Looks like the Vice President has overthrown the President and the Prime Minister for daring to not keep in military officials in the government.

Here we go again...

Probably the ideal opportunity to get out of this mess as well.

The problem with getting out of a mess is that the mess is still there and the danger it poses remains.

France and its allies leaving Mali won’t make the security threat an unstable Mali poses to Europe go away.

Besides, France would probably lose all their political credibility in Africa by doing so. In fact, I think I've posted in one or the other of these threads that this is the main reason they intervene.

But what is the point in supporting the military in their fight against the islamists when the military is instead fighting their own government? The Europeans have been there since 2013 without visible improvement and from what I have read, there is no real strategy beyond staying and hoping for the best. That did not work out in Afghanistan and I don't see any reason why it should work out in Mali.

That is not a good reason for the other Europeans to stay though.

Edited by Zarastro on May 26th 2021 at 10:57:02 AM

I suggest you ask the Malians on why they have no problem with French military presence to help them take on the Islamists.

Well, I guess that "but it didn't get better!" is a bogus argument grounded in omission bias (it should be "but would it have gotten worse without?") so it's not convincing, and I don't hear a lot of news stories about the (human and monetary) expenses European countries incur. In fact, this was a key point of the article I mentioned - the French interventions cost very little to the countries concerned.

Also, we are talking about a coup that occurred within the last few days. Give folks time to change their policies.

Edited by SeptimusHeap on May 26th 2021 at 12:52:33 PM

That no improvements have been made after more than 7 years should alarm anyone who is familiar with such missions. Staying against all hope is what made Afghanistan such a disaster. If things will inevitably deteriorate once we leave, it is better to leave sooner rather than later. Why waste lifes and equipment to keep a military dictatorship afloat, followed by an islamist regime?

The Malian military, near as I can tell, is simply a cancer on Mali. They refused to give battle to foreign militants, the actual defense of the nation is carried out by the French, French European allies, and the african union.. but they want to rule? Fuck those guys.

Edited by Izeinsummer on May 26th 2021 at 6:16:54 AM

Afghanistan is not a catch all model for anything except itself. Stop using it as one for a completely different country and context.

Mali's problem stems from the military regaining prominence from the last decade of combat, which it had lost after the Cold War. In turn said prominence is due to the French partnering with them to fill the roles they themselves don't want to.

AFAIK, the Malians are happy with the first coup, but are now complaining that another coup again isn't going to help now.

It is not just me using it, one of the last reports of the Bundeswehr to the German parliament drew numerous parallels between those two mission.

Besides, the similarities are more than obvious even on the grand scale. In both cases we are trying to stablize an incompetent, corrupt and divided government against an insurgency in areas where the government has little to no support or control and in which the terrain makes finding and fighting the enemy difficult. There is also no clear idea on how to permanently defeat the enemy beyond the hope that the government will get its' act together eventually. The conditions might not be as bad as in Afghanistan overall, but they do inspire little confidence and given that there is no pressing need for our soldiers to risk their lifes there, it does raise question why we don't withdraw in a timely manner.

Edited by Zarastro on May 27th 2021 at 6:26:10 PM

One thing for sure if that the Malian military post-2012 doesn't always inspire confidence nowadays unless it's their special forces.

Then Germany as a whole doesn't understand foreign policy beyond the EU. Or, more likely, you just are deliberately only listening to those you already agree with and there are Germans there who aren't so simple and reductive as you in their views on black and brown people and/or Muslim societies.

And that's a pretty vapid comparison of the details.

The government of Mali was, until 2012, a relatively successful democracy for the region. Gaddafi's arsenal and his mercenaries pouring into Tuareg regions after he died, followed closely by AQIM militants upended a previously stable status quo. Its problems now are due directly to the constraints of a war they are ill equipped to fight and which during such circumstances, the military as an institution is trying to hide its own dishonor in the war by "saving" the country from civilian authorities. The French are not really trying to stabilize the government (if they were, the Malian Army would not dare pull a coup), and are purely focusing on counter terrorism operations.

The Afghan government, on the other hand, was originally forged out of the militias of the Northern Alliance, and therefore had limited recognition in Pashtun territories, allowing the remnants of the Taliban regime to maintain a shadow government in those areas. And prior to this government, Afghanistan hadn't been stable for the previous three decades, from the fall of the King onwards. The US had tried to stabilize it initially, but has been quite checked out on idea de facto since Obama's 2nd term and de jure since Trump's time.

In Afghanistan, the solutions for defeating the enemy are complicated and nigh impossible to execute since it involves changing its (and therefore others) external borders. In Mali, the solution is quite straight-forward, its just that neither France nor Mali wish to entertain the idea of giving Awazad its independence.

Spending lives is a given if France wants to maintain influence in Francaphone Africa writ large, and the advantages that gives France. Doing it intelligently is a matter of Paris needing to change up its strategy of how to do so.

The French mission isn’t improvement, it’s containment, in large part because that’s all it’s allies will support it doing.

The focus on a short-term mission of “ensure no terrorist from here builds up the capability to carry out an attack at our home” is something that Mali and Afghanistan do share, though with Mali a long-term solution of state building is technically possible with enough investment and support (with Afghanistan you’d likely have to invade Pakistan to stabilise the situation).

The problem is that politicians aren’t going to make the big investment, support for intervention action is already in pretty short supply in the developed world and many people have the same reaction to you do. When the response to (relatively) small investment only giving small returns is to call for to ending of all investment it’s not surprising that nobody is willing to campaign for large scale action.

There are three options.

• Keep working to secure Mali and keep the terrorism there under control. The mission will never end but the band-aid will prevent the conflict from spilling out into the rest of the world. Accept that permanent deployments like this are how the developed world gets to be safe while refusing to solve the underlying issues that plague the developing world.
• Abandon Mali to collapse. A full withdrawal would allow political leaders to get domestic support and put money into other things. But without foreign support the Mali government will collapse and eventually out of the resulted failed-state will come a terrorist group willing and capable of attacking the developed world. Much the same way the abandonment of Post-Soviet Afghanistan allowed AQ to find a safe haven from which to plan 9/11.
• Fix the problem. This would cost a lot of money, lives and probably politics interest. Short-term it would mean the use of some kind of French, French-allied, AU force to put down the coup by force. Long-term it would mean looking at and fixing fundamental structural failing into the Mali system of governance.

This is not the first time I had to point that out, but Zarastro isn't actually speaking for all of us.

In the end a lot of military and economic action by the developed world to try and stop and/or contain conflicts in the developing world can be summed up by a quote from The West Wing.

“It’s the price you pay”

“To stop a war halfway around the world?”

“For being rich, free and alive all at the same time”.

I am speaking for myself as you are speaking for yourself.

The last Tuareg uprising happened in 2006.... And even in the South we can already observe a rise in antidemocratic forces among the population. The situation might be better than in Afghanistan, but the outlook is still bleak.

[[quoteblock]] Fix the problem. This would cost a lot of money, lives and probably politics interest.[[quoteblock]]

Assuming it can actaully be fixed, the price would no doubt be unacceptable. I also highly doubt that France and its' European allies would be actually capable of doing so. I mean how many additional soldiers do you assume would this require? One report I've read is that it would take at least 100.000 soldiers, or roughly 10 times of the Minusma mission to control the large Northern area. That is a number European armies can not even come close to reach. Not to mention how badly the mission already affects our equipment, which makes it even more difficult for Germany to fullfill its' NATO obligations.

Maybe it makes you feel noble to write this, but feeling noble should not be the motivation for political decisions that will cost lifes. If we risk the lifes of our soldiers, we should have a reason that goes beyond a saviour complex or French compulsion to play Great Power. We have no contractual obligation to help Mali that justifies such sacrifices. Mali has neighbours that have an interest in its' stability and have enough soldiers to help out. Those are no longer colonies and Europeans should stop meddling in other continents. There are other ways to help like financial aid and sending military equipment, but the fighting should be done by those whose concern it is.

Edited by Zarastro on May 27th 2021 at 1:59:43 PM

I did try and say most likely Zarastro was cherry picking, and not all Germans feel that way, but if that was lost I apologize.

EDIT-

The government was democratic and functioning in 2006. The Tuareg uprising is a result of colonial border drawing, which is the fault of Paris, not Bamako. It was also put down in short order compared to the one in 2012, which again was due to Gaddafi's arsenal going walkabout.

EDIT 2-

Also, France literally does have a contractual obligation to Mali. De Gaulle saw to it.

And it's not a savior complex to nip the problem in the bud rather than to be penny wise and pound foolish and let the rest of the world burn and pretend nothing will ever touch you.

Edited by FFShinra on May 27th 2021 at 9:31:45 AM

.. Troops required to stop the coup is likely a depressingly small number. France would not be there in the first place if the Malian military had the spine to give battle to an armed opponent. They were loosing to the militants, the French summarily crushed the militants, a similar French force near the capital could simply arrest the lot of them, because what are they going to do, test if the transitive property holds? It obviously does.

The issue is "And then what"? Because after that you would be more or less talking about running the place, and boy, the volume level of the cries of "neo-colonialism" would be pretty high.

Edited by Izeinsummer on May 28th 2021 at 5:34:40 AM

You do, it’s called national security.

Again, what do you think happens if the Mali state is allowed to collapse? Nothing? What happens is you end up with somewhere for international terrorist groups to plot and train for attack on Europe and North America.

Look at the harm ISIS was able to do to Europe just with intermittent control over parts of Iraq and Syria. If groups with similar a ideology are able to get stable control of northern Mali they’ll do a lot of damage to Europe, just like ISIS did and just like Al-Qaeda did.

The reason for spending the lives of French and German soldiers in Mali is to protect the lives of French and German civilians back in Europe.

The world doesn’t work that way. Just because you decide to stop meddling in another part of the world (which wouldn’t actually happen, the global economy (and arms industry) is to interconnected) doesn’t magically make that part of the world stop caring about you.

Isolationism doesn’t protect you from foreign threats, no matter how much isolationists wish it did.

Edited by Silasw on May 28th 2021 at 2:30:11 PM

AP News: Mali junta leader sworn in as president after 2nd coup

We are already giving them plenty of reasons to plan attacks on Europe just by staying there and it is not like we have any realistic chance of defeating them. It would be cheaper, safer and more effective to instead invest the ressources in our security agancies, prevention and border controls, that much should be clear after Afghanistan.

And it looks like France is slowly waking up to this reality:

Withdrawal from Mali: France stops operation “Barkhane”

https://world.in-24.com/News/37475/Withdrawal-from-Mali-France-stops-operation-Barkhane.html

If anyone wants to know why we are failing in Mali, here is a detailed article on it:

France’s War in West Africa

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/france-s-war-in-west-africa-people-collected-severed-arms-legs-and-heads-a-ae781f0b-a043-4d0e-9c8d-66491341e176

Summary: France has been more effective at killing civilians than terrorists lately, the locals are viewing the Europeans more and more as occupiers and the military of Mali is incompetent and more busy with infighting than fighting the terrorists.

France not conducting itself properly means they need to get better, not leave. And they are leaving not for the reasons you seem to think, but to pressure the coup leader to adhere to regional demands for civilian rule.

The locals are mad because France is half-assing it and hitting the wrong people in the process.

RIP France

Reuters: Deal allowing Russian mercenaries into Mali is close - sources.