Operations in Mali. Tweak some confusions (v2)

(BRUXELLES2) We enjoy confusing operations at leisure. As I mentioned recently, in Mali, there is not one operation but three distinct operations in Mali (read: Mali: three operations in one published earlier this year).

1. The European operation EUTM Mali is only one part of this international strategy to consolidate - or rather rebuild Mali.

• Its action is not in the short term but rather in the medium term. Its objective is not to give a "quick done" training, lasting a few days to soldiers. But to reform, to rehabilitate the Malian army, in a functional and organized way (which was no longer the case until now).
• Nor is it intended to be an executive. There will be no armed soldiers patrolling the streets in Bamako, responsible for securing this or that sector, as NATO did in Kosovo.
• European trainers are also not intended to go into battle. There will also (normally) be no European commando forces attacking the north. This is a view of the mind.

2. The recent offensive by the rebel movements in the north and the French reaction (accompanied by some European and NATO countries) however obliges us to redraw the outline of this operation. The training given will no longer be quite the same. And neither does the tempo. Read : the EUTM Mali mission will be more robust

3. Europe is active. It is not because today there is no "political" presence on the "media front" that Europe does not act on Mali. It is not because it does not bomb the "rebel" camps in Somalia or Mali that its role is not effective. Let's be clear ! If it weren't for the EU and its financial strike force, the AFISMA (ECOWAS) operation in Mali would not be put in place. Quite simply because Europe pays the forces engaged on the spot, as it already does in Somalia for AMISOM or in Palestine for the Palestinian police. And Operation Serval would be inexorably doomed to failure because there was no way out. Everyone is thus in his role. France in the "vanguard", the Africans in relay, with Europe in rear support and as a medium-term relay (with EUTM Mali). There is a complex but complete logic. Like a rugby pack can be with its forwards, props and backs. If one of the elements is missing, the building falls. Not entering this data is, in my opinion, making a strategic error.