention in Sierra Leone’, which focuses, for reasons unknown, ‘particularly [on] the deployment in May 2000’ at the expense of subsequent phases. See Paul Williams, ‘Fighting for Freetown: British Military Intervention in Sierra Leone’, Contemporary Security Policy 22/3 (2001), 141.

¹⁵ Search conducted on 2 June 2015. Note that Operation Basilica is also the name of an unrelated operation.

¹⁶ Con Coughlin, ‘A last salvo from General Sir David Richards’, The Telegraph, 17 July 2013.

¹⁷ Our World, ‘Returning to Sierra Leone’, BBC, 28 May 2010.

¹⁸ Richard Connaughton, ‘The Mechanics and Nature of British Interventions into Sierra Leone (2000) and Afghanistan (2001–2002)’, Civil Wars 5/2 (2002), 84; Mok, ‘Operation Palliser’; Woods and Reese, Military Interventions in Sierra Leone, 77.

¹⁹ Albrecht, ‘Foundational Hybridity’, 133.

²⁰ Dorman, Blair’s Successful War, 79.

²¹ Ibid.

²² David Richards, ‘Expeditionary Operations: Sierra Leone – Lessons for the Future’, World Defence Systems 3/2 (2001), 135.

²³ House of Commons, Debate 8 May 2000, Vol. 349 cc518–29, <http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/2000/may/08/sierra-leone>.

²⁴ Mark Tran, ‘No combat role for British troops, says Cook’, The Guardian, 9 May 2000; Chris McGreal, Richard Norton-Taylor, and Ewen MacAskill, ‘Britain takes war to Sierra Leone rebels’, The Guardian, 12 May 2000.

²⁵ BBC, Breakfast with Frost, 14 May 2000, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/breakfast_with_frost/transcripts/cook14.may.txt>.

²⁶ House of Commons, Debate, 15 May 2000, Vol. 350 cc23–38, <http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/2000/may/15/sierra-leone#S6CV0350P0_20000515_HOC_113>

²⁷ This draws on Dorman, Blair’s Successful War, 97.

²⁸ ‘Notes on the Security Council Retreat held at Pocantico Conference Center, Pocantico Hills, New York, on 2–3 June 2000’, 8. It should be noted that, as recognised by some Security Council members, the mission did have the necessary authorities to counter RUF.

²⁹ See Dorman, Blair’s Successful War, 96.

³⁰ House of Commons, Debate, 23 May 2000, Vol. 350 cc863–74, <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmhansrd/vo000523/debtext/00523-09.htm>.

³¹ Gwyn Prins, The Heart of War: On Power, Conflict and Obligation in the Twenty-First Century (London: Routledge 2003), 202.

³² Ibid., 204–06.

³³ Richards, ‘Expeditionary Operations’, 136.

³⁴ See, respectively, ‘UK pullout from Freetown’, BBC News, 12 June 2000, and Richards, as cited in Sierra Leone News, 12 June 2000, <http://www.sierra-leone.org/Archives/slnews0600.html>.

³⁵ Prins, The Heart of War, 204.

³⁶ ‘DPKO Assessment Mission to Sierra Leone, 31 May–8 June 2000’ (Eisele Report), UN Document. See also United Nations Security Council, ‘Fifth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone’, 31 July 2000, 9.

³⁷ Adekeye Adebajo and David Keen, ‘Sierra Leone’, in Mats Berdal and Spyros Economides (eds), United Nations Interventionism, 1991–2004 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 264. See also Chris McGreal, ‘UN to Sack its General in Sierra Leone’, Guardian Weekly, 29 June–5 July 2000.

³⁸ Anil Raman, ‘Operation Khukri: Joint Excellence’, United Services Institute Journal 227 (2002), 515–31.

³⁹ Adebajo and Keen, ‘Sierra Leone’, 262.

⁴⁰ Chris McGreal, ‘Panic as rebel stronghold scents battle’, The Guardian, 16 June 2000. Infighting appears also to have enabled a successful RUF attack on SLA in Masiaka on 3 July.

⁴¹ ‘West Side Boys Cleared from Illegal Roadblocks’, IRIN, 24 July 2000.

⁴² Richards, ‘Expeditionary Operations’, 134, my emphasis.

⁴³ House of Commons, Debate, 6 June 2000, Vol. 351 cc161–72, <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmhansrd/vo000606/debtext/00606-05.htm>.

⁴⁴ Interview with Gen. David Richards, 12 August 2015.

⁴⁵ Prins, The Heart of War, 207.

⁴⁶ Woods and Reese, Military Interventions in Sierra Leone, 77.

⁴⁷ Michael Dynes, ‘Jungle rebels “drugged, drunk and dangerous”‘, Independent (Ireland), 28 August 2000.

⁴⁸ Dorman, Blair’s Successful War, 114.

⁴⁹ Fowler, Operation Barras, 158.

⁵⁰ Renton, ‘Sierra Leone’.

⁵¹ This should be obvious, yet needs stating given the frequent characterisation of WSB as ‘a breakaway faction of the RUF’. See Mark Malan, Phenyo Rakate, and Angela McIntyre, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: UNAMSIL Hits the Home Straight (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies: Pretoria 2002), or Virginia Page Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work?: Shaping Belligerents’ Choices after Civil War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 59, both of which simply put words to a more general yet implicit understanding. A 2015 retrospective on Barras in The Independent also ascribes victory over RUF (which is never mentioned) to the raid on WSB. See Peter Oborne, ‘General John Holmes’ battle to rebuild Sierra Leone 15 years after a daring rescue’, The Independent, 12 September 2015.

⁵² As cited in Dorman, Blair’s Successful War, 113.

⁵³ Interview with Gen. David Richards, 12 August 2015.

⁵⁴ ‘Border raids terrifying Guinea town’, New York Times, 17 September 2000. Going further, even WSB remnants continued to resist, requiring concerted mopping-up operations well into the autumn. Interview with Gen. Jonathon Riley, 26 June 2015.

⁵⁵ Interview with Gen. David Richards, 12 August 2015.

⁵⁶ ‘Who are the West Side Boys’, BBC News, 31 August 2000.

⁵⁷ See, respectively, Kim Sengupta, ‘West Side Boys leader ordered seizure in “fit of drunken pique”’, The Telegraph, 11 September 2000; Dorman, Blair’s Successful War, 104; ‘Eyewitness: held by the West Side Boys’, BBC News, 30 August 2000.

⁵⁸ See Prins, The Heart of War, 202.

⁵⁹ William Reno, ‘The Failure of Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone’, Current History 100 (2001), 223.

⁶⁰ One of the group’s many demands was for its representatives to ‘be included in a new interim government’. ‘IRIN focus on the West Side Boys’, IRIN, 5 September 2000.

⁶¹ Mats Utas and Magnus Jörgel. ‘The West Side Boys: Military Navigation in the Sierra Leone Civil War’, Journal of Modern African Studies 46/3 (2008), 495.

⁶² Douglas Farah, ‘Internal disputes mar U.N. mission; power struggle cripples troops in Sierra Leone’, Washington Post, 10 September 2000.

⁶³ On UN allegations, see Farah, ‘Internal disputes’. On WSB’s view of ‘their’ territory, see ‘Interview with the West Side Boys’. BBC News, 1 September 2000.

⁶⁴ Utas and Jörgel, ‘The West Side Boys’, 489.

⁶⁵ Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone (Oxford: James Currey, 1996), xvii; Mitton, ‘Engaging Disengagement’, 178–90.

⁶⁶ Jonathon P. Riley, ‘The UK in Sierra Leone: A Post-conflict Operation Success?’, Heritage Lectures 958, 15 June 2006, pp. 1–4.

⁶⁷ Dorman, Blair’s Successful War, 117.

⁶⁸ David Richards, Taking Command (London: Headline 2014), 161.

⁶⁹ Richard Norton-Taylor and Ewen MacAskill, ‘Britain builds up Sierra Leone force’, The Guardian, 11 October 2000.

⁷⁰ Farah, ‘Internal Disputes’.

⁷¹ Defence Headquarters (RSLAF), ‘Campaign Plan for the Defeat of the RUF by Government Forces in Sierra Leone’, OpPlan 1/1 (2001).

⁷² Ibid., 3.

⁷³ For the text of the treaty, see ‘The Sierra Leone Web’, <http://www.sierra-leone.org/ceasefire1100.html>.

⁷⁴ Richards, Taking Command, 161.

⁷⁵ Prins, The Heart of War, 208.

⁷⁶ Interview with Gen. David Richards, 12 August 2015.

⁷⁷ Chris McGreal, ‘Britain doubles Sierra Leone force’, The Guardian, 13 November 2000.

⁷⁸ Malan et al., Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, 12.

⁷⁹ Alpha Sesay, ‘Taylor did not order the RUF to attack Guinea’, International Justice Monitor, 22 September 2009.

⁸⁰ Lansana Gberie, ‘Destabilizing Guinea: diamonds, Charles Taylor and the potential for wider humanitarian catastrophe’, Occasional Paper 1, Partnership Africa Canada/International Peace Information Service/Network Movement for Justice and Development, 2001, 11.

⁸¹ Alex Duval Smith, ‘Sierra Leone rebels flee and take war to Guinea’, The Independent, 19 November 2000; ‘U.N. seeks safe passage for Guinea refugees’, CNN.com, 12 February 2001.

⁸² Jeremy Black, Rethinking Military History (New York: Routledge 2004), 19.

⁸³ Riley, ‘The UK in Sierra Leone’, 2.

⁸⁴ To Barry Le Grys, ‘While there were some courageous and capable SLA officers at battalion level and below, they were in the minority. UK officers were formally embedded in command positions, including that of the joint force commander.’ See Barry Le Grys, ‘British Military Involvement in Sierra Leone, 2001–2006’, in Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson (eds), Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007: Views from the Front Line (Berlin: Lit 2010), 56.

⁸⁵ Riley, ‘Sierra Leone, 2000–2001’, 19–20.

⁸⁶ Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson, Security System Transformation in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007 (London: Peter 2009), 56.

⁸⁷ Riley, ‘Sierra Leone, 2000–2001’, 26.

⁸⁸ John L. Hirsch, Sierra Leone: Diamonds and the Struggle for Democracy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2001), 102. See also Funmi Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: The Story of UNAMSIL (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2008), 94.

⁸⁹ Michael Dobbs, British Intervention in War-Torn Sierra Leone, 1997–2015 (Leighton Buzzard: West Africa Study Circle 2015), 19.

⁹⁰ ‘Notes on the Security Council Retreat’, 4.

⁹¹ Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, 98–99.

⁹² Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa: the RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2005), 186.

⁹³ Keen, Conflict and Collusion, 271.

⁹⁴ As cited in ‘RUF commanders surrender’, IRIN, 12 February 2001.

⁹⁵ Interview with Gen. Jonathon Riley, 26 June 2015.

⁹⁶ Keen, Conflict and Collusion, 268.

⁹⁷ James Brabazon, ‘Liberia: Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD)’, Armed Non-state Actors Project Briefing Paper 1, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2003, 6.

⁹⁸ Kieran Mitton, ‘Where Is the War? Explaining Peace in Sierra Leone’, International Peacekeeping 20/3 (2013), 328.

⁹⁹ On this point, I am indebted to Kieran Mitton and his fieldwork in Sierra Leone in autumn 2015.

¹⁰⁰ Mitton, ‘Where Is the War?’, 325. As Mitton explains, while some fighters had ‘enjoyed the short-term benefits of looting, diamond mining, and exercising power over civilians, by the end of the conflict, most had little to show for it’.

¹⁰¹ Ibid., 326.

¹⁰² Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson, ‘Introduction: The Roots of Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone’, in Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson (eds), Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007: Views from the Front Line (Berlin: Lit 2010), 4–6.

¹⁰³ Alfred Nelson-Williams, ‘Restructuring the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces’, in Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson (eds), Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007: Views from the Front Line (Berlin: Lit 2010), 147. For a more detailed examination of RSLAF’s evolution and its peacekeeping participation, see Peter Albrecht and Cathy Haenlein, ‘Sierra Leone’s Post-conflict Peacekeepers,’ RUSI Journal 160/1 (2015), 26–36.

¹⁰⁴ See Kadi Fakondo, ‘Reforming and Building Capacity of the Sierra Leone Police, 1999–2007’, in Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson (eds), Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007: Views from the Front Line (Berlin: Lit 2010), 167–76. See also Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation, 38–39.

¹⁰⁵ Riley, ‘The UK in Sierra Leone’, 3.

¹⁰⁶ Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 176.

¹⁰⁷ Mark White, ‘The Security–Development Nexus in Sierra Leone’, in Peter Albrecht and Paul Jackson (eds), Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone, 1997–2007: Views from the Front Line (Berlin: Lit 2010), 87.

¹⁰⁸ Lansana Gberie, ‘Rescuing a Failed State: The Case of Sierra Leone’, in Lansana Gberie (ed.), Rescuing a Fragile State: Sierra Leone 2002–2008 (Waterloo, ON: LCMSDS Press 2009), 11.

¹⁰⁹ Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 175–76.

¹¹⁰ Albrecht and Jackson, Security System Transformation, 41. See also Le Grys, ‘British Military Involvement’, 43.

¹¹¹ See Ian Smillie, ‘Orphan of the Storm: Sierra Leone and 30 Years of Foreign Aid’, in Lansana Gberie (ed.), Rescuing a Fragile State: Sierra Leone 2002–2008 (Waterloo, ON: LCMSDS Press 2009), 16, 22–23.

¹¹² Mitton, ‘Where Is the War?’, 326, 329.

¹¹³ Albrecht and Jackson, ‘Introduction’, 5.

¹¹⁴ Mats Berdal and David H. Ucko, ‘The Use of Force in UN Peacekeeping Operations: Problems and Prospects’, RUSI Journal 160/1 (2015), 8–10.

¹¹⁵ Note should also be made of Sierra Leone’s diminutive size. Its population in 2000 was a fifth that of Iraq or Afghanistan, and its size is one sixth and ninth of each, respectively.

¹¹⁶ Sir Robert Thompson in interview with Thomas A. Marks, March 1989.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David H. Ucko

David H. Ucko is an associate professor at the College of International Security Affairs (CISA), National Defense University, and an adjunct research fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is the author of Counterinsurgency in Crisis: Britain and the Challenges of Modern Warfare (New York: Columbia University Press 2013).