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ABSTRACT
Within the field of international peace and security, policy makers and analysts alike commonly treat collaboration and convergence among international organizations and intervention frameworks as a policy objective in itself. Indeed, from the focus on the ‘comprehensive approach’, during the 2000s, to the recent emphasis on multi-dimensional and integrated stabilization frameworks, institutional collaboration is cast as inherently positive and desirable in regard to addressing international collective matters. This article challenges such ‘collaboration bias’. It does so by exploring the empirical effects of increasing collaboration and ‘strategic partnerships’ within the context of the current (re)turn to stabilization interventions. Specifically, focusing on Mali, it unpacks how contemporary stabilization efforts intensify collaboration across counterterrorism and peacekeeping interventions in ways that undercut policy implementation within one of the most central peacekeeping priority areas, namely the Protection of Civilians (PoC). In detailing key aspects on which contemporary peacekeeping-counterterrorism entanglements compromise protection efforts, the article conveys some of the ‘dark sides’ of cooperation regimes. It moreover highlights the need to not only explore regime complexity as a systemic feature of world politics but also unpack how it operates, and to what effect, at the meso and micro levels of policy implementation and practice.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge the funding made available by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for this research (within the research group ‘Overlapping Spheres of Authority and Interface Conflicts in the Global Order’ (OSAIC), DFG No. 277531170). I moreover wish to thank my colleagues Anna Geis, Hanna Pfeifer, Stephanie Jänsch and Markus-Michael Müller for their helpful comments. A special thank you goes to Lena Pollmann who contributed to undertaking the field research and interviews drawn on in this article. Earlier versions of the article have been presented at the Folke Bernadotte Academy Research Workshop and Research-Policy Dialogue: ‘Protection of Civilians in UN and Regional Peace Operations’, Entebbe, Uganda, 5–6/11/2019 and at a research colloquium at the Helmut-Schmidt University, Hamburg 05/02/2020; I wish to thank the participants, and the discussants, Linnéa Gelot and Nina Wilén, for their comments. Finally, thanks also go to people in Bamako and the UN headquarters, who were kind enough to share their perspectives, as well as to the two anonymous reviewers for constructive suggestions.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Dr Louise Wiuff Moe is an associated researcher at the University of Hamburg. Her research combines theoretical and empirical perspectives on conflict, peace and security governance, with a regional focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. Her recent work explores changing norms and practices of international intervention; the renaissance of counterinsurgency; inter-organizational relations in conflict management in Africa; comparative perspectives on South-South security collaboration and; the climate-security nexus.
Notes
1 Brosig, “EU Peacekeeping in Africa”; Cold-Ravnkilde and Nissen, “Schizophrenic agendas.”
2 Brosig, “Introduction,” 171.
3 Interview, EUTM staff members, Bamako, October 2018.
4 Moe, “Counterinsurgency in the Somali Territories”; Charbonneau, “Intervention as Counter-insurgency Politics.”
5 Müller and Steinke, “The Geopolitics of Brazilian Peacekeeping”; Moe, “Clear, Hold, Build … a ‘Local’ State.”
6 Moe and Geis, “From Liberal Interventionism to Stabilization,” 8. See also Biermann and Koops, “Studying Relations,” 12; de Coning and Friis, “Coherence and Coordination.”
7 Hunt, “All Necessary Means.”
8 See Witt, “Studying African Interventions.”
9 For an analysis of the role of African troop contributors to MINUSMA see Albrecht and Cold-Ravnkilde, “National Interests as Friction.”
10 Alter and Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity,” 20.
11 Research for the article draws on nineteen interviews in Bamako in 2018, and eight interviews in New York (UN headquarters) in 2019 (all conducted by the author). I have offered all interviewees the option of anonymity, which most opted for.
12 Feld and Jordan, “International Organizations.”
13 Rautiala and Victor, “The Regime Complex.”
14 Kreuder-Sonnen and Zürn, “After Fragmentation,” 247.
15 Alter and Meunier, “The Rise of International Regime Complexity.”
16 Brosig, “Regime Complexity and Resource Dependence,” 448.
17 See for example Engel, “An Emerging Inter-regional Peace.”
18 Brosig, “EU Peacekeeping in Africa.”
19 De Coning, “Peace Enforcement in Africa.”
20 Witt, “Studying African Interventions”; Kreuder-Sonnen and Zürn, “After Fragmentation.”
21 Alter and Raustiala, “The Rise of International Regime Complexity,” 3. See also Alter and Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity.”
22 Williams, “Protection of Civilians.”
23 e.g. Council on Foreign Relations, “The Global Regime.”
24 De Franco, “Competing Understandings of Protection.”
25 Bell, “Hybrid Warfare.”
26 Alter and Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity.”
27 Karlsrud, “Towards UN Counter-terrorism Operations?” One example provided by Karlsrud shows how the George W. Bush administration in 2015 pushed forward the discourse of ‘Struggle against Violent Extremism’ (SAVE) – as an alternative framing to the War on Terror – thereby opening new possibilities for ‘engaging a wider set of actors and tools’, including UN peacekeeping, in efforts of countering terrorism (Karlsrud, “Towards UN Counter-terrorism Operations?,” 1217). For more empirical examples, see for instance Moe’s analysis of the convergence of peacebuilding and counterinsurgency approaches in the Somali context (Moe, “Counterinsurgency in the Somali Territories”).
28 Karlsrud, “From Peacebuilding to Stabilization,” 10.
29 UN doesn’t have its own stabilization doctrine, but recent US and NATO doctrines are useful references for placing stabilization missions and efforts ‘within the relevant doctrinal context’ (Müller and Steinke, “The Geopolitics of Brazilian peacekeeping,” 6).
30 NATO, Allied Joint Publication, 1–2.
31 Ibid., 1–2 and 1–3.
32 United States Army, “FM 3–07 Stability,” 1–6, 1–7, 1–26.
33 Ibid., 2–4.
34 Robinson et.al., “Finding the Right Balance,” 23.
35 United States Army, “FM 3–07 Stability”; NATO, Allied Joint Publication, see also MoD (UK), Joint Doctrine Publication 05.
36 Brosig, “EU Peacekeeping in Africa”; Gehring and Faude, “Division of Labor within Institutional Complexes.”
37 Biermann and Koops, “Studying Relations,” 12.
38 Franke, “Inter-Organizational Relations.”
39 See also Moe and Geis, “From Liberal Interventionism to Stabilization.”
40 Kreuder-Sonnen and Zürn, “After Fragmentation,” 249.
41 Van der Lijn,“The UN Peace Operation in Mali.”
42 De Guttry, “Developing Effective Partnerships”; UNSC Report, “Partnering for Peace.”
43 Freear and De Coning, “Lessons from the African Union Mission for Somalia,” 2–3.
44 UNSC Report, “Partnering for Peace,” 2.
45 Ibid., 1–3.
46 See for example Cold-Ravnkilde and Jacobsen, “Disentangling the Security Traffic Jam.”
47 Altiok and Street, A Fourth Pillar for the United Nations?
48 Tull, German and International Crisis Management.
49 Charbonneau, “Intervention in Mali”; Karlsrud, “From Liberal Peacebuilding to Stabilization”; Hunt, “All Necessary Means.”
50 See Charbonneau, “Intervention in Mali.”
51 Interviews, MINUSMA and EUTM staff, Bamako, October 2018.
52 Interview with EUTM staff, Bamako, October 2018. EU’s activities in Mali arguably occupy a grey area, or interface, between peacebuilding, Security Sector Reform, and counterterrorism; with the EUTM providing training for both FAMA and the FC-G5S (see discussion below).
53 See EUTM Mali webpage, accessible at: https://eutmmali.eu/. In military language a ‘non-executive’ mission is advisory and conducted in support of a so-called ‘host state’, while an ‘executive mission’/operation can carry outmilitary/combat actions directly, sometimes in replacement of the host state forces.
54 Pratt, “Deference and Hierarchy.”
55 See Moe and Geis, “From Liberal Interventionism to Stabilization.”
56 Quoted in Attree, Street, and Venchiarutti, “United Nations Peace Operations.”
57 UNSC, “Resolution 2423,” 14.
58 Tull, A Skeptical Intervener.
59 Van der Lijn et al. Assessing the Effectiveness, 45.
60 France’s is a penholder within the UNSC, a member of the EU Political and Security Committee and has held the seat of United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) since 1997.
61 EUCAP Factsheet.
62 UNSC, “Resolution 2423,” 3.
63 Staack, “Gibt es eine (neue) deutsche Westafrikapolitik?,” 22. For an earlier discussion see Hardt “African Solutions to European Problems? Conditioning Cooperation Among International Organizations on Peace Operations in Europe and Africa.”
64 EU Factsheet, Common Security and Defence Policy.
65 Interview EUTM officials, Bamako, October 2018. See also EUTM mandate (2013–2014) and extended (2016–2018), accessible at http://eutmmali.eu/en/mandates/.
66 Interview, EUTM officials, Bamako, October 2018. With the new mandate (May 2020), EUTM will provide training closer to the Malian forces in the field (and not only out of the training facilities in Koulikoro, close to Bamako). This is to reduce transaction costs and improve tactical advise, see Tull, A Skeptical Intervener. The key focus of this adaptation is, to the knowledge of the author, not mainly monitoring/evaluation (e.g. of compliance with human rights standards) but to enhance military capacity and tactic.
67 Skeppström et al., “European Union Training Missions.”
68 Moe, “The Strange Wars,” 110.
69 Interviews, MINUSMA operational personnel, Bamako, Oct/Nov 2018. See also Van der Lijn et al. Assessing the Effectiveness, 102.
70 Alter and Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity,” 18.
71 United Nations Peacekeeping official webpage, https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/protecting-civilians.
72 Alter and Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity,” 16.
73 Interview UN senior official, Office of Genocide Prevention and the R2P, New York, March 2019.
74 Interview, Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019.
75 Hunt, “All Necessary Means,” 122.
76 Interviews, 2018 Oct, Bamako: Malian researcher/analyst; Human Rights INGO official; MINUSMA/PoC team official. See also for example Amnesty International 'Sahel: Soldiers Rampage Through Villages'; Di Razza “Protecting Civilians.”
77 Interview, MINUSMA/PoC team official, Bamako, Oct 2018; and UN Senior Officer, Policy and Best Practice Service/DPO, New York, March 2018.
78 Interview, Malian researcher/analyst, Bamako, Oct 2018.
79 Alter and Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity,” 20.
80 Interview, Malian security sector analyst, Bamako, Oct. 2018.
81 The lack of which is one of the root causes of the conflict in the first place. For this see Di Razza, “Protecting Civilians in the Context of Violent Extremism.”
82 Reeve and Pelter, “From New Frontier to New Normal,” 27; see also Karlsrud, “From Liberal Peacebuilding to Stabilization,” 14.
83 Interview MINUSMA/PoC team official, Bamako, October 2018.
84 Interview Malian researcher/analyst, Bamako, October 2018.
85 Interview, MINUSMA Military official, Bamako, October 2018.
86 JNIM is the abbreviation for one of the most active armed Jihadist groups in Mali also known as 'Nusrat al-Islam'.
87 Interview MINUSMA/PoC team official, Bamako, October 2018.
88 Interview Malian researcher/analyst, Bamako, October 2018.
89 Dos Santos Cruz et al., “Improving Security.”
90 Ibid.
91 Interview, MINUSMA Peace Ops Official, Bamako, October 2018; The Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support (DPKO-DFS) Back to Office Report on ‘Improving Security of Peacekeepers –DOS SANTOS CRUZ REPORT (DSCR), Second Implementation Workshop at RSCE 12–14 October 2018’).
92 Interview, Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019.
93 Interview, Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019.
94 Interview Malian researcher/analyst, Bamako, October 2018; Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019.
95 Di Razza, “Protecting Civilians in the Context of Violent Extremism,” 14.
96 Interview, Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019.
97 Sangare, Compte rendu de la conférence d'entente nationale.
98 See Nietz, “Auf der Suche nach Frieden in Mali,” 147.
99 Interview, UN civilian staff member, Bamako, October 2018.
100 Quote in Irish, “Mali, France rule out talks with jihadists.” Accessible at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mali-security-jihadist/mali-france-rule-out-talks-with-jihadists-after-attacks-idUSKBN1792NF.
101 Interview Malian researcher/analyst, Bamako, October 2018.
102 Interviews, UN junior official, Office of Genocide Prevention and the R2P, New York, March 2019; Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019; MINUSMA/PoC team official, Bamako, October 2018.
103 Interview, Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019.
104 MINUSMA has, according to a recent analysis of its PoC efforts, from the outset suffered from a compartmentalization of PoC, whereby only a small under-resourced team of civilian staff has been in charge of the coordination of PoC. Thereby, PoC a sufficiently integrated priority actors the mission (see Di Razza “Protecting Civilians in the Context of Violent Extremism,” 17–18; interview, MINUSMA/PoC team official, Bamako, October 2018).
105 Alter and Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity,” 20.
106 Interview, Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019.
107 Interview, MINUSMA/PoC team official, Bamako, October 2018.
108 Interviews: MINUSMA/PoC team official, Bamako, October 2018; Human Rights INGO official, Bamako, October 2018; MINUSMA/Human Rights Section official, Bamako, October 2018 and; Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019.
109 Interview, Mali/PoC analyst, New York, March 2019.
110 Tull, “German and International Crisis Management.”
111 Alter and Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity,” 17.
112 Author's observations based on research visits to Bamako, New York, Addis Ababa, as well participation in several policy-research fora/dialogues. Moreover, notable contributions to the debate include analyses provided by, for example, the International Peace Institute (IPI), the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), the International Crisis Group, the Remote Warfare project (the Oxford Research Group) and Safer World (to mention but a few examples).
113 The IPI's serie is accessible at https://theglobalobservatory.org/tag/cruz-report/, see also https://www.ipinst.org/2018/10/engaging-with-non-state-armed-groups-to-protect-civilians. More widely, arguments for starting to include armed Islamist groups in reconciliation and political dialogues have in fact gained increasing ground, also among other prominent think tanks. See for example ICG “Speaking with the ‘bad guys’,” see also Hasseye, “Negotiations with Jihadists?”; ICG, “Speaking with the ‘Bad Guys’.”