Abstract
As the Marine Corps builds
up the Special-Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force – Crisis Response (MAGTF –CR)
under Marine Forces Africa (MARFORAF), there are valuable lessons to be learned
from recent French military operations on the African continent. This essay
gives some background on France’s historic interventions in Africa and makes
recommendations for future changes to the force structure of the SPMAGTF-CR.
Background
Although the popular press
in the United States often maligns the French military in general and France’s
willingness to involve itself in Coalition military endeavors in particular, in
reality, the French are both powerful and active in the realm of military
affairs, especially when it comes to Africa.
France is the sixth most
powerful nation in the world from a military perspective; in addition to a
large and modern conventional force, it maintains a credible nuclear deterrent
arsenal. Interestingly, the French military connection to its former colonial
possessions in Sub-Saharan Africa does not extend to arm sales; while the
French are the world’s fourth largest exporter of military hardware, (Rapport au Parlement, 10) exports to
Sub-Saharan Africa account for only 5 percent of their total sales, and France
has never made the Top Ten list of African arms suppliers compiled annually by
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Historically, Russia
and Ukraine have occupied the top spots on this list, but since 2006, China has
edged out the former Soviet Republics as the preeminent supplier of military
hardware in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Arms sales aside, France
has long maintained strong economic, linguistic, cultural, political, and
diplomatic ties to Sub-Saharan Africa, and this special relationship,
dubbed “la Françafrique” has existed to a greater or lesser extent from the
end of the Colonial Era in the 1960s to the present day. The recurrent theme of
la Françafrique most relevant to this
paper is the French record of military involvement in Africa, which since the
end of World War Two has dwarfed that of any other Western power, consisting of
37 major military operations in
Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa operations in the last 50 years (Griffin, 3) most
of which have been conducted without the involvement of other Western states.
France also maintains permanent bases in Mali, Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso,
and has defense agreements with the governments of Cameroon, Central African
Republic (CAR), Comoros, Côte d' Ivoire
(Ivory Coast), Djibouti, Gabon , Senegal, and Togo. (Livre Blanc, 55)
By contrast, the United
States is a relative late-comer to the stage of modern warfare in Africa.
Bloodied by Somali insurgents, the U.S. pulled out of Somalia in 1995, and like
most of the world was a mere bystander to the genocide in Rwanda. There has
been a U.S. presence in Djibouti, Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA)
since 2002, but its focus has largely been on combating militant Islam and
piracy in the Horn of Africa. Popular pressure from KONY 2012 campaign resulted
in the dispatch of about a hundred advisors from the Special Operations
communities, but the elusive warlord remains at large. U.S. Africa Command
(AFRICOM) and its Marine Component, Marine Forces Africa (MARFORAF) were stood
up in 2008, but were based in Germany because no suitable home could be found
for them on the African continent. In the context of first the “Long War” and
then the “Pivot to Asia”, Africa remains, as former AFRICOM Commander General
Carter Ham observed in 2012, “not a part of the world that the United States
military has focused on very intently.”
But that is likely to
change. Africa has become a leading U.S. supplier of strategic natural resources, including oil, gas, and minerals, with Angola and Nigeria being two important
suppliers of oil. The rise of non-state actors, including violent extremists
and transnational criminal organizations engaged in trafficking drugs, people,
and weapons is another reason, and is linked to the third driver of change; an
increased emphasis on human security and the “Responsibility to Protect.”
(Brown, 6-10) This latter has been described by David E. Brown as:
A post-Cold War paradigm that has reshaped the
traditional notion of national security by arguing that a people-centered view
of security is necessary for national, regional, and global stability.
Combatant Commanders like General
Ham and his successor, General David M. Rodriguez , may be the key to changing
this traditional perspective; according
to a recent RAND report, in the future, “the process of defining what U.S.
overseas presence is needed is left largely to the regional theater commanders
in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Central and South America.” This
same report then completely ignores Africa in favor of discussing the Middle
East and Asia as potential focuses for U.S. military efforts.
For their part, the French
Ministry of Defense observes that Europe and Africa remain a lower military priority
for the U.S., and suggest that that the European states most directly affected
by Africa’s stability, and “disposant des
moyens d’en assumer charge” (possessing the means to take charge) should
plan to play the greater role in security for the African continent. (Livre Blanc, 29) For their part in this role, the French
government plans a quick-reaction force of 1,500 ground troops, including
armored vehicles and helicopters, which can deploy within 7 days anywhere
within 3,000 kilometers of the French mainland, or of a host-nation base, of
which France has several to choose from in Africa. This force would be
supported by an air component consisting of 10 fighter/attack aircraft and
additional tactical transport and reconnaissance planes. The French military
plans to use airstrikes to stall enemy advances in the 7-day window before
their ground forces arrive. (Livre Blanc,
91) This force is intended to provide France with the capability to react
autonomously to security crisis in Sub-Saharan Francophone Africa, indicating
the significance placed on response time to emergent security issues. This
construct even includes a naval component; not surprising, considering that three
quarters of Francophone African countries border the Atlantic Ocean.
Sound familiar? It should.
A “Security Cooperation MAGTF” was envisioned in the 2008 Operational Concept The Long War: Send in the Marines.
Renamed the SPMAGTF-SC in MARADMIN 011/11, this notional MAGTF contained an infantry
battalion, a Combat Logistics Battalion, and an Air Combat Element (ACE) as
shown in Figure 1.
 |
| Figure 1: Notional Security Cooperation MAGTF (The Long War: Send in the Marines) |
What is currently in
place, instead, is a SPMAGTF –CR (Crisis Response) comprised of 550 Marines
from Third Battalion, Eighth Marines, supported by an ACE consisting of a
Medium Tiltrotor Squadron of MV-22s augmented with2 KC-130Js. This force
represents an increase of nearly 50 percent over the original SPMAGTF-CR, (which
was stood up with a reinforced Reconnaissance company and 6 MV-22s) but it may
fall short of what is required.
According to Expeditionary Force 21, Special Purpose
MAGTFs:
…will assume a greater role in crisis response and
generate greater capacity for forward presence in more locations. Based on GCC
requirements, these organizations are tailored appropriately to conduct
security cooperation activities with partner nations in order to develop
interoperability, facilitate access, build defense and security relationships,
gain regional understanding, and position for immediate response to episodic
crises.
Further, according to this
publication, “for the EUCOM/AFRICOM AORs, the goal is a single seabased MAGTF
trained for both aggregated and disaggregated employment.” But is this future
vision or the force currently in place correct based on the recent history of
military operations in Sub-Saharan Africa? Missions executed not by the U.S. or
NATO, but on a unilateral basis by French forces? Answering that question is
the goal of this essay.
Discussion
To answer that question, it
is useful to look to the French experience in two recent military operations in
Francophone Africa; Opération Serval against
Islamic and Taureg separatists in Mali, and Opération
Sangaris against militias in the CAR.
The genesis for both
operations was similar; in December 2012 and January 2013, Muslim military
forces in both CAR and Mali mounted fast-moving campaigns against government
forces. CAR petitioned France for support, but their request was rejected;
within 4 months, the rebel forces would overrun the capital of Bangui and
install their leader as the head of a transitional government.
In Mali, on the other
hand, with Islamic and Taureg forces days away from seizing that country’s
capital of Bamako, and with the coalition-building efforts of the United
Nations and the African Union too slow to react, France intervened
unilaterally, using Mirage jets and Gazelle attack helicopters to stop a column
of enemy technicals that was moving on Bamako. The rebel offensive stalled, an although
the French lost one Gazelle to anti-aircraft fire, sufficient time was bought
to allow French units from Chad, Côte d'
Ivoire and Senegal to converge on Bamako and form a contingency defensive
force. Within 3 weeks, the French had a brigade-sized force engaged in
systematically clearing the enemy from the towns of Timbuktu and Gao through a
series of ground attacks and airborne assaults. Following that, French airborne
and armored units, along with their African Union counterparts began the slow
work of clearing the terrorist sanctuaries in the Ifoghas mountain range.
(Tramond and Seigneur, 42) This rapid and sizable intervention stabilized Mali;
the same cannot be said of neighboring CAR.
At the same time the
French were clearing the last of the major Malian cities of Islamic
separatists, rebel forces in CAR overran the capital of Bangui, and the
“Seleka” militias, officially disbanded after their success against the
government forces began a campaign of killing (often by machete), looting and
rape in both the cities and the countryside. Christian “anti-balaka” (anti-machete) militias rose up in response to the Seleka,
and by December 2013, with hundreds dying in the capital, French President
François Hollande authorized a 1200-strong intervention force under the mandate
of UN Security Council resolution 2127, and visited them less than a week
later, declaring that “Il était temps
d’agir.” (“It is time to act.”)
Today, despite the actions
of the French and African forces to disarm militia groups and stop the
violence, CAR remains in chaos. The Christian anti-balaka militias gained an upper hand after the disarming of
the Seleka by international forces, resulting in a mass exodus of Muslims into
neighboring countries to avoid the killings. Contrast this with Mali,
where the enemy threat has now been functionally suppressed, Chad has withdrawn
its troops, and a combined French/German brigade –sized force will take up the
mantle of training the Malian army to handle future conflicts.
Lessons Learned
The French experience in Opérations Serval
and Sangaris should lead us to
conclude that the probable enemy force will be similar to the forces that we’ve
previously encountered in Afghanistan; light infantry with little access to
armor, but capable of using “technicals”
(light wheeled vehicles) to move quickly and employ anti-aircraft weapons. They
are also likely to disappear into the populace or inaccessible hinterlands if
pressured. Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) have been less prevalent in
these operations than during Coalition operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but
they have been used and French soldiers were killed by these devices.
Terrain can and will vary
from desert to mountain to jungle; and the tyranny of distance has the
potential to be challenging in Africa, a continent nearly four times the size
of the United States. The conflict zones in Mali and CAR have often been well
beyond the range of assault support range and combat radius of un-refueled MEU
shipboard assets.
The mission will likely
begin as a “block, drive back and clear” series of operations, with the final phase
running concurrent with providing security and engaging in the civil/military
operations necessary in a post-conflict environment.
In these phases, armor and
close-air support were vital to French success; armored cars, light tanks, and
infantry fighting vehicles were required to win the fight, sometimes after
crossing distances of 3,000 kilometers from their port of debarkation to the
battlefield. Expeditionary logistics and communications proved a particular
challenge, according to Maj. Gen. Olivier Tramond, Director of the French Army
Doctrine Center:
The huge dimensions of the Malian theater are well
beyond the theoretical area of operations for a single brigade. The broadband
global area network and other satellite communications systems proved
indispensable but are not in the standard army inventory and cannot be used on
the move.
Tactical and strategic airlift has been another issue; prior to Opération
Sangaris, France was obliged to
solicit strategic and tactical lift from several allied nations, including the
United States and other members of NATO. Ultimately, this resulted in British
C-17’s and Belgian C-130’s supporting the operation. The current SPMAGTF-CR
already has sufficient tactical lift in its complement of KC-130J and MV-22
aircraft, but operational planners must coordinate strategic lift with external
agencies. While the U.S. Air Force possesses significant strategic assets and
would normally be the “go-to” agency for this type of support, the French
experience suggests that obtaining strategic lift from European partners may
give such allies an “easy” means of supporting a military operation without
committing combat troops themselves, and thereby be a useful tool for
coalition-building.
Finally, the response time
(and size of the response force) in the case of emerging crises, especially those
involving violent extremism or ethnic violence, will play a critical role in
determining the outcome of the situation, for better or worse. Situations can
go from bad to worse in a matter of days; months of deliberate planning time or
movement of forces will not suffice to forestall instability and human tragedy.
The timeline of both the conflict in CAR and Mali, along with earlier examples
in Rwanda shows that response must come within days of the initial events, not
weeks or months.
Recommendations
The notional SPMAGTF
described in Expeditionary Force 21 is supposed to “conduct security
cooperation activities with partner nations… and position for immediate
response to episodic crises.” Based on lessons learned from recent French
operations in Africa, our current regional SPMAGTF-CR structure is probably not
sufficient to excel in either capacity, lacking in particular the combat
airpower required to blunt enemy ground attacks and buy time for U.S. or
African ground forces to aggregate and engage.
Recognizing that speed,
surprise, security, sustainment, and concentration of effects are the modern
military principles (Van Avery) most applicable to crisis response in Africa,
the future Marine presence in Africa should look more like the notional
SPMAGTF-SC envisioned by General Jones in The
Long War, with the addition of the AH-1Z and “Harvest Hawk” KC-130Js needed
to execute offensive air operations in accordance with those principles.
To engage in ground
combat, we’ll need a light armored presence, and bringing in the required
number of vehicles from ship-based inventories may not be feasible, especially as
ship-based assets may not be readily available to meet an emergent need,
especially if tensions continue to rise around the Black Sea. Engaging with
French and African states to obtain the rights to preposition vehicles and
stores at existing French bases in Sub-Saharan Africa (possibly in exchange for
providing a more robust communication architecture in the region) would be one
way to overcome this challenge.
Summary
U.S. commanders
acknowledge that Africa has so far received short shrift from the American
military, and French defense officials don’t believe that is likely to change.
But there are political,
military and economic factors that will likely result in a greater future U.S.
involvement in African security affairs, and the Marine Corps is positioned to
remain the “go-to” force for both security cooperation and crisis response in
the region.
In planning for operations
across the spectrum in Africa, the SPMAGTF commander will create stability on a
daily basis by administering an “ounce of prevention”, using their culturally
and linguistically knowledgeable troops to engage in theater security
cooperation and build the capacity of African allies. But they will also be
ready at a moment’s notice to deliver “a pound of cure” if armed violence
breaks out.
Drawing on the lessons of
the past, strategic-level military and political leaders of the future will no
doubt be aware of how very quickly violence in Africa can spiral out of
control, and what a devastating effect that can have on current and future
stability, and will therefore be quick to utilize their “Force in Readiness” to
forestall genocides, the takeover of weak states by fundamentalist religious
groups, and similar tragedies which have played out all too often in recent
years upon the African stage.
Napoleon Bonaparte once
said “Prenez du temps de délibérer, mais
quand le moment pour l'action est arrivé, cessez de penser et entrez.” -
“Take the time to deliberate, but when the moment to act arrives, stop thinking
and take action .” It’s time for the Marine Corps to do the deliberate
planning and preparation required so that next time action in Africa is
required, we are prepared to engage to decisively overcome the threat and
secure U.S. interests. If we do not, we will likely see the mantle of security
guarantor retained by France, and the resulting regional influence and
strategic benefits will continue to accrue to them, instead of the U.S.
Maj Edward H. “UTAH” Carpenter is an Aviation Logistician and Foreign Area Officer.
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