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President François Hollande entered public office in 2012 with a non-interventionist agenda that promised to draw down French troops in Africa and promoted collective African and European mechanisms to reduce France's military footprint in the region. One year later, the same president deployed 4,000 combat troops to Mali, initially without any multilateral participation. To understand this apparent contradiction between multilateral rhetoric and operational unilateralism, this article looks at France's efforts in previous years to establish African and European military operations in support of the Malian state. The article finds that France's commitment to multilateralism is genuine yet not absolute – meaning that French policy-makers do not shy away from operational unilateralism if conditions on the ground seem to require swift and robust military action, as long as they can count on the political support of key international partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Nearly six years after the onset of international intervention in 2013, the security situation in Mali continues to deteriorate. Despite a plethora of security sector assistance initiatives, the Malian army is struggling to become a more effective fighting force. This article analyses security sector assistance by describing local responses to international intervention. Based on original research in Bamako and dozens of interviews with Malian army officers and foreign advisers, diplomats and defence officials it traces the mutual perceptions of interveners and their Malian interlocutors. The author shows that both sides hold often diverging views of the analysis of the problem (a weak army), their respective roles, as well as the appropriate modalities and strategies of army reconstruction. While interveners routinely bemoan a lack of local ownership, Malians are exasperated by what they depict as the invasive and paternalistic behaviour of external actors who negate the existence of Malian expertise and agency. The dissonance triggers forms of subtle resistance against externally-driven reform that undermines cooperation. Yet, strong mutual interests in the perpetuation of cooperation imply that Mali and its international backers are locked into a dysfunctional partnership that none of the two sides has an incentive to leave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effects of UN peacekeeping and international counterterrorism operations upon the possibilities of peace in Mali. Following the January 2013 French operation Serval, the international intervention was divided between two military missions: UN peacekeeping in Mali and French-led counterterrorism. The article explores what it means to distinguish between peacekeeping and counterterrorism for international conflict management and Malian conflict resolution dynamics. It is argued that the binaries of war and peace, and of intervention and sovereignty, are no longer opposites, but blurred into an emerging ‘new normal’ of permanent military intervention. The construction of a regional counterterrorism governance or militarisation is shown to circumvent the fundamental questions about Malian peace, state sovereignty, and nationhood. The article points to how the international ‘division of labour’ between peacekeeping and counterterrorism defines the possibilities of peace in Mali in relation to the perceived necessities of the ‘global war on terror’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operation in Mali (MINUSMA) has become among the deadliest in UN history, suffering from attacks by violent extremists and terrorists. There are strong calls to give UN peacekeeping operations more robust mandates and equip them with the necessary capabilities, guidelines and training to be able to take on limited stabilisation and counter-terrorism tasks. This article conceptually develops UN counter-terrorism operations as a heuristic device, and compares this with the mandate and practices of MINUSMA. It examines the related implications of this development, and concludes that while there may be good practical as well as short-term political reasons for moving in this direction, the shift towards UN counter-terrorism operations will undermine the UN’s international legitimacy, its role as an impartial conflict arbiter, and its tools in the peace and security toolbox more broadly, such as UN peacekeeping operations and special political missions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT During the armed conflict in northern Mali in 2012 and 2013, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees from the town of Timbuktu had to make sense of and negotiate the hardships of occupation and displacement. They did so through a social-metaphysical ethic of privacy called sutura, which informs everyday attitudes and practices, particularly those relating to work and the built environment. Although sutura framed displacement, it made certain hardships more difficult to overcome, since it became almost impossible for people to maintain sutura outside the sacred space of Timbuktu. Privileging sutura as a local religio-cultural framework within the context of crisis links broader structural issues with everyday lived experience. It also identifies existential limitations that displaced communities might encounter when attempting to navigate certain hardships. [ crisis, displacement, ethics, lived space, sutura, privacy, Islam, Timbuktu, Mali] Pendant le conflit armé dans le nord du Mali en 2012 et 2013, les personnes déplacées et les réfugiés de la ville de Tombouctou ont dû subir et négocier les difficultés de l'occupation et du déplacement. Ils l'ont fait à travers une éthique sociale-métaphysique de l'intimité appelée sutura, qui a informé les attitudes et les activités quotidiennes, en particulier celles relatives au travail et à l'environnement bâti. Bien que sutura a encadré l'expérience du déplacement, certaines obstacles (problèmes) ont devenus plus difficiles à surmonter, à cause de l'impossibilité pour les gens de maintenir sutura en dehors de l'espace sacré de Tombouctou. Privilégier la sutura en tant que cadre religio-culturel local dans le contexte de la crise, peut relier les problèmes structurels plus larges avec l'expérience quotidienne vécue. Il identifie également les limites existentielles que les communautés déplacées pourraient rencontrer lorsqu'elles tentent de surmonter certaines difficultés. [ crise, déplacement, éthique, espace habité, sutura, intimité, Islam, Tombouctou, Mali] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the sad track record of the EU Battlegroups has attracted considerable scholarly attention, analyses have largely focused on obstacles related to the provision of the Battlegroup troops and to the consensus within the EU Council, hence taking a supply-side perspective. This article calls for complementing this perspective with an analysis of the demand for their deployment. That implies analysing whether and why the EU Battlegroups were (not) considered as an option by those actors taking the initiative to intervene in a particular crisis. Applying a rational-institutionalist approach, this article explains the absence of the Battlegroups from three recent crises: Libya (2011), Mali (2013) and the Central African Republic (2013–2014). Using data from document analysis and elite interviews, it shows that once a rapid military reaction became urgent, the EU Battlegroups were not even considered as an option by those initiating an international reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The March 2012 coup in Mali opened the door to expanded territorial occupation in northern Mali by Tuareg separatists and subsequently armed Islamist extremists. French forces intervened at the behest of the interim government in Mali. This article examines how various actors frame the conflict to their advantage. While the Malian government and France are allies, the position of various Tuareg actors shift over time as they strategize and weigh the value of allegiance with the French. Local extremist organizations are labeled as terrorists and are targeted as enemies. This article argues that the conflict has been decontextualized and framed within the ‘war on terror’. France’s decision to intervene and to expand their regional military presence, rather than exit, is legitimized by the framing of their intervention as integral to counterterrorism efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction: On January 11th 2013, France launched Operation Serval in Mali following Resolution 2085 of the Security Council of the United Nations. Between January and March 2013, more than 4000 French soldiers were deployed to support the Malian National Army and the African Armed Forces.Methods: All of the patients who had surgery during Operation Serval were entered into a computerised database. Patients' demographic data (age, sex, status) and types of performed surgical procedures (specialties, injury mechanisms) were recorded.Results: 268 patients were operated on in Gao's Role 2 with a total of 296 surgeries. Among those operated on, 40% were Malian civilians, 24% were French soldiers, and 36% were soldiers of the International Coalition Forces. The majority of the surgeries were orthopaedic, and visceral surgeries were common as well, representing 43% of the total surgeries. Specialised surgical procedures including neurosurgery, thoracic, and vascular surgery were also performed. Forty percent of the surgeries were scheduled. War-related traumatic surgeries represented 22% of the surgical procedures, with non-war related surgeries and non-trauma emergency surgeries making up the rest.Conclusion: this analysis confirms the specific characteristic of asymmetric warfare that it results in a relatively reduced number of war-related casualties. Forward surgical teams have to deal with a wide range of injuries requiring several surgical specialties. Surgeries dedicated to medical aid provided to the population also represented an important part of the surgical activity. Because of the diversity and the technicality of the surgical procedures in Role 2, surgeons had to be trained in war surgery covering all of the surgical specialties, while they maintained their specific skills. In France in 2007, the French Military Health Service Academy (École du Val-de-Grâce, Paris, France) offered an advanced course in surgery for deployment in combat zones, with a special focus on damage control surgeries and the management of mass casualties incidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the lead up to the 10th anniversary of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) agreement, pillar II (which refers to international assistance with state consent) was heralded by the United Nations Special Advisor on R2P as the most promising aspect of the Responsibility to Protect. With so little written on pillar II, however, it is difficult to evaluate this judgement. Addressing this lacuna, this article scrutinizes the promise of pillar II to highlight two key strengths. First, the consensual support for pillar II among UN member states reveals that even those that were critical of the R2P in the aftermath of Libya in 2011 still favour the idea of international assistance. At the same time, there remain concerns over the use of force within pillar II as illustrated by events in Côte d'Ivoire in 2011. Second, the utility of pillar II lies in its potential for addressing the threat posed by non-state armed groups. This is particularly important when one considers that in thirteen of the fourteen years since 2000, rebel groups (rather than governments) have been the primary perpetrators of one-sided mass killing against civilians. Accordingly, pillar II can be seen to hold considerable promise for tackling the threat of mass violence by non-state armed groups in the twenty-first century. However, the article also raises concerns over unintentionally legitimizing illegitimate governments through assistance. To illustrate these points it draws on the assistance provided in Mali (2013-15) and Iraq (2014-15). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discuss various issues in the magazines which includes Operation Serval in Mali, FARC-EP insurgency in Colombia and drone attacks by US in Pakistan.

In 2013, France launched Operation ‘Serval’ to halt the southwards advance of Islamist insurgents in Mali. Using a Clausewitzian analytical framework, this article provides an assessment of France’s political and military aims in Mali and the degree to which they have been attained. Clear political goals, coordinated international diplomacy, an effective use of military force and blunders by the rebel forces turned ‘Serval’ into a short-term success. Strategically, however, the mission has proven unable to address the conflict’s underlying causes. Serval’s long-term effect is probably better measured by what it prevented than what it contributed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The European Union (EU) is to promote various principles, including peace and justice for human rights violations in its external action, according to the Treaty. In fragile contexts, peace and justice are considered fundamental for contributing to reform that addresses the causes of conflict and prevents recurrence. This paper draws on field research to examine whether and how the EU translated these principles of peace and justice into policy and put them into practice in its response to the crisis in Mali in 2012 by contributing to peace mediation, transitional justice and security sector reform. It demonstrates the importance of considering practice to understand EU foreign policy. It finds that the EU emerged from the crisis a political actor, and although in many ways it promoted reform, in practice it risks supporting business as usual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UN peacekeeping operations in the Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mali were in 2013 given peace enforcement mandates, ordering them to use all necessary measures to ‘neutralise’ and ‘disarm’ identified groups in the eastern DRC and to ‘stabilise’ CAR and northern Mali. It is not new that UN missions have mandates authorising the use of force, but these have normally not specified enemies and have been of short duration. This article investigates these missions to better understand the short- and long-term consequences, in terms of the willingness of traditional as well as Western troop contributors to provide troops, and of the perception of the missions by host states, neighbouring states, rebel groups, and humanitarian and human rights actors. The paper explores normative, security and legitimacy implications of the expanded will of the UN to use force in peacekeeping operations. It argues that the urge to equip UN peacekeeping operations with enforcement mandates that target particular groups has significant long-term implications for the UN and its role as an impartial arbitrator in post-conflict countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies of French Africa policy have traditionally focused on its neo-colonial basis and the often corrupt nature of the relations it engendered because of the connivances of semi-official and unofficial networks and covert practices that characterised it. These are often referred to in the literature as la Françafrique. In seeking to understand François Hollande's Africa policy this article moves away from a neo-colonial, Françafrique analytical framework and instead seeks to engage with the continuity versus change debate in French Africa policy through the lens of geopolitics. The three central themes of Hollande's Africa policy—security, partnership and trade—are analysed, focusing firstly on the French interventions in Africa, notably in Mali, since 2012, before discussing French engagement with African regional organisations, such as the Economic Community of West African States, and the increasing importance attached to economic and trade links. The article ends with a brief survey of some of the challenges facing French Africa policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 11 January 2013, French president François Hollande justified a military intervention in Mali on the basis of the possible collapse of the Malian state, which faced an armed rebellion in the north of the country. Thus, the war was authorized and explained by the inability of the Malian government to respond to the threat. However, explanations and analyses that focus on security hide more than they reveal, including the ontological aims of the war and its identity stakes. To uncover these aspects, this article articulates the interaction between, on the one hand, the deployment of international violence, and, on the other, the construction of the state and the political imagination in Mali. This article concludes that peace in Mali was sought through the militarization of democratic governance, effectively reinforcing the prewar governance model. Unlike analyses focused on security, this article demonstrates that the boundaries and limits of the Malian conflict are not only territorial but also ideological and identity-based. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents the June 25, 2014 United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 2164 Authorizing the Revision of the MINUSMA (Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) Mandate, along with information on the context of the document. Topics include actions by the Malian Defence and Security Forces (MDSF), May 2014 violence provoked by the militant group Mouvement national pour la libération de l'Azawad (MNLA), and international cooperation regarding Mali's crisis.

The January 2013 French military intervention in Mali exposed the rising threat of ‘terrorist’ and illicit networks in the Sahel, but more importantly the intertwined limits of Malian politics and of the international politics of African conflict management. While much has been written about the ‘liberal peace’, this article argues that what is at stake in this debate is the consistency of the ‘liberal peace’ ideological form and what governance requirements it imposes. Such an ideology necessarily intersects with ongoing Malian peace-, nation- and statebuilding dynamics and competing normative orders that transcend state borders and nationalist projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses peacekeeping efforts by the international organization the United Nations (UN) in Africa as of 2014 and the quest for the what the article identifies as a "Pax Africana." It examines the permanent member nations of the UN Security Council, post-Cold War cooperation in the deployment of UN peacekeepers in African nations, and the alignment of external, domestic, and regional interests. The article also discusses the January 2013 French intervention in Mali.

The coup in Bamako, on 22 March 2012 both gave lie to the apparent stability of Mali as a democratic country and resulted in the taking of power of an assortment of armed combatants in the North of the country, which resulted in armed intervention by France. This article is about the coup itself that created the power vacuum allowing the insurrection to grow and ultimately take power in the North. The authors have developed a framework for analyzing civil -- military relations they believe is more useful than other available frameworks in understanding the role of the military in politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent conflict in the Sahel area is another case where the nexus of terrorism and organized crime causes challenges to the international community. Comparing the situation with that of the Andean region brings forth the challenges faced when dealing with this type of conflict: the states’ weak presence in the remote regions, the insurgents’ ability to offer income and “security” to the people, immediate threat to international investments, unresolved political/regional issues, the marriage of convenience of insurgents/terrorists and organized crime, internal divisions of the insurgent groups and also ideologies surviving or suffering after the elimination of their leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents a summary of events in politics and government in Africa from July 2012-2013. A contradiction is discussed between an improving rate of economic development in African countries and an increase in political instability in many countries. The intervention of France in Mali, political violence in Nigeria and a coup d'etat in Central African Republic are among the examples cited of the latter.

The article presents an overview of politics, government and economic conditions in European Union (EU) countries and Turkey from July 2012-July 2013. The European Sovereign Debt Crisis of the eurozone monetary union is considered. France's intervention in Mali is discussed. An increase in euroskepticism in Great Britain is examined. Turkey's foreign relations are discussed.

The structural problems characterising Mali interlocked with the dynamics of crisis triggered by the war in Libya in 2011, causing the collapse of one of the few African democracies. The Tuareg rebellion of 2012, thecoup d’étatand the Islamist takeover of Northern Mali were the three key phases of this crisis, which pushed France – the former colonial patron – to intervene military. After analysing the major local actors involved in the crisis, the article critically analyses the engagement of the EU in the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the impact, or lack thereof, on France's financial austerity measures on the country's national security policy as of 2013. It is argued that budget cuts have not had an effect on France's interventionist policies, as evidenced by its military operation against jihadist rebels in Mali and French President François Hollande's potential support for international invention in the Syrian Civil War. The author sees continuity in the security polices of Hollande and former President Nicolas Sarkozy. Other topics addressed include a lack of support for intervention from the U.S. and the Libyan Civil War.

The article discusses the Malian government from the early 1990s through 2013. Particular focus is given to the country's political instability, including the March 2012 coup d'état that overview the country's President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT). An overview of the role that Mali's insurgency of the Tuareg people plays in the country's political instability, including in regard to the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), is provided. The relationship between the MNLA and Islamist terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), is discussed. An overview of France's January 2013 intervention in support of the Malian government is also provided.

The article discusses France's January 2013 military intervention in northern Mali against Islamic terrorist organizations. The process through which the French President François Hollande decided to intervene in Mali, including his diplomatic communication with Nigerian President Mahamadou Issoufou, is discussed. The role that the European Union (EU) played in the Malian intervention, including its developing of the EU Training Mission (EUTM) to train the Malian army to combat terrorists in northern Mali, is also discussed.

The authors offer a commentary on the hostage crisis that took place in January 2013 in In Amenas, a town in Algeria which led to the death of at least 39 hostages and 29 militants. A background of the reasons for the occurrence of the hostage crisis at the Tigantourine gas facility is provided. They question the ability of the Algerian authoritarian regime in dealing with the Islamic extremism and terrorism in Mali and explore the implications of the French intervention in Mali.

It is over twenty years since the ‘international community’ embarked on what seems to be an increasingly regular policy of intervening in the internal affairs of states on humanitarian grounds. A massive literature has developed that analyses the theoretical, political, legal, normative and strategic dimensions of humanitarian intervention. This article engages with that literature and attempts to draw a provisional balance sheet for this twenty-first-century activity by examining a number of key cases and analysing the motivations and drivers behind the decision to intervene as well as the practical consequences of the intervention itself. In the context of the recent crises in Libya, Syria and Mali, which are seemingly comparable situations but which have produced significantly different policy preferences on the part of the international community, the article concludes that there are few clear prescriptions as to when intervention is and is not appropriate or justified. The cases examined suggest that, all too often, intervention takes place hastily and in ad hoc fashion with too little thought about the medium- and long-term consequences, which often turn out to be in contradiction with the original motives for intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the role of Algeria on the security crisis in the Sahel as of 2013. Topics include the strong nationalistic sentiments and self-defined exceptionalism of Algeria, the attempt of the country to convince Tuaregs to fight the extremist Islamic Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb in the Sahel during the Mali Crisis of 2012, and the 2013 attack at the Tiguentourine gas plant.

This contribution assesses the evolution of CFSP/CSDP after the Lisbon Treaty by looking at the EU as a crisis manager in Somalia, Syria and Mali. The experiences in these crises elucidate that the European Union is still far away from achieving its goal of an effective and convincing foreign and security policy. The much tooted ‘comprehensive approach' exists rather on paper than in reality. In Syria this approach has not yet had the chance of being implemented, in Mali it exists only on paper, in Somalia it has been implemented merely additively. In all three cases, Paris and London led from the front by diplomatic and military means and influenced the international agenda. Thus, an approach is emerging where some partners push things forward and the rest follows more or less eagerly. In the end, they clean up together. The only question is: what is the long-term effect? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the decision of the French government to intervene in Mali in 2013 against Islamic militants seeking an independent northern Mali. It provides a background of the complex Franco-African history, which covers the so-called French decolonization. It discusses the consequences of the demise of the Franco-African state. The article also describes the new reality in Africa, which is characterized by China's encroachment in the continent.

The article discusses the 2013 French intervention in Mali to combat Tuareg separatists and Islamic fundamentalists, known as Operation Serval. It comments on the Islamic fundamentalists and extremists affiliated with the terrorist group Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Mali. The author reflects on military expeditions to Mali led by Mauritania beginning in 2010. Other topics include Malian President Amadou Toumani Touré, the presidential elections scheduled for 2012, and the involvement of China in Mali.

The root causes of the ongoing crisis in Northern Mali lie in the region's underdevelopment, exacerbated by longstanding, if recently decreasing, neglect of the central government; the complex social relationship between the largest minority, the Tuareg, and the majority population, which has worsened since a largely unresolved crisis in the 1990s; and the growing interest of a small but growing number of actors involved in the drug trade and other criminal activities in the absence of the state. Among the latter have been a growing number of Jihadists, at first mostly from Algeria, who have been taking Western citizens hostage and therefore caused the US and France to pressure the Malian government to re-establish a presence of the state in the North. The clash was all but inevitable when several thousand heavily armed Tuareg fighters came to Mali after the defeat of Gaddafi in Libya. A new element of the crisis is the growing number of jihadists among the Tuareg rebels and other Malians, but neither Tuareg irredentism nor Islamic fundamentalism has more than minority support in Mali, Northern Mali, or among the Tuareg. The coup d'éat against the president, while most likely a spontaneous reaction to the inability of the government to fight the rebellion, uncovered a structural crisis of Malian democracy and society. The disintegration of Mali's long-praised formal democratic institutions after the coup showed fundamental problems. However, political supporters of the coup who assumed that the population's tacit support of the coup could be turned into a movement for fundamental social change, had to find that it was largely an opportunistic and diffuse expression of general discontent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses legal justifications on the military intervention of France in the armed conflict or terrorism in Mali in January 2013. Highlights are given on the statement issued by the French Government on its clarification of its self-defence and intervention in Mali under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and Security Council Resolution 2085.