Interests or ideology?
The EU’s CSDP operations in Libya and Mali explained
Zsófia Zsiros 5671981
Europe and its Former Colonies Supervisor: Dr. Sebastian Krapohl
June 2015
Master Thesis Political Science – European Union in a Global Order Graduate School of Social Sciences
Table of contents
List of Abbreviations iii
List of tables and figures iv
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1.1 Empirical puzzle and Research Question 2
1.2 Relevance of the Topic and Literature Review 3
1.3 Research Design and Methodology 4
1.4 Limits of the Research 7
Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework 8
2.1 The EU’s search for relative external power 10
2.2 The role of ‘Normative power Europe’ 13
2.3 The EU’s search for political integration 16
2.4 The role of the EU’s ‘big three’ 18
Chapter 3: An introduction to CSDP 22
3.1 The tasks of CSDP 23
3.2 The role of EU member states 24
Chapter 4: The case of EUTM Mali 26
4.1 Background of the crisis of Mali 27
4.2 Crisis in Mali 28
4.3 Reactions to the crisis 29
4.4 Analysis of the case 33
Chapter 5: The case of EUFOR Libya 42
5.1 Background of the crisis of Libya 43
5.2 Crisis in Libya 44
5.3 Reactions to the crisis 45
5.4 Analysis of the case 48
Chapter 6: Comparison and conclusion 53
Bibliography 57
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AU African Union
AQIM Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb movement CAR Central African Republic
CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy CSDP Common Security and Defence Policy DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo EEAS European External Action Service
EC European Commission
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States EDC European Defence Community
ESDP European Security and Defence Policy
EU European Union
FAC Foreign Affairs Council
HR/VP High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Vice-President of the European Commission
ICC International Criminal Court
LAS League of Arab States
MAF Malian Armed Forces
MNLA National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad MUJAO Jihad in West Africa
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NTC National Transitional Council
OCHA United Nations Office for the coordination of Humanitarian affairs TEU Treaty on European Union
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
UN United Nations
UNSC United Nations Security Council US United States of America
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Figure 1 - Map of Mali in 2013 26
Figure 2 - Map of Libya in 2013 42
Table 1 - What drives EU crisis management operations under the CSDP? 9
Table 2 - The EU’s most important responses to the crisis in Mali 31
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
In February 2011, the historic wave of protests and uprisings that had swept through the Arab world had reached Libya. The sounds of protests, demonstrations and gunshots were loud enough to be heard on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea. Yet Europe, the self-proclaimed promoter of human rights and democracy, was nowhere to be seen in Libya. Instead of fighting the Libyan regime, Europe had its internal battles to fight. In March 2012, following a military coup in Bamako, northern Mali fell into the hands of rebel groups. The Malian government turned to Europe for the protection of its civilians. Once again, Europe had to face its own storms on the European continent, before it could face the sandstorms of northern Mali.
In 2009, with the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty, the EU had formally introduced its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). With this instrument, the EU had hoped to leave its history of incoherent foreign policy and invisibility on the world stage behind. The crisis in Libya constituted the perfect test-case for the EU’s new crisis management capabilities. Right in Europe’s backyard, civilians demanding democratic rule, with support for an intervention from the international community and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Not surprisingly, the expectations for the EU’s role in Libya were high. Unfortunately, while the EU made attempts to launch a CSDP operation, it never actually saw the light. This raises several questions. Why has the EU not acted in Libya in the framework of its CSDP? What are its reasons or motives for conducting a CSDP operation? With the outbreak of the crisis in Mali a year later, the EU had received a second chance at showing the CSDP in action. Again, this was a country with civilians in serious need of democratic rule and protection of human rights, situated in the EU’s broader neighbourhood and with close ties to one of the EU’s largest member states, France. This time, after many months of deliberation, the EU did manage to launch a CSDP operation. So, what had changed? Why was the EU successful this time?
In this thesis, four possible explanations as to why the EU conducts its CSDP operations are put to the test. Firstly, the claim that the CSDP is a tool for the EU to balance out the power of the US in international politics will be examined. Secondly, the argument that the EU’s CSDP operations are aimed at promoting liberal values such as democracy and
create more political unity within the EU and to further European integration. Finally, the last proposition that will be tested is whether CSDP operations serve the national interests of one of the EU’s three biggest member states.
In the rest of this chapter the research question, the research design and the methodology that is used will be presented. In the second chapter, a theoretical framework is set out and four hypotheses will be formulated. The third chapter will introduce the CSDP and will elaborate on some of its most important features. The fourth and fifth chapter are dedicated to the analysis of the two cases: Libya and Mali. In chapter six the two cases are compared in terms of underlying motives and on the basis of the research, conclusions will be drawn.
1.1 Empirical Puzzle and Research Question
Since the EU’s first mission under the ESDP/CSDP1 in 2003, it has launched some 30 civilian
and military missions and operations2 in Africa, the Middle-East, Eastern Europe and Asia
(EEAS, 2015). The EU has especially been active in Africa, with 9 completed3 and 9 ongoing
civilian missions and military operations4 (EEAS, 2015b, EEAS, 2015c). This is not surprising,
as from 2003 to the present day, several African countries have faced internal crises or conflicts. These countries include the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Darfur, Chad, the Central African Republic (CAR), Cameroon, Somalia, South-Sudan, Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, Zimbabwe and more recently Mali and Libya. What is surprising, however, is that the EU only appears to be present in a small number of these conflicts and crises, and is absent from most of them (Gegout, 2009: 404). The EU, as an actor, was virtually absent from crises in Côte d’Ivoire, Somalia, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Similarly, some authors argue that the EU did not adopt a consistent and continuous strategy of conflict prevention towards the DRC and Sudan (Gegout, 2009: 410-411).
1 The ESDP was renamed to CSDP in the Lisbon treaty, which entered into force in 2009.
2 The EU’s military engagements under CSDP are referred to as operations throughout this thesis, the civilian
engagements as missions.
3 Including operations/missions: Artemis (2003), EUPOL Kinshasa (2005-2007), EUFOR (2006), EUPOL
(2007-2014) in RD Congo, support to AMIS II in Sudan/Darfur (2005-2006), EUFOR (2008-2009) in Tchad/RCA, EU SSR (2008-2009) in Guinea Bissau, EUAVSEC (2012-2014) in South-Sudan and EUFOR RCA (2014) in the Central African Republic; see figure 1.
4 Including operations/missions: EUSEC (since 2005) in RD Congo, EU NAVFOR Atalanta (since 2008) in the Horn
of Africa, EUTM (since 2010) in Somalia, EUCAP SAHEL (since 2012) in Niger, EUCAP Nestor (since 2012) in Djibouti/Somalia/Seychelles/Tanzania/Yemen, EUTM (2013) and EUCAP SAHEL (2014) in Mali, EUBAM (2013) in Libya and EUMAM RCA (since 2015) in the Central African Republic; see figure 2.
Often, the EU’s military operations and civilian missions are thought to be guided by humanitarian considerations (Spalding 2013:7; Janse, 2006). These scholars hold that the EU’s military interventions and civilian missions are mainly aimed at protecting civilians and their human rights (Spalding 2013: 8). While these considerations may play an important role in the EU’s and the member states’ decisions to conduct a crisis management operation in the region, it does not explain why the EU interferes in some humanitarian crisis or conflicts and does not do so in the other. Almost all the aforementioned conflicts and crises that have occurred in Africa since 2003 have known episodes where the EU could have interfered, if it were exclusively taking into account humanitarian considerations (Gegout, 2009: 411). It is beyond the scope of this thesis to consider whether or not some conflicts merit humanitarian intervention more than others, the point of this thesis is to explore other factors or motives, that the EU has for launching a CSDP crisis management operation.
This thesis seeks to explain why the EU has engaged in various crisis management operations, and why, in some crises, it has not set up crisis management operations. It attempts to uncover the forces, both internal and external, that are driving EU crisis management operations, both on the level of the EU and on the level of the individual member states. As the decision-making procedure under the CSDP is intergovernmental and requires unanimity among the member states in the European Council (Art. 42, paragraph 2 TEU), it is equally important to consider why member states have initiated or agreed to participate in these crisis management operations and under which conditions they are prepared to do so.
In order to identify the driving forces of the EU’s crisis management operations, this thesis will analyze two cases of EU crisis management operations conducted within the framework of the CSDP in Africa, operations EUTM in Mali (from 2013- present) and EUFOR in Libya (from 2011, which was never launched)5. The research question guiding this thesis
is: ‘What are the EU’s motives behind its CSDP operations in Mali and Libya, and how can we explain the differences between the EU’s approach towards these two situations of crisis?’
Many scholars have engaged in research on the characteristics of the CSDP and have attempted to explain its creation, its boundaries and its ambiguities (Biscop, Whitman 2013; Howorth 2014; Biscop, Coelmont 2012, 2013). Less research has been conducted, however, on the motives that the EU has for conducting a specific crisis management mission or operation under the CSDP. Why does the EU choose to launch an operation in one crisis area and not in the other? This question becomes especially pertinent when it comes to the EU’s engagement in Africa, where many cases of crises or conflicts that could benefit from humanitarian intervention by the EU are left unaddressed. This thesis aims to contribute to this literature, by comparing the possible explanatory power of each of these motives in a systematical way, against the empirics provided for by two CSDP crisis management operations.
Moreover, it is relevant to assess the EU’s foreign policy within the framework of the CSDP. The EU has attempted to make its external action more consistent, more effective and more strategic since the signing of the Lisbon treaty (European Commission, 2013:2). An important step to achieve this goal is to have more insight into the motivations that drive the EU’s CSDP crisis management operations and to understand the EU’s economic, political and security priorities. Without knowing why an operation is conducted, it seems impossible to improve on its consistency or effectiveness.
1.3 Research Design and Methodology
The goal of this thesis is to provide a qualitative analysis of the motivations that underlie the EU’s CSDP crisis management operations. In order to do so, a comparative case-study design has been chosen, as this research method allows to explore these motives very thoroughly and allows for comparison between cases. On the other hand, as the research only consists of two cases, the consequences of the small N-problem come into play, resulting in difficulty in making causal inferences and in generalizing the results of the research. Nevertheless, the research question guiding this thesis seeks to explain such a complex reality, that the only way to do the reality justice is to conduct in-depth research of the possible motives of the EU and its member states. A case study can, in this scenario, provide more explanatory insights of events than a purely quantitative design would have helped to discover.
The cases that are used in this thesis have been selected on the basis of a most similar case design. Both of the crisis management operations take place in countries in (North) Africa and are located in the EU’s broader neighbourhood. There is a consensus that this region is a strategically important area for Europe as a whole and plays an important part in the EU’s security considerations (Chelotti, 2013). Stabilization and peace are two key priorities for European foreign policy in this region, in order to prevent negative spill-overs on migration, energy supply, food emergency, deterioration of the humanitarian situation and terrorism (Chelotti, 2013). The EU has therefore developed several strategies and policies towards both Mali and Libya, most notably the ‘Sahel strategy’ (2011), the ENP, the ENPI and the EU’s ‘New response to a changing Neighbourhood’(2011).
Moreover, both countries have faced recent uprisings (between late 2010 and 2013), where rebel groups have attempted to oust their respective governments from power. The crisis in Libya occurred in the wave of the Arab uprisings, the crisis in Mali is often considered to be catalysed or at least aggravated by the events of the Arab spring (Farhaoui, 2013:27-28). The EU has agreed to launch a CSDP military operation to respond to the crisis in both countries, in the form of the EUTM operation in Mali in 2013 and the EUFOR operation in Libya in 2011. In order to avoid the problems that arise from selection based on the dependent variable (see the work of King, Keohane & Verba, 1994), the two selected cases are similar in many ways, but are different in terms of outcome. In the case of Mali, the EU has managed to launch a CSDP operation to train the Malian army. Despite this fact, the operation has been criticised for being ‘too late’ or not being ‘truly’ European (Coolsaet, Biscop and Coelmont, 2013: 2). The EU’s role in Libya more limited, as the EUFOR operation was agreed upon, but never launched. It were individual EU member states that lead the military actions in the country (like the installation of a no-fly zone)6. These two CSDP crisis
management operations are very likely to show different underlying dynamics and motives and can therefore be a valuable source of information.
Dependent Variables
In this research the dependent variable is established as the EU’s crisis management operations under the CSDP framework. This variable will need to be defined clearly in two ways. Firstly, in EU crisis management, a differentiation can be made between two types of
action: crisis management operations and crisis management missions. Crisis management operations usually have a military component, crisis management missions usually have a civilian nature. The EU often combines these two aspects when targeting a crisis or conflict (Kuhn, 2009:248). In this research, the focus will only be on the military operations that the EU has conducted under the CSDP. As the launch of civilian missions is generally the subject of less controversy within the EU and its member states, this leaves little opportunity to delve into the EU’s motives and that of the EU member states. In the case of military operations, the EU member states are usually more divided on the subject and have diverging interests. This leads to more debate and statements on the topic, and thus for more insight into the drivers of the CSDP operation.
Secondly, the thesis focuses on operations that have been launched in response to a crisis or conflict. The concept of ‘international crisis management’ first emerged during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and is today used as a ‘umbrella concept’ for a wide range of international security measures (Koops, 2009: 3). Traditionally, this concept was most often used to indicate a short-term, ‘rapidly deployable’ military measure. Today, this concept has been expanded to include some long-term military operations as well, such as ‘capacity-building’ measures, aimed at strengthening actors in conflict areas by providing them military training and resources so they are able to address future crises or conflicts on their own (Koops, 2009: 3). It is, in this expanded sense, that the concept of crisis management will be used in this thesis. The focus will be on the EU’s short-term military crisis management measures, but also on the long term capacity-building measures, such as the EU Training Missions.
Independent Variables
The independent variables in this thesis are defined as the underlying motives that the EU and its member states have for conducting a CSDP crisis management operation7. In IR
theory, the occurrence of military intervention by one country into another, is generally explained by referring to either interests or ideology that drives the operation. The motives that will be researched in this thesis address this big divide in IR theory, by testing whether it is ‘material power’ that primarily drives such operations, or ‘ideational power’. A second divide is put to the test in this thesis, that is of the external dimension as opposed to the
internal dimension. The second set of motives seeks to find whether the EU is primarily motivated to achieve external goals, or whether the EU uses its foreign policy actions to achieve internal goals. On the basis of the empirics, this thesis aims to identify the motive that has the strongest explanatory power for the phenomenon of EU CSDP operations.
1.4 Limits of the Research
In order to conduct an in-depth research of the motives that the EU displays in its CSDP crisis management operations, the scope of this research is limited in many ways. Firstly, it is important to note that this thesis will only focus on one instrument, the CSDP, within the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), leaving out other instruments that the EU has such as diplomacy, trade agreements, political conditionality and sanctions in order to achieve its foreign policy goals.
Secondly, the time and size restrictions for this thesis do not allow for an analysis of all of the EU’s CSDP operations since 2003. As explained in the previous section8, the thesis is
limited to studying two specific operations, EUTM in Mali and EUFOR in Libya. Important to add to this is that this thesis will only be concerned with military crisis management
operations, rather than all of the types of civilian and military operations and missions that
the EU has carried out within the framework of CSDP. Moreover, this thesis is concerned with crisis management operations within the EU’s CSDP framework only and leaves out crisis management operations conducted by other institutions such as the UN, NATO, individual member states or other coalitions. The main goal of this thesis is to find out what drives the EU’s crisis management operations, thus an analysis of operations carried out by other institutions does not directly contribute to answering the research question. While it may be interesting to see whether the presence of another institution or coalition in a crisis or conflict situation has an effect on the EU’s crisis management operations, it is something that merits a whole new research on its own.
Thirdly, when the thesis analyses the domestic politics of the member states, the focus will be on the three largest member states, the UK, France and Germany, only. It is presumed that these member states are the most influential in the decision-making procedure on the EU-level. Also, they represent often the three most important ‘lines’ along
which most of the EU member states are divided in terms of EU security and defence policies.
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In the first chapter, the research question that guides this thesis was formulated. It asks what the motives of the EU are for engaging in CSDP crisis management operations EUTM Mali and EUFOR Libya. A good starting point for uncovering what drives the EU in its crisis management operations under the CSDP is the work of Howorth (2014), one of the most prominent scholars on CSDP. He has identified four fundamental reasons behind the emergence and the use of CSDP (Howorth, 2014).
In the first place, the end of the cold war has triggered a lessening interest of the US in Europe and in European security. Logically, this lessening interest has resulted in a European quest for ‘European security autonomy’ from the US (Howorth, 2014: 21-22). In second place, the fall of the Berlin wall had created a ‘new world order’, in which the rules of the Westphalian international state system were being called into question. The newly emerged ‘international community’ recognized intervention in internal affairs of sovereign states as a means to protect human rights and to prevent humanitarian wrongs. Rapidly, the notion of ‘crisis management’ was introduced in IR. The EU saw this as an opportunity to write the ‘new normative rules of the game’, especially the international legal, institutional, regulatory, interventionist and ethical rules (Howorth, 2014: 22-23).
In third place, the emergence of a new military conflict on the European continent in the 1990’s. The war in the Balkans was expected to be easily ended by the European states, that collectively spent vast amounts on their defence capabilities. This, however, was not the case and the EU member states were required to rethink their approach to security and military procurement, in order to be able to tackle the military challenges that they were presented (Howorth, 2014: 23). Finally, the aforementioned three developments fell together with the EU’s internal dynamics of creating an internal market, and more importantly, with the EU’s attempts to become a political union as well (Howorth, 2014: 24). Relation to IR theory
These four fundamental motivations formulated by Howorth (2014) correspond to ideas from several theoretical strands within IR theory and European integration theory, and draw
from the realistic, liberal and constructivist perspective. There is no comprehensive theory on why states prefer a certain option in conducting foreign policy, but many scholars have attempted to offer explanations: the state’s quest for relative power on the world stage (Waltz, 1979; Posen 2004, 2006; Art, 2004), the state’s quest for security (Mearsheimer, 1990) or economic welfare (Gilpin, 1987) , the diffusion of norms and values (Manners, 2002, 2008) and many more.
In the absence of a comprehensive theory, this thesis will map out the four most plausible drivers of the EU’s CSDP crisis management operations, along two dimensions. Firstly, is the motivation coming from outside of the EU or from within? (external versus internal motivations) and secondly, does the crisis management operation primarily increase the material power of the EU and its member states or is the operation driven by ideational interests and values? (material power versus ideology). This framework (see table 1) is based on the work of Pohl (2014) and is designed to research systematically what categories of motives and powers have played a role in the EU’s commitment to CSDP operations. The four motives that are subject to this research are summarized in the following table:
Table 1: What drives EU crisis management operations under the CSDP?
Important to note is that this thesis does not consider these possible motives to exclude one another, or to cover the complete range of possible motives that the EU has to conduct
What drives EU crisis management operations?
Material power Ideational power
External EU’s search for relative external power, in particular
in relation to US
EU’s efforts of becoming a ‘normative power’ on the
international stage
Internal EU’s efforts serve the national interests of (at least one of) the big 3 EU member
states
EU’s efforts to promote further EU- integration
motivations that the EU has for conducting CSDP operations. In the following sections, these four motivations will be theoretically underpinned.
2.1 The EU’s search for relative external power
In this section we will explore the first motivation, that states that the EU’s CSDP operations can be considered an expression of the EU’s search for more relative external power, especially in relation to the world’s largest power, the US. This corresponds to a theoretical proposition of structural realists, that have interpreted the CSDP as a form of ‘balancing’ against the hegemonic power of the US (see the works of Posen 2004,2006; Jones 2007; Peters 2010; Art, 2004).
Balance of Power
Here the foundations of structural realism are explored, as they have been developed by the prominent scholar Waltz (1979). In structural realism one of the defining characteristics of the international system is the way that capabilities are distributed (Carlsnaes, Risse & Simons, 2013: 281). This international system is one of anarchy and every state within this system seeks to survive as an independent actor (Waltz, 1979: 126). In order to survive, states need to have relative power in relation to other states. Their concern is ‘not to maximize power, but to maintain their positions in the system’ (Waltz, 1979: 126-127). This is why, in a world with more than two states, one state cannot expand without giving another state an incentive to expand as well. In this case, the increase of one state’s military capability in absolute terms, might leave it worse off than it was before. Therefore, states will focus on preserving their independence instead of maximizing their power. As a consequence, states will seek to form alliances with other smaller states against the more powerful states, to bring about a balance of power in the international system (Waltz, 1979: 128). It is on the basis of these theoretical assumptions that the EU member states’ cooperation under the CSDP is perceived as a ‘balancing act’ against US dominance on the world stage since the end of the cold war.
‘Soft’ versus ‘Hard’ Balancing
One of the problems that occurs when applying the ‘balance of power’ theory to CSDP is that the EU does not really appear to be challenging US hegemony. In fact, it forms alliances and
cooperates with the US on a regular basis within the frameworks of NATO or the UN. A possible answer to this problem lies in the distinction that realists make between ‘hard balancing’ and ‘soft balancing’. ‘Hard balancing’ occurs when states are engaged in ‘intense interstate rivalry’. States adopt strategies to ‘build and update their military capabilities, as well as create and maintain formal alliances and counter alliances to match the capabilities of their key opponents’ (Paul, Wirtz & Fortmann, 2004: 3). ‘Soft balancing’ is ‘often based on a limited arms build-up, ad hoc cooperative exercises, or collaboration in regional and international institutions; these policies may be converted to open, hard-balancing strategies if and when security competition becomes intense and the powerful state becomes threatening’ (Paul, Wirtz & Fortmann, 2004:3).
According to Art (2004), the CSDP is to be understood as a ‘looser version’ of the balance of power theory and comes very close to a form of ‘soft balancing’ against the US in the international system (Art, 2004: 180). In this ‘soft’ version of the theory, the EU does not balance the US out of fears for its physical security, but out of fears about its general position (economic and political) in the international system.
CSDP as alternative for US crisis management
In the reasoning of Art (2004) the CSDP is to be interpreted as the creation of an alternative, European form of crisis management, that involves a combination of civilian and military means and is aimed at conflict resolution. This form of crisis management stands in opposition to the US-style of crisis management, that is primarily military of nature. The EU seeks to balance out and challenge the US, as the sole crisis management actor in international politics, through political and diplomatic means. At the same time, the EU attempts to become more independent from American policies (Art, 2004:204-205). The CSDP reflects a ‘conscious coordination of diplomatic action in order to obtain outcomes contrary to US preferences’ (Walt, 2005:126). The views of Art (2004) and Walt (2005) are shared by Posen (2004, 2006), who states that the timing of the creation of CSDP indeed suggests that it was a response to US hegemony. ‘Its limits suggest it is not quite a balancing project, but certainly an effort by Europeans, including many who bandwagon in their NATO guise, to develop an alternative security supplier’ (Posen, 2004: 12).
conduct of ad hoc cooperative missions. This institution provides international actors with an alternative choice to the US, whenever they seek international assistance in crisis or conflict situations and increases the EU’s influence in the international community.
Counterarguments against ‘Balance of Power’ theory
On the other side of the theoretical spectrum, Howorth and Menon (Howorth 2014; Howorth & Menon, 2009) disagree with the proposition that the CSDP is a form of balancing by the EU, against the US and/or NATO. Howorth argues that the nature of CSDP has been fundamentally misunderstood by many scholars. The scholars that propose that CSDP is a form of ‘soft balancing’ have stretched the concept of balancing too far, basically including any type of behaviour by states and thereby robbing the term of all its meaning.
Moreover, Howorth claims that CSDP is not designed to undermine the NATO and the EU’s trans-Atlantic relationship, but CSDP is in fact a means to make this alliance stronger and make the Europeans a more effective partner to the US and the NATO (Howorth, 2014:50-51). Furthermore, he claims that these scholars have failed to provide empirical evidence of the balancing of EU member states, or that the evidence provided just points to the behaviour of an individual member state, not the EU as a whole (Howorth, 2014:21).
Much of the evidence that structural realists present to prove the CSDP’s balancing against the US, can indeed not really be regarded as the EU’s actions, but can be traced back to the actions of one member state: France. France has historically and politically been the ‘representative’ of an EU that wishes to be autonomous from the US and NATO in security issues (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014: 175). France’s withdrawal from NATO’s military chain of command under president de Gaulle, its early efforts to create a European security and defence policy and its distrust of the UK’s security intentions up until the Saint-Malo declaration of 19989, have made it easy for scholars to perceive France as a state that is trying to balance the US hegemony.
Hypothesis
The propositions of the structural realists suggest that CSDP operations are conducted, primarily, because they are a means of balancing the EU’s influence over the US in the international political system. The power and balancing concerns of the EU, should be
present in the EU’s decision-making procedure about the CSDP operation, especially in the statements of France. Moreover, the operation could be conducted to the detriment of US influence or against the will of the US. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H1: If the EU’s crisis management operation under CSDP could lead to (or is perceived to lead to) more relative external power on the international stage, especially in relation to the US, the operation is expected be conducted.
In order to test this hypothesis, the empirics will be assessed to find a) whether the EU has expressed concerns over power-political consequences of the operation, b) whether the EU has a clear strategy in order to increase its power over the US and c) whether there is opposition from the US over the operation, or disagreement about elements of it. In this analysis special attention is given to the role of France, which could be showing forms of balancing against the US by using the CSDP framework.
The expectations for this hypothesis are that the empirical evidence for the EU’s balancing against the US will not be highly convincing in the case of Libya and Mali. In both cases the US and/or NATO were allies of the EU or of its member states.
2.2 The role of ‘Normative Power Europe’
The second motive that is analysed in this thesis, highlights the role of the EU as a normative power in the world. This is the second external motivation by which the EU is driven. This motivation entails that the EU is driven by the normative goals that it attempts to achieve by exercising its power.
EU as a Normative Power
Important work on the EU as a normative power is the work of Manners (2002, 2008, 2009). According to Manners, normative power can be conceptualized in a three-part analysis, that links principles, actions and impact (Manners, 2009:12).
The first dimension of normative power should primarily be considered ‘legitimate in the principles being promoted’ (Manners, 2009:12). If the EU wishes to successfully promote certain norms, the norms need to be perceived as legitimate in the international order. Legitimacy can come from many sources, such as from the fact that the principles have been
within the framework of the UN (Manners, 2009:12).
The EU’s principles that govern its relations to the rest of the world, draw mostly upon international law as well, such as the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The EU’s TEU states that ‘the Union’s action on the international scene shall be guided by the principles which have inspire its own creation, development and enlargement, and which it seeks to advance in the wider world: democracy, the rule of law, the universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for human dignity, the principles of equality and solidarity, and respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law’ (Art. 21 (1) TEU). As these principles are considered to be universal, the EU is motivated in its foreign policy, to achieve true universality of these norms and to transform societies that do not respect these principles into liberal democracies.
The second dimension of the analysis of normative power is that it should be ‘perceived as persuasive in the actions taken to promote such principles’ (Manners, 2009: 12). If the norms that are promoted are perceived to be legitimate, action must be undertaken, in order to promote these principles. The EU has a wide range of possible instruments at its disposal to promote its principles, including political conditionality in development aid, trade, inter-regional cooperation, political dialogue and enlargement. Moreover, since the 1990’s the EU has evolved in its conflict-prevention and crisis management policies, especially under the CSDP, allowing the EU to effectively respond to humanitarian crises and post-conflict reconstruction (Manners, 2009:13).
The third part of the analysis focuses on normative power, in terms of the impact of actions taken to promote certain principles (Manners, 2009: 13). The impact of the promotion of principles in the international order, should involve socialization, partnership and ownership. The EU’s impact in the promotion of these principles is very difficult to measure, but it is crucial that the EU promotes a clear message about its principles and is consistent therein (Manners, 2009:13).
It is these three elements together that build up the EU’s ‘normative power’. This normative power of the EU is to be understood as the ‘ability to shape conceptions of ‘normal’ in international relations (Manners, 2002: 253) and the EU’s ‘raison d’être’ in international politics is to promote peace, prosperity and progress, by relying primarily on its normative power (Manners, 2009: 22). Other scholars have made similar arguments as
Manners. They have emphasized Europe’s ‘normative, value-driven external policy’ (Orbie, 2006: 126) and have come to ‘posit a pre-eminence of ideational dynamics, key to the EU’s distinctiveness as an international actor’ (Youngs, 2004: 415).
The EU’s Normative Power in CSDP
Aggestam (2004, 2009) has specifically addressed the role of the CSDP in this regard, arguing that the ‘common role of Europe as an ethical power is slowly cementing a presence in international politics through the development of a European Security and Defence Policy’(Aggestam, 2004:20). Similarly, Owen (2001) claims that the most important reason for the development of EU cooperation under the CSDP, was that the EU felt the need to be more effective and efficient in carrying out liberal foreign policy (Owen, 2001: 142).
CSDP has been explained as an attempt by the EU to correct the absence of any legitimizing ‘collective conscience’ in NATO’s military interventions after the Cold War (Youngs, 2004: 417). Some EU member states have claimed that EU citizens are more likely to support EU operations, even if they are risky and costly, in defence of European values, than operations conducted by NATO (Howorth, 2001: 782; Youngs, 2004: 417). This EU dimension has equally been the most important point for facilitating and justifying Germany’s comeback towards international military involvement. As the EU’s use of force is always based on ‘collective action’, it inevitably enjoys greater legitimacy and is free from other ‘dubious interests’ that are often at play in other military interventions, in the eyes of the EU citizen (Ortega, 2001:117). Howarth claims that CSDP ‘will be conducted in the name of norms and values which confer upon the EU project itself the legitimacy which alone allows it to continue its journey to an unknown destination’(Howarth, 2000: 90).
Problems in applying ‘Normative Power’ theory on CSDP
One of the problems of considering CSDP to be driven by the promotion of certain principles, is that the EU is often perceived to have subordinated its norm-promotion interest to other interests, such as economic interest or security interest (Youngs, 2004). Moreover, the EU tends to emphasize its commitment to liberal and universal principles very often, even when the objectives it pursues do not reflect such a commitment by themselves. If the EU’s
rhetoric’s are taken too literally, virtually every EU foreign policy action could be considered an expression of the EU’s commitment to certain liberal principles.
Hypothesis
On the basis of these theoretical considerations, the EU’s CSDP operations could be considered to serve as a means for the EU to promote itself as a ‘normative power’ on the world stage and to project its own values onto other regions. The EU and its member states may not be driven by material power interests, but by a drive to establish and commit to a global order that is organized along certain normative principles. From this, the following hypothesis has been derived:
H2: If the EU’s crisis management operation under CSDP could lead to (or is perceived to lead to) the promotion of collectively held liberal values in the global order, the operation is expected to be conducted.
To verify this hypothesis, the empirics will be assessed to find whether the operation is a) designed by the EU with the purpose of effectively promoting liberal values, and there is an apparent absence of other EU interests (such as economic or security interests), b) whether the EU has a clear strategy in order to effectively promote liberal values and c) whether the EU has received support from the international community and international institutions (such as the UN) for this operation.
The expectation is that the EU’s CSDP operations will indeed be (partially) motivated by the promotion of collective liberal values in the international system, especially principles such as the promotion of democracy, peace and human rights are expected to play an important role in the EU’s considerations for conducting a CSDP operation.
2.3 The EU’s process of political integration
A third strand of scholars offers another explanation for why CSDP operations are conducted. This line of thinking is not so much concerned with the external effect of foreign policy, but it views foreign policy as a tool to achieve internal or domestic political goals. One of these goals is the promotion of the European integration process and creating a closer Union on the continent of Europe.
CSDP as a tool of ‘nation-building’
From the point of view of constructivism, scholars have held that CSDP was primarily pursued to create and maintain a sense of shared identity among the European member states, and was not so much aimed at achieving foreign policy goals (Tonra, 2003:738). According to Anderson & Seitz (2006), traditional security analysis fails to see the true purpose of CSDP, as they start from the presumption that the creation of a military force is purely for defensive purposes. According to these two authors, the EU is not pursuing the CSDP for defence reasons, but for ‘nation-building’ purposes. ‘Nation-building’ is to be understood as ‘fostering legitimacy and the formation of a national idea, a national identity among the people living within a defined territory- a national, collective self-awareness’ (Anderson & Seitz, 2006: 30). The CSDP is used as a tool to define what ‘European’ is, as opposed to for instance American, and to generate a common identity within Europe, that is to support European integration.
This support for European integration is needed, as the EU falls short of the requirements that are often cited for building a nation: the sense of a shared culture and a common will. The EU’s integration process remains a process essentially driven by a European elite (Anderson & Seitz, 2006: 31). And this process has appeared to be losing steam over the past years, marked for instance by failed ratification of important treaties and the EU constitution, the refusal of Sweden, the UK and Denmark to join the common currency and public scepticism on the EU’s integration process (Anderson & Seitz, 2006: 32).
The proper way to characterise the emergence of a EU military force is ‘swaggering’. This concept refers to one of the four ways in which military force can be used, aside from purposes of defence, deterrence and compelling. By ‘swaggering’ the state is able to ‘enhance the national pride of a people’ (Anderson & Seitz, 2006: 34), which is a necessary tool for the EU to enhance its cohesiveness. This same conclusion is even shared from the perspective of institutionalism. Smith (2004), for instance, has argued that the EU’s CSDP and foreign policy helps to provide ‘a valuable social commodity for the EU: internal unity’ (Smith, 2004: 257).
All of these theoretical perspectives presented in this section, share the idea that operations under CSDP might not be aimed at external results, but at an internal process in the EU. This internal process aims to create more European unity and cohesiveness, in order to further the process of European political integration. On the basis of this view, the CSDP operations should be more concerned with the fact that it is a ‘European’ operation, instead of other considerations. This proposition leads to the following hypothesis:
H3: If the EU’s crisis management operation under CSDP could lead to the promotion of the process of European integration, the operation is expected to be conducted.
For this hypothesis the empirics will be researched for evidence of the fact that a) the EU explicitly chose to conduct the operation within the framework of the EU, despite other possible institutional alternatives such as the UN, NATO, AU, or coalitions of other countries, b) the EU emphasizes that the operation is a EU activity, and c) the EU emphasizes the EU’s unity as a goal in itself.
The expectation is that the EU’s CSDP operation in Mali has been indeed conducted to promote the process of European integration. In the Libyan case, however, the prospects of promoting EU integration by launching a CSDP operation were probably very low, as the EU’s member states were highly divided on the issue.
2.4 The role of the EU’s ‘big three’
The fourth motivation that will be explored in this section is inspired by the idea that CSDP operations are driven by the national interests of the EU’s three most powerful member states: the UK, France and Germany (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014: 122). Moreover, the CSDP operation is very likely to be conducted if the national interests of the ‘big three’ converge. Empirical evidence for this proposition can be found in the history of the CSDP, especially in the events surrounding the Saint-Malo declaration in 1998. This declaration, which came into life after a convergence between the interests of the UK and France, has marked the start of a European security and defence policy10.
The ‘Big Three’
In the literature, much has been written about the role of the EU’s ‘big three’ in the EU’s foreign policy and in the CSDP, especially about the role of France in this regard. According to Lehne (2012), these ‘big three’ differentiate themselves from other EU member states by three factors. Firstly, they are capable of acting independently. Where most EU member states have to rely on the frameworks of multilateral institutions to undertake foreign policy action, the ‘big three’ are still heavy enough to assert influence on foreign policy on their own. Even though this capacity is slowly diminishing in the changing dynamics of the international system, this still gives the ‘big three’ a far wider range of policy options than most states have (Lehne, 2012:8).
Secondly, these ‘big three’ are not tied to the EU either. Where for smaller EU member states the CFSP and CSDP have become the primary instruments to conduct their foreign policy in, for the big three the EU constitutes just one of the optional frameworks to operate in. Their choices, especially for the UK and France, range from the UN’s security council, the G8 to the NATO. Sometimes the ‘big three’ do opt for action within the EU framework, but this is only done when it offers them an opportunity to give ‘greater international weight’ to their own policies and interest (Lehne, 2012:8).
Thirdly, and most importantly for the purposes of this thesis, the ‘big three’ are considered to be the drivers of the EU’s foreign policy. These countries are able to shape policy ‘across the board’, not just on a specific issue. The ‘big three’ are not the only countries to take the initiative in foreign policy action, however, if the three’s interests converge and they push for a certain policy, it is very likely to happen. Similarly, if the ‘big three’ are divided on a subject, the EU’s foreign policy action will be paralysed (Lehne, 2012:8).
EU Interests versus National Interests
Olsen (2009) expands on the motivations that drive the EU’s foreign policy, especially its policy towards Africa. He argues that the CSDP and the EU’s conflict management policy towards Africa in general, are motivated by two sets of interest. On the one hand, there are EU interests, on the other hand, there are national interests of France and the UK. These European interests, preferences and goals may vary over time, but there is a general agreement that ‘some basic values and ideas fairly constantly guide the EU’s foreign policy
market economy’ and peaceful conflict resolution, that are considered to be part of the European identity and which shape the EU’s interests (Olsen, 2009:248).
However, as CSDP has an intergovernmental structure11, the interests of the member states, and especially the interests of the former colonial powers UK and France, influence the EU’s policies under CSDP towards Africa (Olsen, 2009:248). Liberal Intergovernmentalism focuses on the influence that EU member states have within the decision-making procedure of the EU. Moravcsik (1993) argues in his work that the EU member states form preferences and interests at the national level, and then they transfer these to the EU level, where international negotiations take place and again, preference formation takes place. This means that the interests driving the EU’s foreign policy are located on the level of the individual member states, as well as on the EU level.
Wong (2008), who argues from a more realist perspective, similarly believes that EU member states have a distinct role in the making of EU foreign policy. He argues that the EU is a means for states, even for larger states with colonial histories, to enhance their power in their areas of former colonial influence like Africa and Asia. Acting as an agent for the EU and the EU’s foreign policy, they are likely to achieve more than acting on their own title (Wong, 2008: 147). France, for instance, has cooperated since the 1990’s with other EU member states in Africa, which made it possible to have more influence on the continent than it could ever have alone. The same has been experienced by Britain and even Belgium, when they held the EU presidency (Olsen, 2009: 250). Gegout (2009) adds that ‘to understand underlying EU foreign security policies, one has to look at the preferences of the most powerful member states, as they initiate these policies’ (Gegout, 2009: 407). She argues that when it comes to EU conflict management in Africa, virtually all interventions were initiated by France. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on French national interest to understand the EU’s CSDP operations (Gegout, 2009: 407).
Hypothesis
On the basis of these theoretical propositions, the EU’s CSDP operations should take place, when one (or more) of the ‘big three’ member states, sees the EU’s CSDP framework as a tool to serve their national interests in a certain region. The national interests are aimed at achieving more material power, and are defined in terms of economic, political and security
interests. This is the second internal motive, that explains the EU’s foreign policy actions, although it does not come from within the EU as a whole, but more specifically from within the three largest member states. The fourth hypothesis that will be tested in this thesis is: H4: If the EU crisis management operation under CSDP serves the national interests (economic, political, security) of one or more of the three biggest EU member states (UK, France, Germany), the operation is expected to be conducted.
The empirics for this hypothesis will be tested for whether or not one of the big three member states has a) strong economic ties in the region where the operation is conducted, measured in terms of trade and investment in the region, b) strong political ties and/or a colonial history in the region where the operation is conducted, measured in terms of the existing bilateral treaties, agreements, and other instruments political cooperation that have been used in the region, and c) the region has a strong military-strategic interest to one of the three big EU member states, measured in terms of troop deployment in the region, the number of nationals present in the region and the number of immigrants from the region, present in the ‘big three’ country.
These definitions of political, economic and security interest will not be able to catch all of the possible interests the ‘big three’ have in a region where a CSDP crisis management operation is required. The goal of this thesis, however, is not to map out precisely all of the interests of the ‘big three’ in Africa. The goal is to get an overview of the their most important interests and to assess whether these interests have led the EU to conduct a CSDP operation.
The expectations for this hypothesis are that the political and security interests of France will be an important driver of the CSDP operation in Mali. Its interests in Libya are expected to be smaller and therefore France will be less determining in the EU’s decisions on CSDP operations in the region. The UK is also expected to have a significant interest in both Mali and Libya, and is therefore expected to push for the EU’s CSDP operations in both regions. The interests of Germany are expected to be relatively small and Germany is therefore not expected to take a leading role in any of the cases.
CHAPTER 3: AN INTRODUCTION TO CSDP
The idea of a common defence policy for Europe dates back to 1947, starting with the signing of the Treaty of Dunkirk, which was an alliance and mutual assistance agreement between the UK and France. Since then, the EU12 and its member states have made many
attempts to create a coordinated defence capacity (Howorth 2014: 3). In 1948, tentative plans were made for a Western Union. In the same year, the Treaty of Brussels, which included a mutual defence clause, was signed by the UK, France and the Benelux (EEAS: 2015). In the 1950’s a proposal was made for a European Defence Community (EDC), followed by the Fouchet plans of the 1960’s. Both plans, however, failed ratification in the French parliament. Not surprisingly, these failures resulted in security and defence largely being left out of the European integration project until the 1990’s (Keukeleire & Delreux 2014: 172).
The 1990’s proved to be a turning point for European security and defence. Following the end of the Cold war and under pressure of the conflicts in the Balkan region, the EU member states managed to achieve more agreement on the status of European security and defence policy (Keukeleire & Delreux 2014: 172). The first major step in this process was the Saint-Malo declaration of 1998. This declaration, initiated by the UK and France, is considered to be a compromise between the two big opposing views on European security. France was interested in creating an autonomous European military and defence capability, which was free from the US and NATO. The UK however, was focused on Trans-Atlantic cooperation and wanted a stronger role for the US and NATO in European security. In the ‘Joint Declaration on European Defence’ France and the UK agreed that ‘the Union must have the capacity for autonomous action, backed up by credible military forces, the means to decide to use them, and a readiness to do so, in order to respond to international crises’ (Joint Declaration, 1998). Moreover, Europe would be ‘contributing to the vitality of a modernised Atlantic Alliance which is the foundation of the collective defence of its members’ (Joint Declaration, 1998; Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014: 175). Agreement between these two countries on European security was crucial and resulted in the creation of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). In 2009, with the entry into force of the Lisbon
12 The term ‘European Union’ only came into force with the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. For reasons of clarity
however, I will refer to the European Union instead of the European Community, the European Economic Community, or the European Community of Coal and Steel.
treaty, the ESDP was formalized and renamed as Common Security and Defence Policy (Keukeleire & Delreux 2014: 172).
As it is briefly stated in the first chapter13, the CSDP is the EU’s most prominent
instrument for conducting military operations and civilian missions outside the EU’s territory. Even though there appears to be nothing confusing about the name ‘Common security and defence policy’, this term is often considered to be somewhat misleading (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014: 173). First of all, the CSDP does not have any ‘common’ instruments of its own, it relies on the assets of its member states. Secondly, the CSDP only foresees in civilian missions and military operations outside the territory of the EU, and is not directly related to ‘defence’ of the EU’s territory (Art. 42 TEU; Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014: 173). In order to uncover why some CSDP crisis management operations take place and why some do not, it is important to understand the nature and structure of the CSDP as well. The following sections will provide an overview of the CSDP’s most relevant characteristics for this research.
3.1 The tasks of CSDP
Article 42 of the TEU provides information about the tasks of the CSDP. It ‘shall provide the Union with an operational capacity drawing on civilian and military assets. The Union may use them on missions outside the Union for peace-keeping, conflict prevention and strengthening international security in accordance with the principle of the United Nations charter. The performance of these tasks shall be undertaken using capabilities provided by the Member States’ (Art. 42 (1) TEU). The CSDP is thus only concerned with missions outside of the EU and it relies on the capabilities of the member states to do so.
The treaty also specifies that the EU may use military and civilian means, including ‘joint disarmament operations, humanitarian and rescue tasks, military advice and assistance tasks, conflict prevention and peace-keeping tasks, tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace-making and post-conflict stabilisation’ (Art. 43 (1) TEU). The EU’s means do not include, however, offensive military operations, like the ones conducted in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000’s, or the Libyan campaign in 2011 (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014:174).
designed to be complementary to the existing structures for foreign and security policy and to support the members states national security policies, the policies of NATO or the UN. The goal of the CSDP is not to replace these policies. In the second paragraph of article 42, it is specified that the CSDP ‘shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States and shall respect the obligations of certain Member States, which see their common defence realised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’ (Art. 42 (2), TEU). This also explains why the EU’s CSDP missions and operations are almost always part of a broad, multilateral coalition, and are often only conducted on the basis of an external demand by another country or international organization (like the UN, AU or NATO) (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014:189).
3.2 The role of the member states
The role of the member states in the working of the CSDP remains crucial and are therefore an important part of the analysis in this thesis. Firstly, because decisions relating to the CSDP, including decisions on initiating a CSDP mission, need to be made unanimously in the Council (Art. 42 (4), TEU). Agreement among all member states is thus required for CSDP to become operational.
Secondly, the CSDP’s tasks are performed by using the capabilities of its member states (Art. 42 (1) TEU), as the EU has no troops or equipment of its own. Even though the EU has a total capacity of 1,7 million European soldiers and a collective defence budget of 200 billion Euros, it can prove to be challenging for the EU to find the military capability it needs for its CSDP operations (Biscop & Coelmont, 2012: 50-74). Partly, this is due to the fact that only a small part of these European armed forced are really deployable. More importantly, member states often lack the political will to participate in CSDP operations, especially if there is no direct national interest involved (Biscop & Coelmont, 2012: 50-74). While the CSDP’s operations are never conducted by permanent European forces, there have been a few patterns according to which the member states operate within CSDP. The first phenomenon is the ‘Europeanization of NATO forces’, which occurred during operations in the Balkan region in 2003. The EU member states’ troops operating in this region under the flag of NATO, simply started operating under the CSDP flag. This happened for instance in CSDP operation ‘Concordia’, which took over NATO mission ‘Allied Harmony’, and with CSDP operation EUFOR Althea, which was a replacement of the NATO’s SFOR
operation (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014:178).
A second pattern is that EU member states launch CSDP operations on an ‘ad-hoc basis’, forming coalitions on the initiative of one or more member states. The member states that are involved often are committed to the operation at hand and are capable of making an actual military contribution to the operation. This is a very flexible form of cooperation and was often used in the EU’s CSDP history, for instance during operation Artemis, EUFOR Chad/RCA, EUFOR Congo and EU NAVFOR Somalia (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014:178). A downside of these types of cooperation is that the costs are born by the participating countries, not by the EU, and that it is often the same member states that participate in these coalitions.
Thirdly, member states sometimes choose to be active outside of the CSDP framework, by sending their troops or military equipment to the UN, NATO or another coalition of countries. Often, these types of operations are conducted this way, because there is too much disagreement between countries within the CSDP framework. An example of this is the situation in Libya, where an operation in the CSDP framework was thoroughly discussed by the EU member states, but in the end the UK and France took the initiative individually to lead a military campaign, with support from NATO (Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014:178).
An important implication of this Intergovernmentalism in the CSDP is that its development relies heavily on the voluntary contributions of the EU member states and their initiatives. Therefore, the process of improving the CSDP’s capabilities is considered to be very slow and the coordination of the member states’ military capabilities lack guidance from a higher level (Biscop & Coelmont, 2012; Keukeleire & Delreux, 2014:179).
CHAPTER 4: THE CASE OF EUTM MALI
In this chapter the EUTM crisis management operation in Mali will be analysed in detail. In order to place the events of the crisis in Mali and the responses of the EU and its member states into a broader perspective, in the first section some background information on the crisis in Mali is given. In the second section the events of the crisis of 2012 are discussed. The third section is concerned with the EU’s and EU member states reaction to this crisis. Then, in the fourth section, the four different hypothesis that were set out in the second chapter will be revisited and tested. The fifth section ends with a brief conclusion on the Mali-case.
Figure 1. Map of Mali in 2013
4.1 Background of the crisis in Mali
In September 1960, the independent nation of Mali was born, after having been ruled by the French since 1898. The first president of the country, Modiba Keïta, head of the socialist Sudanese Union-African Democratic Party (US-RDA) (Arieff, 2013:6), faced the challenge of asserting its authority on a large territory. This territory included desert regions in the north of Mali, that are home to Tuareg and Arab communities (Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015:8).
Tuareg and Arab Communities in the north
The members of the semi-nomadic Tuareg community, who live in parts of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya, form a small minority within Mali. The Tuareg and Arab communities challenged Keïta’s authority by claiming more control over what they consider to be their historic homeland, ‘Azawad’. This claimed area consists of virtually all the land north of the city of Mopti, and includes the regions of Timbuktu, Gao, Kidal and a large part of Mopti (see figure 1). Therefore, the northern region of Mali was regarded by the Malian authorities as ‘the main obstacle to national unity’(Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015:8).
Subsequently, these northern regions were disregarded by the Malian authorities, who concentrated their political and economic efforts in the south of Mali (Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015: 8). This strategy has led to a gradual marginalisation of the north and even to the imposition of military rule on these regions (Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015: 8). These ongoing tensions between the Malian authorities and the Tuareg and Arab communities in the north, have led to four uprisings of these groups, in 1963, 1991-1996, 2006-2009 and most recently, in 2012 (Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015:8).
Even though peace agreements, such as the National pact, the Algiers agreements and the Sebha agreements, between the Malian state authorities and the northern communities have been negotiated and (partly) executed (Arieff, 2013: 6; Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015:11), the relationship between these two parties has not improved much. An important reason for this failure is considered to be the strategy that was used by the Malian government, to assert their authority in the northern region (Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015:8). The Malian government has repeatedly attempted to weaken the Tuareg and Arab opposition, by playing them out against each other. It has used ‘electoral zoning’ in order to
community in terms of needs and demands, which has made achieving a form of peace a lot more difficult (Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015:8).
Other sources of tension between north and south
The tensions within Mali have been worsened by the influence of foreign actors in the country. These actors, such as Libya and Algeria, have attempted to increase their power in the north of Mali and in the Sahel region as a whole, by supporting the Tuaregs and Arab communities in their resistance to the Malian government (Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015:9). Another source of tension in Mali is that of religion. Mali’s population is 90% Muslim, but the Malian state is considered to be secular and moderate approaches to the Islam are prevalent in the country (Arieff, 2013:6). However, in recent years, more radical views towards Islam have increased in Mali. In the absence of a functioning state, the north of Mali has been the target of Arabic NGO’s and Islamic movements, providing for the basic needs in the region. The influence of these organizations have helped spread more radical interpretations of the Islam in the north of the country, that challenge the more tolerant interpretations in the south (Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015:9), again fuelling the tensions between the north and the south.
4.2 Crisis in Mali (2012)
In January 2012, another rebellion by the Tuareg community took place in the town of Ménaka, in northern Mali. A military garrison of the Malian army was attacked. This rebellion of the Tuaregs was the fourth since Mali’s independence in 1960, and came three years after the conclusion of the last peace agreement between the north and the south of Mali. What was interesting about this attack was that the rebel groups were much better prepared and organised than during previous rebellions, and had a lot more military equipment at their hands (Chauzal & Van Damme, 2015: 10).
This was the work of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), that was created in October 2011. This movement, led by Tuaregs returning from their fight in Libya, successfully united all the different tribes and factions in the north, that had been divided and weakened by the policies of the Malian government. Following the military coup of March 22 in southern Mali (see next section), and the virtual collapse of the Malian army, the rebels in the north captured about two-thirds of the country. By April 2012, the cities of
