European Union Training Missions: security sector reform or counter-insurgency by proxy?

Abstract

With European Union Training Missions (EUTM) Mali and EUTM Somalia, the EU seeks to stabilize countries facing state weakness caused by intrastate conflict. While the EU formally promotes security sector reform (SSR) through its foreign policy, the EUTM missions in Mali and Somalia in one sense can be described as “counter-insurgency by proxy” as military trainees combat local insurgencies shortly upon graduation. This raises the question whether the EUTM missions are consistent with SSR aims, such as creating a security sector that is legitimate, sustainable, and under civilian control, or inadvertently risk contributing to negative side effects in the medium term. Based on extensive interviews in Belgium, Kenya, Mali, Sweden, and Uganda with personnel who either served in or planned these missions, this study analyses factors which hinder the EUTM concept from being fully consistent with SSR and identifies possible policies to ameliorate the risk of unintended side effects.

Keywords:

• EUTM
• Mali
• Somalia
• CSDP
• capacity building
• security sector reform

Acknowledgements

The research presented in this article is based on several years of research at the Swedish Defence Research Agency focusing on military capacity building. Several employees at the Swedish Defence Research Agency have kindly shared their knowledge of the missions with the authors, including primarily Claes Nilsson, Johan Norberg, and Magdalena Tham Lindell to whom the authors are very grateful. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Swedish Defence Research Agency.

Notes

1. These in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2011–2013, including field visits to both EUTM missions in Mali and Uganda. The majority of the respondents are Swedish but since the issues discussed pertain to overarching and general issues applicable to the entire missions, this fact should not bias the responses and findings significantly. Interviews that were carried out by colleagues of the authors are marked by an asterisk (*) in the list of references. For these interviews, the authors have had access to interview notes but not recordings, why these sources have been used sparingly.