The moment U.S. armed forces are deployed somewhere, that place moves to the top of the pundit queue.  As a result, the bylaws of the International Brotherhood of Foreign Policy Pundits mandates that I blog something about Mali of a higher quality than my glib post from last month.  So here goes. 

In a refreshing change of pace from to Previous Armed Forces Deployments that will Go Unamed, the New York Times is already voicing questions about the purpose of this mission.  Indeed, Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt litter their front-pager with some "first principle" questions to U.S. foreign policy principals: 

The administration has embraced a targeted killing strategy elsewhere, notably in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, after top White House, Pentagon and C.I.A. officials determined that militants in those countries were bent on attacking the United States.

Asked if fighters from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb posed such an imminent threat, Gen. Carter F. Ham, the top American commander in Africa, said, “Probably not.” But, he said in an interview, “they subscribe to Al Qaeda’s ideology” and have said that their intent is to attack Westerners in Europe and, “if they could, back to the United States.”

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta made it clear on Wednesday that he considered the group a serious danger. “This is an Al Qaeda operation,” he told reporters while traveling in Italy, “and it is for that reason that we have always been concerned about their presence in Mali, because they would use it as a base of operations to do exactly what happened in Algeria.”....

[W]hat remained an open question, at least until last Friday, was whether the militant threat in Mali was serious enough to justify military intervention. Now, the context of that debate has changed.

General Ham put the matter succinctly in the interview, which took place last Friday, just hours after he learned about the French incursion into Mali.

“The real question,” he said as he raced off to a secure teleconference with senior Obama administration officials, “is now what?”  (emphasis added)

Now, admirably, the Financial Times' Xan Rice does explain rather concisely what France's aims are in Mali:  

France has three aims in Mali: to stop the Islamist insurgents’ advance on the capital; to help the government regain control of the north of the country; and to leave the country with a stable government.

But the strength of the well-trained Islamist militant forces points to a protracted intervention in the country where rebels maintain control of two towns in the centre of Mali, while Jean-Yves Le Drian, French defence minister, this week acknowledged the campaign was “very difficult”.  (emphasis added)

Now, the tricky part of all this for the U.S. government is that while the first goal seems easy enough to achieve, the second seems much harder.  And, most important, the United States has been trying to accomplish the third goal for the past decade -- and it turns out we kind of suck at it: 

In 2005, PSI was replaced by the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP), a partnership of State, Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) meant to focus on improving individual country and regional capabilities in northwest Africa.

According to a Government Accountability Office study, Mali got roughly $37 million in TSCTP funds from 2005 through 2008. More than half went to Defense projects. But GAO reported that there were bureaucratic differences over the programs and funding problems. “USAID received funds for its TSCTP activities in Mali in 2005 and 2007, but not in 2006,” for example. “Because it received no funds for 2006, the mission suspended a peace-building program in northern Mali,” the area with the greatest threat.

So the initial reporting suggests that the U.S. is about to blunder into another far-flung overseas operation in no small part caused by prior U.S. f**k-ups with no end in sight and a hostile population on the ground.  Right? 

Not so fast.  Contrary to the claims of some militant anti-interventionists, the U.S. counter-terrorism policy didn't cause the problems in Mali.  And, indeed, based on this survey of Northern Mali villagers conducted by some kick-ass political scientists early last year, it would seem that the locals would welcome further U.S. involvement, particularly on the humanitarian side of the equation:

The majority of our respondents were in favor of military intervention: 78% said it was worth the fight, 9% wanted to peacefully separate, and 23% were undecided (July). When asked how the northern crisis should be resolved, 50% of our respondents mentioned negotiations, while 60% cited military intervention as important to restore territorial integrity (May). Most respondents who felt that military intervention was necessary preferred exclusively domestic involvement by the Malian military (43% of respondents).  Of those citing the need for foreign intervention, the US was the most popular of the potential allies (23% of respondents favored US intervention), followed by France (18%) and then ECOWAS (15%).  In light of changing public opinion in Bamako it is possible that if asked today, villagers would be more pro-foreign intervention and pro-French....

We asked villagers the open-ended question: what policy area would you prioritize if you were President of Mali? Most individuals prioritized human development issues (health, education, water, agricultural support) both before and after the rebellion. In the January baseline survey, 51% of respondents cited development issues, while 9% mentioned peace and security. After the villagers found themselves on the border of rebel-controlled territory, 67% cited development issues and 14% peace and security (July). Regardless of the level of political stability, the vast majority of respondents would focus on basic human development needs.

Foreign policy pundits are just like the rest of the monkey-brain population -- we like to put things in clear conceptual boxes -- particularly when we lack specific knowledge of the particulars, as is the case with Mali.  It will be easy, in the coming days, to put Mali into the "Afghanistan" box (bad) or the "Libya" box (good or bad depending on your partisan affiliation) or what have you.  Given that France and the West African countries are willing to shoulder the primary military burden of this engagement, however, it would seem that the U.S. could ramp up some humanitartian assistance for the affected areas.  That doesn't mean that hard questions should not be asked about the scope and purpose of the U.S. mission in the Sahel.  It does mean that those questions might have some surprising answers, however. 

What do you think? 

I have a shocking confession to make:  it's possible that maybe, just maybe, professors and graduate students don't always finish tasks on time.  Once in a blue moon, a project will sneak up on us that is due the next day, at which point the academic or aspiring academic is faced with the following menu of options: 

1)  Pull an all-nighter, throw every crazy idea onto the page, and pray something sticks;

2)  Email whomever is waiting for your written work and explain that illness/unforseeen circumstances/preparations for the zombie apocalypse mean you need another week or so to finish;

3)  Go dark on all social media, refuse to answer email queries, and hope that everything works out for the best. 

You'd be surprised how many people opt for (3), but there it is. 

I bring this up because of Mali.  Now let me confess that I am about as far from an Africa expert as one can be.  Let me further confess that I haven't paid too much attention to Mali over the past year.  My sum knowledge of the stituation there boils down to "there's some trouble in the north," "the government ain't that stable," and "gosh, people seem to be saying, 'Al Qaeda!!  There's Al Qaeda in them thar hills!!' an awful lot." 

Still, reading this Financial Times story by Xan Rice on the United Nations' latest plan of action for Mali, it doesn't seem like the Security Council knows that much more than I do: 

The UN Security Council has approved the deployment of an African force to retake northern Mali from al-Qaeda-linked insurgents.

The council also authorised the EU and individual countries to help equip and train Mali’s army, which is meant to work alongside the 3,300-strong international force. The proposed military operation is not expected to start before September 2013 to allow for proper planning and political progress in Mali....

The French-drafted text stresses the need for a twin track military and political plan. Deployment of the intervention force, known as the African-led International Support Mission in Mali, or AFISMA, was authorised for an initial one-year period to take “all necessary measures, in compliance with applicable international humanitarian law and human rights law”. Working alongside Mali’s armed forces, the goal is to retake northern Mali from “terrorist, extremist and armed groups”....

The UN resolution did not specify how the international mission will be funded. Nor is it clear how the force will be composed. The west African regional block Ecowas has pledged to supply the 3,300 troops, with Nigeria taking the lead. But US military officials believe that the desert conditions in northern Mali will be more suited to armies from non-Ecowas countries, such as Chad and Mauritania.

There are also questions about how Mali’s army will work with an outside force. Coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo, who retains significant influence in Bamako and forced the prime minister to resignthis month, is wary of allowing in foreign troops, fearing his power will be diminished.

The resolution stressed that more military planning was needed, and the security council asked Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General, to report on the readiness of AFISMA troops before the start of any combat operations.

So, to sum up:  the Security Council has pledged to send peacekeepers on a timetable that makes academic publishing seem speedy, without any idea of how it will be funded, staffed, or operate with indigenous forces, married to vague calls for political action to lay the groundwork for said peacekeepers. 

So in this case, it appears that the Security Council has followed multiple academic routes -- they scrambled to put something together at thre last minute, but still managed to kick the can down the road a great deal. 

Again, let me confess that this could very well be the right thing to do -- I'm no Mali expert.  I do know something about procrastination and last-minute hackwork, however, and man, this reeks of it.

I hereby plead and beg Mali-watchers to correct my misperceptions in the comments.  Cause from the outside, this whole thing seems damn peculiar. 

Your humble blogger has been negligent remiss in not discussing the developing situation in the Ivory Coast.  As near as I can figure, the state of play is as follows:

1)  There was a presidential election last November

2)  Everyone and their mother recognizes that Alassane Ouattara defeated current ruler Laurent Gbagbo... except for Gbagbo.

3)  Ouattara is now holed up in the Hotel du Golf under the protection of UN peacekeepers and private security forces.  Despite mounting pressure from the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Ecowas, Gbagbo is acting like he ain't going anywhere. 

Now we have this BBC report: 

The UN-recognised president-elect of Ivory Coast has called for a West African special forces operation to remove incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo.

Alassane Ouattara's administration says the time for discussion with Mr Gbagbo, who is refusing to step down following November's election, is over.

The West African regional body Ecowas has threatened to force Mr Gbagbo out, but is trying mediation efforts first....

Mr Ouattara, who has many supporters in northern Ivory Coast, said it was just a question of removing Mr Gbagbo from power and taking control of key buildings like the presidential palace.

"Legitimate force doesn't mean a force against Ivorians," Mr Ouattara told reporters on Thursday, AFP news agency reports.

"It's a force to remove Laurent Gbagbo and that's been done elsewhere, in Africa and in Latin America, there are non-violent special operations which allow simply to take the unwanted person and take him elsewhere."

However, Ecowas does not have the sophisticated equipment and personnel needed for a special forces operation, our reporter says.

This raises a somewhat awkward question -- could this be one of those cases where neoconservatives have a valid point about the use of force?  The past decade of U.S. military misadventures has clearly dulled the appetite for new military missions among the mass public, most of the foreign policy community and, well, me.  That said, this could be one of those cases when unilateral U.S. force might be the best available policy option.   [But what about ECOWAS?--ed.  Sure, if they could gear up, that would be even better.  As the BBC suggests, however, it's not clear that they have the capability to do so.]

Note my stress on the word "could" in that last sentence -- the Ivory Coast has been wracked by civil conflict during this past decade and U.S. action could just make things worse.  But I'm not sure about that assertion either. 

What do you think?