Fragmented We Fall: Security Sector Cohesion and the Impact of Foreign Security Force Assistance in Mali

ABSTRACT

Security Force Assistance (SFA) is presented as a panacea for security threats and governance problems in the Global South. Using Mali as a point of departure, in this article we explore the complex reality of SFA in a state with a highly fragmented security sector. A plethora of SFA providers collectively leaves a negative impact on the cohesion of the recipient security forces. Multiple SFA providers and uncoordinated implementation muddle objectives and fragment already loosely assembled security forces. In consequence, rather than improving security, SFA may exacerbate the problems the assistance is meant to solve.

KEYWORDS:

• Mali
• military aid
• security forces
• counter-insurgency
• the Sahel

Introduction

Involving ‘training, equipping and advising allied or “partner” militaries’, security force assistance (SFA) is conceived as a low cost and low risk approach to boosting the capacity and professionalism of the recipient state’s coercive institutions (Biddle, McDonald, and Baker 2018, 2; cf. Rolandsen, Dwyer, and Reno 2021). SFA as a concept builds on the assumption that recipient states have weak and ineffective national security forces which are unable or unwilling to impose order, counter insurgencies and other armed challengers or defend their national territory. Provision of training and equipment is meant to mitigate these perceived shortcomings. We define SFA as efforts by an external provider to enhance the ability of security forces to uphold state authority and provide justice and security to citizens. We distinguish between recipients and providers of SFA thus separating trainees from trainers, as well as the governments that receive SFA and those that provide personnel and material for these programmes. Providers also distinguish between SFA activities aimed at increasing the recipients’ capacity (their ability to carry out tasks), and their professionalism (how tasks are carried out). SFA complements, but also replaces SSR (Security Sector Reform) as the Western countries’ preferred approach to engage with security sectors in fragile states. Thus, SFA is supposed to address challenges in recipient countries such as insurgencies, terror organisations, organised crime, uncontrolled migration and porous borders. Western donors also present SFA as a response to wider security concerns, such as ‘spill over’ of various threats into Europe and elsewhere, or to expand or reinforce influence in an era of global great power competition. Thus, scholars also have shifted their attentions towards SFA and its impacts on fragile states (see Rolandsen, Dwyer, and Reno 2021).

In some cases, SFA improves state security, notably in Tunisia (Hanau Santini and Cimini 2019, Cimini and Hanau Santini 2021). But in several important cases, SFA has failed to provide the sought-after stability in the recipient country (Rolandsen, Dwyer, and Reno 2021). Despite longstanding and large-scale SFA programmes organised by Western providers, in several countries conflict-related violence has increased (for examples from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia or Mali see Marsh et al. 2020; Matisek 2018; Reno 2018; Tull 2020). Researchers identify several factors which influence the degrees of impact of these programmes, assess design and implementation, while others focus on contextual circumstances (Rolandsen, Dwyer, and Reno 2021).

Incorporating insights from prior critiques, we argue that cohesion within the recipient country’s security sector is not given sufficient attention when analysing SFA. This may be the single most important factor explaining why it is so difficult for SFA programmes to have a lasting impact in countries with weak and unprofessional security sectors. Cohesion is a factor looming on both sides of the provider-recipient equation: uncoordinated SFA provision is ineffective and even counter-productive, reflecting programmes that are not designed to handle hybrid security sectors in recipient countries defined by multiple overlapping formal and informal security organisations (see below). We argue that a failure to take these contexts into account when conceptualising SFA programmes can lead to unintended negative consequences, especially in further reducing the cohesion and coordination capacity of the security sector as a whole: the opposite of SFA programme intent. This argument applies to those states whose security forces lack cohesion and coordination. Other post-colonial states have cohesive and coordinated armed forces in which different dynamics are present.

Because Mali has a hybrid security sector and hosts multiple SFA programmes run by multiple providers, Mali is a well-suited place to study SFA effects on security force cohesion. Moreover, since 2012 Mali has experienced intensified organised violence and instability (Charbonneau 2017; Craven-Matthews and Englebert 2018). Previous studies of SFA and SSR to Mali attribute the lack of impact of SFA to, inter alia, poor conceptualisation and implementation, as well as dissonance between recipients and providers (Bøås et al. 2018; Tull 2019; Bagayoko 2018). Adding to this research, we provide for the first time an analysis of multiple SFA programmes from several providers. We use a novel approach combing an innovative form of mapping with field interviews: instead of examining only the impact of a particular SFA programme, we map SFA provision to Mail by all the most significant providers to analyse SFA provision in this important context.

We present our analysis of the significance of cohesion and coordination for SFA provision as follows: In the first section we outline the mounting security challenges facing Mali’s citizens, their government and its external allies. In the next section, we outline in detail the concept of cohesion and its relevance for our investigation. We use this as a lens to illuminate the composition of Mali’s security sector. We then use Mali’s experience to show how a fragmented security sector that lacks cohesion is a key ingredient explaining both why insecurity and violence increase in Mali and why the SFA programmes do not work as intended. Key findings include the ways in which that sector is marked by hybridity and a lack of cohesion as violent challenges have intensified and become more diverse. This sets the scene for our analysis in the two subsequent sections of SFA provision to Mali, based on results from an assessment of the SFA sector as a whole and a detailed discussion of the aid provided by the EU. In the conclusion we explain how SFA provided by a variety of programmes likely exacerbated the pre-existing fragmentation within Mali’s security forces.

Mali: Escalating violence and multiple interventions

Mali, a former French colony in Africa’s Sahel region, gained independence in 1960. It is one of the world’s least developed countries and has a population of about 19 million, most of whom live in its South-west and Central regions. Longstanding conflicts in Mali intensified in 2012 when Tuaregs rebelled took control of the north and then much of central Mali in a sweeping offensive. A military coup unseated the long-sitting president Amadou Toumani Touré. The junta was short-lived but managed to bring foreign sanctions and further instability down on the already tested population (Francis 2013). In January 2013, a French military intervention involving 2 500 troops pushed the rebels back to the north. Democratic elections were held in 2013, and in 2015 a power-sharing peace agreement was signed between the government and two rebel coalitions (Nyirabikali 2015). Key provisions of that agreement remain unimplemented, and a variety of armed groups retain de facto control over much of northern Mali. A UN report from 2018 summarises that despite the 286 million USD spent on supporting peace negotiations the situation remains ‘grave, precarious, dire and volatile’ (UNSC 2018b, 42).

In 2013, the United Nations established the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the EU set up two sector-wide SFA programmes (see below for details). These initiatives, along with US and French bilateral SFA programmes, sought to strengthen and professionalise Mali’s security forces and thereby stabilise Mali, as well as help control migration through Mali to Western Europe and prevent trafficking of drugs and other commodities. In 2014 the French intervention was recast as a regional military initiative called Opération Barkhane. Another regional initiative was launched in 2017; the G5 Sahel Joint Force which was to include up to 5000 military and police personnel contributed by the G5 Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger).

Despite the provision of assistance, since 2013 violence in Mali has become more widespread, diverse and local, and conflicts have erupted in central Mali (Matei 2017, 105–106). Islamist groups not included in the peace agreement have carried out attacks and expanded their area of operations. Inter-communal tensions, particularly between farmers and pastoralists, increased together with resentment against the government. Jihadist networks have infiltrated Fulani communities in the central region offering weapons and protection, while the government allegedly armed and supported militias and neighbourhood watch groups.¹ The government’s violent counter-insurgency methods have escalated these tensions. The population of north and central Mali experience overlapping zones of control between rebels, Islamists, ethnic militias, smuggling networks and state forces. In interviews in Bamako some suggested that groups and individuals shift between these different categories according to political and financial expediency.² The peace process itself appears to have spawned new rebel organisations.³ The result is a fluid security situation: government presence is limited to garrison towns and the occasional patrol to outlying villages, while armed groups operate with little impediment (UNSG 2018, 7). The coups in summer 2020 and May 2021 add another layer of uncertainty on Mali’s future.

The widening conflict in Mali has contributed to turning what in 2013 was intended to be a short-term international intervention designed to stabilise Mali into a long-term open-ended engagement now rationalised as necessary to prevent the Malian state collapsing again. The result is that Mali has become a crowded environment with many different actors working with the local security forces – for example in 2018 troops from 64 countries were deployed there (IISS 2019, 477–479). This duration and fragmentation of SFA, particularly intense in Mali, provides a clear lens through which to analyse the collective impact of SFA provision by multiple SFA providers in other contexts of hybrid security forces.

Fragmented state and security forces – Mali’s hybrid security sector

Our discussion of cohesion within SFA draws upon military theory: Cohesion is a key concept and concerns the collective effectiveness of individuals and units that comprise a nation’s security forces, essentially the willingness and ability of those elements to work together in order to achieve a common aim. The description of cohesion used in this article is drawn from: Biddle (2006, 28–77); Brooks (2007); Huntington (1957, 7–18); King (2015); Land Warfare Development Centre (2017); Shils and Janowitz (1948); and Siebold (2007, 2011). Cohesion is a vital element of the effective employment of military force on the battlefield. When defined as the level of interoperability between heterogenous forces, cohesion must also be a vital concept when analysing how the security sector as whole handle the multifarious domestic and transnational security threats faced by fragile states like Mali. In her comparative study of US security assistance, Karlin (2018, 194–171) underlines that classical counter-insurgency literature emphasises the need for recipient militaries to be cohesive and be ‘interoperable, unified, and able to communicate effectively throughout the military’.

Conversely, we consider incohesive security forces to be fragmented. There are several reasons why armed forces are fragmented, and so employ military force ineffectively (for a discussion see Bellin 2004; Biddle 2006, 47–51; Kamrava 2000). A lack of cohesion might be a result of low institutional strength, but it might also be a result of a deliberate strategy. In particular, national leaders may seek to forestall the ability of the security forces to seize power via coups by limiting the capacity of officers and units to operate together (Biddle 2006, 47–51; Huntington 1957, 82; Lutscher 2016; Pilster and Böhmelt 2011, 335–337; Talmadge 2015). It is therefore important to recognise that increased force cohesion is not necessarily a goal that the SFA provider and the recipient share or even recognise as relevant (Biddle, McDonald, and Baker 2018). Various evaluations and policy reports occasionally bring up the issue of fragmentation (Herbert, Hanlon, and Bolanos 2016, 10; Marsh et al. 2020; Tull 2017, 2; Warner 2014, 69). Notably, Ansorg and Gordon (2019, 15–16) describe tensions, rivalries and lack of coordination among diverse providers of Security Sector Reform to a variety of recipient states. It then follows that SFA intended to boost security sector cohesion may instead engage ineffectively or even promote security force fragmentation. These outcomes need to play a bigger role in discussions on the impacts of SFA programmes. Unless the recipient security sector is sufficiently cohesive, the increased capacity or professionalism intended by SFA providers will not be effective against the complex problems SFA is meant to address. Moreover, if multiple SFA programmes are implemented without a shared overall plan, it is likely that this assistance will reduce cohesiveness within the recipient security sector. To further analyse the relevance of security force cohesion for the provision of SFA we discuss this concept in detail and use the example of Mali to illustrate the points.

Within security forces as a whole cohesion is relevant for both horizontal and vertical coordination and interoperability. Cohesion is based upon procedures, training, institutional culture and ethos, and can be aided by communications technology. Chains of command and control provide vertical cohesion, in which senior officers or the civilian political leadership issue instructions which are effected by subordinates. Where cohesion is lacking, fragmented security forces may have unclear and overlapping responsibilities, traits which can be exacerbated by the use of informal groups such as militias and vigilantes. Horizontal cohesion concerns the ability of different unit commanders from the same security force to cooperate outside the usual chains of command, or joint operations between units from different security forces (e.g. infantry operating with police units). Within an individual unit cohesion is based upon trust, close personal bonds and a shared ethos. Inversely, cohesion within a unit may erode for instance if personnel come from different regions with a history of favouritism, or if there is rapid turnover of personnel. Effective cooperation between units and branches requires a degree of autonomy on the part of officers so they can collectively react to changes in the operational environment. However, some security sectors, especially in authoritarian states, may not permit such independence of action. Instead, there is very limited horizontal communication as officers and their units become ‘stove piped’. The lack of vertical and horizontal cohesion and a general weak capacity within the formal security sector often produces a hybrid security context where a bricolage of formal and informal organisations provides complementary and often overlapping ‘services’ (Abrahamsen and Williams 2011; Ansorg and Gordon 2019, 13–15; Bagayoko, Hutchful and Luckham 2016; Rolandsen, Dwyer, and Reno 2021; Tholens 2021).

In the case of Mali, external observers describe Mali’s security forces as lacking even basic levels of cohesion and thus have proven ineffective when faced with domestic and transnational threats (Boisvert 2016, 87–88). For example, a member of the EU Training Mission mentions ‘dysfunctional, or sometimes complete lack of adequate structures and procedures both within the higher military command and the Ministry of Defence’ (Duijn 2013). Similarly, several sources describe how prior to 2013 Mali’s government failed to build capable institutions and mechanisms to ensure civilian control and oversight of the security forces (Matei 2017, 103–114; UNSC 2012, 4, 2013, 18). This fragmentation has roots in processes of decolonialisation in which Mali’s small army was intended to deter potential threats from external enemies, while a skeletal, but brutal colonial apparatus for domestic security remained intact (Bagayoko 2010; Shurkin 2020). This included a national guard, with a camel corps in the north, a gendarmerie to patrol rural areas and police to keep order in the towns; the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE) was tasked by the ruling elite to gather information on the political opposition. Currently, Mali’s security forces are relatively small, given the large size of the country and the domestic threats they face (Bagayoko 2019). The exact size of the Malian security sector is secret, a lack of transparency which hampers SFA providers’ ability to plan and evaluate. Estimates range from 15,000 to 26,000 personnel, the largest element is the army (circa 14,700 personnel), and other elements are the air force (circa 800), gendarmerie (circa 1800), national guard, police (circa 8000), intelligence agency and a militia (IISS 2019, 477–479; Shurkin, Pezard, and Zimmerman 2017, 64; Tull 2019, 413; Matei 2017, 106–110). Within these multiple branches of Mali’s security forces, units have little or no ability to coordinate with other security force elements. Thus, while national security forces on paper count thousands of personnel, they are unable to use coercive force to effectively cope with armed challengers.

When the EU Training Mission arrived in 2013, the EU force commander stated that

this army has to be completely restructured. Today it acts more as a somewhat disparate set of elements put together on request and on an emergency basis in order to cope with a tough combat situation. It’s not an army as such. (quoted in Mills 2013)

A UN assessment found that Mali’s ruling elites over a long period undermined trust, personal bonds, command and control and a unifying ethos through interfering ‘with the process of recruitment and the training and promotions systems, which had caused grave distortions in the chain of command, compromised military professionalism, damaged the esprit de corps and created resentment among officers and the rank and file’ (UNSC 2012, 4; see also Boisvert 2016, 87–88). Furthermore, a 2013 UN Secretary General’s report describes the urgent need for reform across Mali’s armed forces:

Key goals include the restoration of institutional cohesion, discipline and integrity of command; provision of adequate equipment; training to ensure operational effectiveness and respect for international human rights and humanitarian and refugee law; establishment of accountability measures for violations of these laws; and, ensuring an institutional culture of respect for civilian authority, particularly through effective civilian oversight. (UNSC 2013, 8)

Further challenges to the cohesiveness of Mali’s army came from the longstanding practice of reintegrating deserters and integrating former rebels as part of peace agreements (Davis 2015, 267; Castilla Barea 2013). Though intended as a unifying measure in Mali, this process instead hampers attempts to create a shared identity and ethos and on a practical level makes it more difficult to employ standard procedures (Bussman 2019). Horizontal cohesion was inhibited by divisions within the security forces. In particular, in the aftermath of the 2012 coup, a high degree of polarisation between security force units and individuals which had supported the coup, and those which had been opposed, resulted in murder and torture by opposing factions (UNGA 2012, 13–16).

Even after years of significant provision of security force assistance, assessments of Mali’s security forces show that they remain fragmented. Instead of coordinated operations directed against an enemy, in the conflict prone north of Mali the army behaves more like an army of occupation reliant upon static defence or patrols near to bases (Carayol 2019, 497–501; Shurkin, Pezard, and Zimmerman 2017, 62–69; 71–72; 86; 100).⁴ Security forces’ areas of responsibility overlap and informal social bonds between members and with local communities impact the management of these forces (Matei 2017, 106–107; Bagayoko 2018, 55–56). Security sector hybridity is evident in the widespread use of pro-government militia and local protection groups (Boisvert 2015; Matei 2017, 114; Sandor 2017; Shurkin, Pezard, and Zimmerman 2017, 10; 35; 45–56). Use of militias preceded the current conflict. For example, organised vigilante groups and militias were deployed alongside units of the national armed forces, especially in the war torn north of the country (UNGA 2012, 16).

This security force fragmentation is a key factor explaining the inability of Mali’s security forces to establish state control over the national territory, and such fragmented security forces inevitably provide a complex and challenging environment for SFA providers. In the remainder of this article we argue that improving cohesion is a necessary ingredient for effective SFA provision. Nevertheless, scholars analysing SFA have only tangentially mentioned the effects of security force assistance on cohesion (e.g. Frowd and Sandor 2018; Knowles and Matisek 2019; Reno 2018; Tholens 2017). The following sections build upon our argument that SFA can have important effects upon cohesion and examine the effects in Mali of how several external providers conceptualised and operationalised SFA provision.

Conceptualisation of SFA to Mali

Conceptualisation of SFA concerns the decision to initiate such a programme; its objectives, mandate, budget and overall size and, crucially, the number of separate programmes which occur concurrently (Rolandsen, Dwyer, and Reno 2021). Shurkin, Pezard, and Zimmerman (2017, 77) note that training delivered by diverse trainers from different countries exacerbates existing problems in command and control in Mali’s army. Through this investigation we show how the provision of SFA through multiple uncoordinated programmes are related to the efficiency and professionalism of highly fragmented security sectors. More generally, we argue that it is difficult to carry out successful SFA operations when there are many uncoordinated providers, and the programmes do not consider the fragmented nature of the recipient.

There is a dizzying array of providers and separate SFA programmes in operation in Mali (Tull 2019, 422; Warner 2014, 69). The intensity of these programmes is apparent: the two EU programmes (see below) have reported training at least 25,000 trainees, a number equal to the largest estimates of the total complement of Mali’s security forces, though some individuals attended more than one EU course (Tull 2020, 9). Nevertheless, when we also consider contributions from training provided by France, the US and the UN, since 2013 a clear majority of Mali’s security forces personnel will have received training from external SFA providers. Such a commitment of resources inevitably affects the recipients of SFA.

The SFA programmes described in this article likely benefitted some targeted units; in 2013 Mali’s armed forces started at such a low level that the threshold for improvement would not be difficult to cross. For example, improvements have been reported in the state of uniforms, marksmanship, check point security and mine detection and disposal (Boisvert 2016, 87; Djiré et al. 2017, 42). Nevertheless, we argue that their combined effect is to reduce the cohesion of the Malian security forces (Carayol 2019, 496–497; Craven-Matthews and Englebert 2018, 2–6; Shurkin, Pezard and Zimmerman 2017, 62–100; Matei 2017, 107, 114–116; Tull 2019, 406, 411–412). The four main SFA providers (the EU, France, the UN and the USA) have organised at least 20 concurrent programmes with different objectives, namely border control, counter-insurgency, counter-organised crime, counter-terrorism, migration control, security sector reform. However, as mentioned, external assessments suggest that the effectiveness of Mali’s army had not been significantly improved even after eight years of substantial SFA provision. Instead, Mali’s security forces are unable to operate coherently, and disparate units operate separately in an ineffective piecemeal fashion. At the political level, unclear lines of responsibility persist. For example, the gendarmerie is officially under the control of the Ministry of Defence for operations, but the Ministry of Internal Security and Civil Protection exercises day-to-day supervision

When investigating connections between uncoordinated SFA and fragmentation within the Mali security forces, we combine an innovative form of mapping with field interviews. Our focus is on the cumulative effect of multiple SFA providers and we mapped SFA provision by Mali’s major donors. The mapping methodology involved locating and synthesising several data sources (listed in Appendix).⁵ In addition to published reports and assessments, the main data source on the EU programmes is issues of Impetus, the EU’s military staff journal, each of which contain a section providing basic data on each programme. Information from factsheets produced by the two EU programmes (see below) augmented this source. Information on other programmes funded by the EU was obtained through searches of the database of projects funded by the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (European Commission 2021). Data on US programmes was obtained from the Security Assistance Monitor, a think tank that collects data from US budget documents and enters it into a database (Security Assistance Monitor 2021). Data from this source is comprehensive, but is limited to the name of the programme, its annual budget and number of trainees. We could not locate a single source of comprehensive statistics on SFA provided by France. France’s annual provision of SFA to Mali was confirmed by examining Ministry of Defence budget documents, archived copies of the French embassy web site which mention the presence of SFA programmes,⁶ and press releases published by the French Ministry of Defence on the activities of Opération Barkhane. Information on provision by MINUSMA was obtained from mission factsheets, and from UN Secretary General reports on the situation in Mali. Use of such heterogeneous sources is compatible with methods used to study arms transfers by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute or the Small Arms Survey. But due to the heterogeneity of the sources the data on each provider are largely incomparable. A conservative approach was taken and so some SFA provision may not have been included. Each source used its own definitions or implicit assumptions of the nature of security assistance and we cannot be certain that all the data collected conformed to the definitions of SFA outlined by (Rolandsen, Dwyer, and Reno 2021). Interviews conducted in Bamako in August 2018 are used for triangulation and complement the data culled from documentary sources, as well as additional information and interpretive perspectives.⁷

In Mali, the EU is the most important SFA provider. Its two main programmes, the EU Training Mission (EUTM) and EU CAP Sahel Mali were set up in 2013 and 2014 respectively. By March 2019 the EUTM was claimed to have instructed 14,000 trainees, and as of July 2020 it had an annual budget of circa EUR 33.5 million and 1066 personnel whose main focus is to train the Malian army in counter-insurgency techniques. Under the auspices of the EU training programme the army is being re-organised to be based around battlegroups comprising about 610 personnel each and which include infantry, artillery, reconnaissance and combat support elements (Shurkin, Pezard and Zimmerman 2017, 98; Maya 2018). In February 2019, the EU CAP involved 194 personnel with a budget of EUR 28 million, and by mid-2018 11,000 trainees had completed EUCAP courses,⁸ which focus upon providing internal security training to the Malian gendarmerie, police and national guard. Both the EUCAP and EUTM have had two-year mandates, something which has inhibited long-term planning (Jakobsen 2018, 26; Tull 2020). The EU has also financed three additional programmes which focus upon controlling migration and border control. They also involve the provision of training to the Malian customs service, gendarmerie, national guard and police (see Appendix).

France has provided SFA in three forms: (a) long-term assistance organised by a defence cooperation mission; (b) ‘operational’ training and equipment on counter-insurgency provided by the army under the auspices of Opération Barkhane; and (c) training and logistical support on internal security provided by the French ministry of interior to the Malian gendarmerie, police and customs service (see Appendix). The United States has eleven separate SFA programmes which are run by the Departments of State or of Defence (see Appendix), and thematic areas include: anti-terrorism, capacity building, counter-narcotics, demining, institutional reform and non-proliferation. Total budgeted US spending on Mali was worth a total of USD 13 million during the years 2010–2019 (about a third of which took place in 2010 and 2011). The US will also have provided SFA to Mali via regional SFA programmes covering similar thematic areas.

MINUSMA, the UN mission in Mali, has provided assistance to Mali’s security forces, including training provided by the United Nations Police (UNSG 2019a). Training has been limited to ‘non-lethal’ assistance aimed at improving capacity and border control (UNSG 2018, 2019a, 2019b). Finally, Malian security forces have benefited from support provided to the G5 Sahel Joint Force. By May 2018 a total of EUR 414 million worth of assistance had been pledged to the joint force (UNSC 2018a, 9–10), including large donations from the United States, European Union and Saudi Arabia.

Mali’s government has been unable to lead or coordinate the provision of SFA to its security forces, and instead has been overwhelmed by the flurry of foreign assistance (Tull 2017, 3; 2019, 419; 2020, 7–8). Policies have been developed in Brussels with little consultation with Malians (Bøås et al. 2018, 15; Castilla Barea 2013; Müller 2018; Tull 2019).⁹ Malian officials have complained that they have difficulty keeping track of what the EU is doing in their country (Djiré et al. 2017, 26). The various SFA providers have not coordinated their activities (Tull 2017, 3; 2020, 7–8), and instead have been described as rivals (Bagayoko 2018, 87; Djiré et al. 2017, 45). The plethora of providers and programmes is compounded by multinational implementation. As of July 2020, soldiers from 28 different armed forces were deployed to the EUTM and in October 2019 personnel had been deployed from 58 states to MINUSMA police or military forces.

The effect of this crowded field of providers of SFA is to inhibit cohesion and co-ordination within Mali’s security forces. Instead of developing common means to improve vertical and horizontal coherence, SFA has had an opposite effect. After being trained in over 20 programmes with diverse objectives by personnel from tens of different military and police forces, separate Malian units will have been influenced by multiple different approaches. Each national security force which provides personnel has its own distinctive procedures and other ‘ways of doing’ which will inevitably be reflected in the form of instruction provided (Ruffa 2018). The sheer number of external programmes and lack of direction by Mali or coordination by external providers has helped to maintain the fragmented nature of the Malian security forces.

Operationalisation of SFA provision in Mali: The example of EU

Since the EU is the largest provider of SFA in Mali, this section focuses on how that provider’s SFA is operationalised. In practice, EU design and provision of training is unsuitable for Mali’s hybrid security environment. The content and delivery of instruction demonstrates this shortcoming. For example, EUTM-trained battle groups still exhibit poor command and control and are unprepared for coordinated operations (Shurkin, Pezard, and Zimmerman 2017, 63–100). These deficiencies reflect a lack of leadership skills and a ‘stove-piped’ command structure in which officers do not communicate with each other. An EUTM officer observed, ‘Malian officers are all isolated from one another vertically and horizontally. They don’t talk amongst themselves and in the end only do what their superior signs off on. The lower levels do not do anything’ (quoted in Shurkin, Pezard and Zimmerman 2017, 77). Army units are even equipped with different arms and ammunition which are not interoperable (Shurkin, Pezard and Zimmerman 2017, 67–78; 86; 100; Boisvert 2016, 88).

EUTM instructors have focused on developing basic infantry skills (Djiré et al. 2017, 41; Tull 2019, 417; 2020, 8–9). But the basic training course for members of new battlegroups lasts just 10–12 weeks (Lackenbauer and Jonsson 2014, 22; Shurkin, Pezard and Zimmerman 2017, 99), too short to inculcate greater cohesion (Tull 2020, 8–9). Information on other training courses (see Appendix) indicates that trainees attend for a few weeks to be taught infantry skills. Available information indicates that the EUCAP mission has also focussed upon improving basic skills (EUTM 2019). Analysis of advertised EUCAP training positions (see Appendix) show it has focused on improving operational capacity (border security and criminal investigations) and organisational competence (management, human resources and policy advice).

Human rights and gender training are supposed elements of all courses (EUTM 2019). But EUTM human rights and gender training was only provided for an hour a week throughout the standard 10-week infantry training course (Lackenbauer and Jonsson 2014, 22). We found EUCAP advertised 249 positions for trainers, instructors and advisers (see Appendix). Of those, there were only ten positions for a human rights and gender trainer or advisor. This small proportion suggests that trainees are given limited human rights and gender training, something which highlights the programmes’ focus upon providing basic skills.

Training course contents likely reflect the conditions under which the instructors operate in Mali. In order to protect trainers, the EUTM prevented its personnel from leaving secure areas to monitor or mentor Malian troops operating outside of bases while on patrol or in combat. This means EUTM personnel have had to rely upon updates from Malian or French troops who actually operate outside these secure areas (Duijn 2013; Müller 2018; Tull 2017, 3).¹⁰ This lack of direct experience ‘beyond the fence’ likely affects instructors’ understanding of the hybrid security context in Mali. The EUTM has in recent years sought to bring instructors out in the field (Tull 2020) but it is too early to assess the impact of these changes.

Short deployments limit the exposure of EU instructors to the realities of this hybrid security context. EUCAP reliance on short-term employment contracts leads to frequent rotation of instructors. All but 3 of 431 identified EUCAP employment notices had a 12 months contract period (the remaining 3 had 1-month terms) (see Appendix). EUCAP has also been affected by staff shortages, during 2016–2017 about 30 per cent of vacancies advertised were not filled (Jakobsen 2018, 23–25). A European Court of Auditors report finds that short mandates and budget cycles, high turnover and persistent staff vacancies harm the EUCAP mission’s institutional capacity to develop long-term strategies based upon in-depth local knowledge (Jakobsen 2018, 23–25). Short deployments and rapid personnel turnover have similar negative effects on EUTM’s mission (Tull 2019). While EUCAP and EUTM have, as mentioned above, been in operation since 2014 and 2013 respectively, virtually none of their personnel have remained in Mali long enough to build close relationships and nuanced understandings of Mali’s hybrid security environment.

Overall, this record shows that the EU programmes have not managed to address the problem of fragmentation. They have not improved the capacity of Malian units to work with each other (horizontal cohesion) or established clear mandates and chains of command (vertical cohesion). This failure to adapt to Mali’s actual conditions has limited the performance of the EUTM and of the EU CAP As we show, the expenditure of considerable sums has not resulted in an appreciable improvement in the cohesion of Mali’s armed forces. One basic problem is that EU-supported technical instructors and the content of their curricula are almost completely insulated from the realities of Mali’s hybrid security environment. EUCAP and EUTM treat training as a technical service in which their role is to teach skills such as first aid or setting up checkpoints. This limited approach may be the most that can be accomplished, given their personnel’s lack of experience and insulation from the need to adapt to Mali’s hybrid environment.

Conclusion: The Malian security forces remain fragmented

An effective strategy to regain state control over its territory and counter a diverse range of security threats would require that Mali’s government coordinate the actions of its various security forces (Bagayoko 2019, 465–466). Cohesion is indeed a vital element of effectiveness, and lack of cohesion, or fragmentation, is an important explanation for the inability of Mali’s security forces to prevent the spread of conflict. Instead of fostering cohesion, security force assistance has contributed to a crowded and uncoordinated environment in which there are at least 20 separate programmes by 4 main providers that at times work at cross-purposes. Overall, we argue that crowded and uncoordinated security force assistance exacerbated the pre-existing propensities for fragmentation in the Malian security sector. This unintended consequence of SFA provision to Mali reflects the uncoordinated way SFA was provided and the Malian government’s incapacity and unwillingness to promote the cohesion of security forces in this hybrid security environment that they and previous governments played a large part in creating.

Through the above investigation of sector wide efforts this article provides a new perspective for the study of SFA in Mali and more generally for security interventions in fragile states. Such studies may then supplement the more in-depth studies of single programmes or individual provider countries. The exacerbation of fragmentation needs to occupy a more prominent place in research on unintended outcomes of security force assistance to fragile states. Mali is not the only country that hosts a multitude of uncoordinated SFA programmes. For example, Marsh et al. (2020) argue that in Somalia an even more crowded environment of SFA providers has exacerbated fragmentation among the Somali security forces. Reno (2018) mentions directly how external providers of SFA have demanded that the Somali government makes personnel available for the establishment of new units. While SFA in Somalia has been ongoing for decades, Dwyer (2021) has also shown the risks of fragmentation of forces in newly established SFA programmes, through the case of growing security assistance in The Gambia following the 2017 political transition. Future research would do well to examine other cases in which security force assistance has exacerbated fragmentation. Research of this sort that is sensitive to the realities of uncoordinated SFA provision and actual conditions on the ground in recipient countries has the potential to further clarify how and why SFA can produce outcomes that differ so drastically from the stated aims of these programmes. This research also should interest those who want to improve the design of SFA programmes to address these problems in places like Mali and in other countries with hybrid security sectors that also are major SFA recipients.

Acknowledgements

Some of the research for this article is drawn from Marsh et al. (2020). This is a jointly written paper where the authors have contributed equally to the final product although in different manners. We would like to thank Marie Sandnes for research assistance, William Reno for comments to a draft version of the article, and the editors and anonymous reviewers for their insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway under the grant ‘The Impact of Security Force Assistance on State Fragility, Project No.: 274645’ and by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the project ‘The Impact of Military Aid on Conflict Resolution, Prevention and Stability in the Sahel and Horn of Africa’.

Notes on contributors

Nicholas Marsh

Nicholas Marsh is a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and is currently mainly engaged in the SFAssist project. In addition, Marsh has for nearly two decades studied the proliferation of weapons, the role of arms in conflict dynamics, and on international mechanisms to control the global arms trade. Marsh has also worked on weapons proliferation and conflict in Syria, Libya and Somalia.

Øystein H. Rolandsen

Øystein H. Rolandsen is a research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and Co-Director for the Centre for Culture and Violent conflict at PRIO. Rolandsen is leading the PRIO research portfolio on SFA and fragile states. He is a historian and area specialist with experience from research, strategy development, information analysis, planning and administration of projects. Rolandsen has fieldwork experience from a number of African countries, especially eastern Africa, and from the non-government sector within the fields of policy advice, humanitarian aid and long-term development co-operation.

Notes

1 Interview 05, national employee of foreign aid NGO, Bamako, August 2018; Interview 13, FAMa officer, Bamako, August 2018; Interview 15, national analyst, Bamako, August 2018.

2 Interview 03, national academic, Bamako, August 2018; Interview (group) 04, SFA trainers and managers, Bamako, Mali, August 2018; Interview 08, national journalist, Bamako, Mali, August 2018; Interview 14, national charitable organisation, Bamako, Mali, August 2018.

3 Interview 08 (see note 2).

4 Interviews 05 (see note 1).

5 The Appendix containing additional information is available from: https://www.prio.org/Data/Replication-Data/.

6 See https://archive.org/ for more information.

7 There was a total of 16 interviews with groups and/or individuals from following categories: foreign personnel involved in the provision of security force assistance as trainers or as managers; foreign diplomats; national government officials; Malian armed forces personnel; personnel from a national and international charitable organisation; national analysts; national journalists; national academics (both individual and a focus group meeting).

8 Interviews 04 (see note 2).

9 Interviews 04 (see note 2); Interview (group) 07, national government officials, Bamako, August 2018; Interview (group) 11, national academics, Bamako, August 2018.

10 Interview 04 (see note 2); 07 (see note 16).