The Ruin of Mali

By Daniel Larison • October 18, 2012, 9:21 AM

Ishaan Tharoor reviews Mali’s continued deterioration:

Metaphors of doom now swirl in what was once one of Africa’s democratic success stories. ome say that Mali is the next Somalia, where a patchwork of warlords and insurgents ranges itself against a dysfunctional, crisis-hit state. Others say it is the next Afghanistan, where extremist militias, some with jihadist connections, make hay in a security vacuum, arming and funding themselves through illicit drug smuggling networks.

Mali doesn’t need to be a “new Somalia” or “new Afghanistan” for its woes to remind us of the significant harm that the Libyan war has done to the surrounding region. The truly scandalous legacy of the war is the ruin of Mali that it helped bring about. It is possible that this subject could be raised on Monday in the debate, but I wouldn’t expect to hear about it. Recognizing the unintended and destructive consequences of interventionist policies is something that neither candidate is interested in doing.

It would require Obama to acknowledge that the Libyan intervention undermined international peace and security, and he has even more incentive to ignore this now in the weeks before the election than he did before. The Libyan war is easily one of Obama’s biggest mistakes, but he is shielded by the consensus view that the “good” intervention “worked,” and the only thing that his opponent can think to say on this issue is that Obama was an insufficiently assertive leader. Romney can’t credibly say anything about it, and it probably wouldn’t occur to him to make the connection.

Mali’s democratic government was already weak before the collapse of its authority in the north led to its overthrow by the military coup. Not all of Mali’s problems can be attributed to the effects of the Libyan war, and the region was already suffering from drought, but those effects added to the region’s woes and exacerbated its security and humanitarian problems. Another military intervention isn’t the right answer to Mali’s woes, whether carried out by ECOWAS or by other governments, as this would likely just contribute to even greater regional destabilization and additional humanitarian crises. The ruin of Mali should be a lesson to everyone that there is no such thing as a “cheap” or “low-cost” intervention. Someone always pays the price.

Posted in foreign policy, politics. Tagged Barack Obama, ECOWAS, Ishaan Tharoor, Libya, Mali, Mitt Romney.

14 Responses to The Ruin of Mali

mercurino says:

October 18, 2012 at 10:49 am

While I don’t necessarily disagree with Daniel’s critique of the Libya intervention, his criticism does require that be address a counterfactual. Namely, I would be interested to know what he thinks would have become of the anti-Gaddafi opposition without NATO intervention. A clear Gaddafi victory would have required quite a bit of violence against his own people, which only lends support to the case for intervention. A more likely scenario, to my mind, is that Gaddafi would have proved unable to win a decisive victory, and Libya would likely have gone the way of Syria: i.e. an extended civil war, which would have likely spilled across the border and destabilized the region. Whether you were for or against the intervention, it seems to me that the Arab Spring ensured regional destabilization regardless. As things stand, at least Gaddafi is no longer in power and their is some possibility of establishing a legitimate democratic government in Libya.
john personna says:

October 18, 2012 at 10:56 am

What’s the counterfactual here? Libya had a civil war in progress before NATO joined. I actually think that NATO (esp. European leaders) joined just because they didn’t like Gaddafi, but that’s neither here nor there. In terms of follow-on effects … are you arguing a Gaddafi victory in the civil war would be swift and beneficial?
mercurino says:

October 18, 2012 at 11:06 am

To clarify, when I say: “A clear Gaddafi victory would have required quite a bit of violence against his own people, which only lends support to the case for intervention”, I mean the case being made by the administration and the supporters of intervention.
CK MacLeod says:

October 18, 2012 at 12:17 pm

“Someone always pays the price” is a good general rule, but it goes for every alternative. At the moment, the @amconmag has a misleading tweet linking to this article: “Obama should acknowledge that the Libyan intervention undermined international peace and security,” when the article itself explains why from a narrow political perspective he should do nothing of the kind. From a broader perspective, there is the further difficulty that he may not actually believe it. As for whether we should, the post does not demonstrate or even try to demonstrate that Libyan assistance to and intervention on behalf of the rebels “undermined international peace and security.” Without taking any other concerns or complexities into account, the post suggests at most that the overthrow of the Gaddafi state appears to have undermined Malian peace and security – or perhaps have accelerated an already ongoing process of deterioration in Mali. We do not and cannot know how the situation in Mali, or in the region, or internationally, or politically in the U.S. would appear if the Obama Administration had declined to intervene in the way that it did. The post doesn’t attempt to consider alternative scenarios, examination of which will sooner or later lead back to a familiar set of trade-offs as they must have appeared to the Administration at the moment of decision. The decision was a very American decision. It entailed risks and real human costs. So would every other decision. It may even have been the wrong decision. That does not mean that there was a simply right one.
Mercurino says:

October 18, 2012 at 1:02 pm

“are you arguing a Gaddafi victory in the civil war would be swift and beneficial?”

This is precisely the counterfactual I’m interested in Daniel addressing. It seems to me that the only way to prevent the kind of regional destabilization that is currently afflicting Mali would have been if Gaddafi had swiftly defeated his enemies and reimposed his authority over the entire country. Of course, the only way he would have been able to do this would have been through violent repression, purges, mass executions — you know, the full totalitarian dictatorship tool kit. Preventing just this kind of violence was the rationale cited by supporters of intervention.

On the other hand, the more likely counterfactual scenario absent US intervention is that the conflict would have degenerated into what we are seeing in Syria — i.e. a long, slow stalemate in which neither side can gain a definitive victory. My point is that if this had happened, we would likely see exaclty the same kind of regional destabilization in Mali that we are seeing now.

I guess my point in this is that I don’t think Daniel can really use Mali as further proof that the Administration made a mistake in intervening in Libya. I think that Mali would have been a mess anyway, because the likely outcome of the nonintervention — i.e. a long Libyan civil war in which neither side could gain a clear victory — would have destablized the region anyway. The only thing that would have avoided this kind of desabilization would have been if we had aided Gaddafi’s efforts to destroy the uprising. I’m sure no one, least of all Daniel, would have supported this course of action.
Russell Seitz says:

October 18, 2012 at 1:12 pm

When France still loomed large in Africa, an office wall in the Quai d’Orsay sported a tricolor map of Chad divided south to north into:

Tchad Utile

Tchad Inutile

Tchad Futile

The last classification covers the better part of Mali.
Ethan C. says:

October 18, 2012 at 8:01 pm

“Another military intervention isn’t the right answer to Mali’s woes, whether carried out by ECOWAS or by other governments, as this would likely just contribute to even greater regional destabilization and additional humanitarian crises.”

Okay. What is the right answer to Mali’s woes?
Derek F says:

October 19, 2012 at 10:45 am

CK MacLeod makes a good point about non-intervention, perhaps without even knowing it.

CK MacLeod says: “We do not and cannot know how the situation in Mali, or in the region, or internationally, or politically in the U.S. would appear if the Obama Administration had declined to intervene in the way that it did.” This is precisely the reason why the US gov’t should not stick its nose into another country’s business, Libya or otherwise, unless it’s in defense of the US. Why? Because it’s unconstitutional and we don’t know what the effects of meddling in anouther country’s business will be.

Whether or not Mali destabilized more rapidly than it would have if the US gov’t had not attacked Libya is up for debate. What we do know is that Libya is worse off now that Gaddafi is gone. Instability reigns and Islamists terrorist rule the day.
cfountain72 says:

October 19, 2012 at 11:25 am

Since we are speaking about the use of the US military, paid for by US taxpayers, authorized by the US Constitution, let’s begin with the basics:
1. Was a US attack on Libya legal? No. Without a Constitutional Declaration of War (or even something approaching it) there was no US authority for this ‘kinetic military action’. Libya did not attack a NATO ally, so there was no treaty obligation either.
2. Was there an imminent threat of danger or attack on the United States? No.

And that’s pretty much it. If Obama and The Interventionists could’ve convinced enough members of Congress that attacking Libya was somehow justified, then we could say it was legal (though we could still argue about its justification and repercussions). But quite simply, it is not the obligation of the US military nor its taxpayers to fix all of the military problems of the world. If individual US citizens wish to volunteer to get on planes, arm themselves, and be air-dropped into Tripoli (or Timbuktu), then God bless them. In fact, evidence strongly supports the notion that US interventions are often counterproductive, over and above the human and financial costs to the US.

If you want to say that we would’ve been in this same place if we had not intervened in Libya, you would be wrong; we’d be ~$1B less in debt. We also wouldn’t have been partially responsible for arming/strengthening yet another al Qaeda franchise.

Let’s go down the hyper-interventionist line…
Iraq II: Disaster.
Afghanistan II: Initially necessary, but perfect example of MASSIVE mission creep.
Yemen: Failure, and possibly illegal.
Pakistan: Destabilizing.
Somalia: Failure.
Iraq I + sanctions: short term success, long term failure.
Lebanon: Failure.
Grenada: Success (woohoo!)
Vietnam: Millions killed. Billions wasted. Disaster.
Cuba (Bay of Pigs): Failure.
Cuba (60+ years of sanctions): Failure.
Iran (Mossedeh overthrow): Long-term failure.
Korea: Draw
WWII: Overall success, completely legitimate response to attack on US soil.
WWI: Legal, but necessity still in dispute.
Spanish/American War: Start on the road to empire…

The long and short of it is that the bias for decades has been in favor of military interventionism (‘why have this great military if we can’t use it?’), with little regard for the real costs involved. That bias needs to be reversed before we find ourselves broke and surrounded by enemies.

Peace be with you.
cfountain72 says:

October 19, 2012 at 11:48 am

FWIW: “United States Africa Command (U.S. AFRICOM) is one of six of the U.S. Defense Department’s geographic combatant commands and is responsible to the Secretary of Defense for military relations with African nations, the African Union, and African regional security organizations. A full-spectrum combatant command, U.S. AFRICOM is responsible for all U.S. Department of Defense operations, exercises, and security cooperation on the African continent, its island nations, and surrounding waters. AFRICOM began initial operations on Oct. 1, 2007, and officially became an independent command on Oct. 1, 2008.” -US AFRICOM Fact Sheet (http://www.africom.mil/pdfFiles/AFRICOM-factsheet.pdf)

“U.S. Africa Command’s operations
and programs protect American lives and interests, in Africa and in the homeland,
by supporting security and stability in Africa and its island states. We concentrate
our strategy and efforts on helping African states build capable and professional
militaries that are subordinate to civilian authority, respect human rights, and
adhere to the rule of law. We are assisting our African partners in building capacities to counter transnational threats from violent extremist organizations; to stem illicit trafficking in humans, narcotics, and weapons; to support peacekeeping operations; and to address the consequences of humanitarian disasters—whether man-made or natural—that cause loss of life and displace populations.” -2010 US AFRICOM Posture Statement (http://www.africom.mil/research/USAFRICOM2010PostureStatement.pdf)

So how’s this new ‘COM’ working out for you so far? Is Africa more, or less, stable since 2008?
Michael O'Connor says:

October 19, 2012 at 1:14 pm

“are you arguing a Gaddafi victory in the civil war would be swift and beneficial?”

Beneficial for whom? The US only should go to war when it’s in the clearly in our national interest and other instruments of national power have failed.

Arguing Dan needs to prove all these counterfactuals regarding Mali to justify his criticism of intervention is backwards. If Mali was going to fall to terrorists/warlords with or without our intervention in Libya, then what is the benefit of intervention? Clearly, regarding Mali, there was no benefit and therefore no national interest in our entering the war.

Further, Mali may or may not have fallen to warlords and terrorists if we had minded our own business. We know for certain our intervention did cause Mali to fall. This disastrous (for Mali) unintended consequence of Obama’s decision should be criticized.
john personna says:

October 19, 2012 at 7:45 pm

Michael, if you were only interested in our national interest, you would not be talking about Mali at all, and would be happy to know that US oil companies are frolicking in Libya as we speak.
Nodnarnthenasty says:

October 20, 2012 at 12:29 am

An anthropology student nailed this topic a while back. I don’t know much the hyper-realists at TAC will appreciate it, though. At any rate…
The Anti-Gnostic says:

October 20, 2012 at 12:01 pm

Okay. What is the right answer to Mali’s woes?

Enough with liberal handwringing–something must be done!

The appropriate US policy is to keep them over there and us over here. If your time and excess wealth hang so heavily on your hands, then do what Colonel Bob Denard did and solve Mali’s woes yourself.