Multinational Rapid Response Mechanisms

From Institutional Proliferation to Institutional Exploitation

John Karlsrud, Yf Reykers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781032093871
• eBook ISBN: 9781351005326
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The track record of military rapid response mechanisms, troops on standby, ready to be deployed to a crisis within a short time frame by intergovernmental organizations, remains disappointing. Yet, many of the obstacles to multinational actors launching a rapid and effective military response in times of crisis are largely similar. This book is the first comprehensive and comparative contribution to explore and identify the key factors that hamper and enable the development and deployment of multinational rapid response mechanisms.

Examining lessons from deployments by the AU, the EU, NATO, and the UN in the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia and counter-piracy in the Horn of Africa, the contributors focus upon the following questions: Was there a rapid response to the crises? By whom? If not, what were the major obstacles to rapid response? Did inter-organizational competition hinder responsiveness? Or did cooperation facilitate responsiveness? Bringing together leading scholars working in this area offers a unique opportunity to analyze and develop lessons for policy-makers and for theorists of inter-organizational relations.

This work will be of interest to scholars and students of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, legitimacy and international relations.

1 Tools in a toolbox

The African Union’s repertoire of mechanisms for addressing peace and security on the continent

Linda Akua Opongmaa Darkwa

• A trajectory of the development of the African Standby Force

• Obstacles to the AU’s utilization of the ASF and responses to Africa’s security challenges

• Enhancing the AU’s ability to utilize the ASF

• Conclusion

The African Standby Force (ASF) is one of the tools created by African leaders for the promotion of peace and security on the continent. Following the failure of the international community to respond effectively to conflicts on the continent, especially in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and inspired by the efforts of Africa’s regional organizations to address the situations of insecurity within their member states, African leaders decided to create a peace and security architecture that includes a multinational, multidimensional rapid response mechanism, the ASF. After about 13 years of preparation, the Specialised Technical Committee on Defence Safety and Security (STCDSS) declared the ASF to have attained full operational capability (FOC) on 15 January 2016, following the successful conduct of the continental Field Training Exercise, AMANI Africa II.¹

Notwithstanding its operational readiness, the African Union (AU) has to date not mandated the deployment of the ASF. The failure of the AU to mandate the ASF has led to criticism and raised questions, especially in the press, concerning whether the standby force would ever deliver on its mandate. This chapter submits that any analysis of the ASF must begin from the premise that it is conceptualized differently from other rapid response mechanisms (RRMs) and as such, cannot be judged solely on its direct utilization by the AU.

The ASF is based on regional standby forces. Based on the principle of subsidiarity, the regional standby forces may be mandated and employed by their Regional Economic Communities and/or Regional Mechanisms (RECs/RMs) for the maintenance of peace and security within their respective regions. In such instances, although the AU authorizes or endorses the employment of the standby arrangement, command and control over the mission is vested in the mandating authority—be it a regional organization or a coalition of member states. An AU-mandated ASF operation on the other hand places command and control of the operation under the AU. Nevertheless, AU-mandated and AU-authorized operations serve the same purpose of maintaining peace and security on the continent. Therefore, even though the AU has not mandated the deployment of the ASF, two of the regional standby forces have been utilized to address peace and security in Africa. While it was initially conceptualized as a collective security arrangement, in practice the ASF has proven to be more of a collective defense mechanism. As a result, although the AU may be able to mandate its deployment in limited circumstances, its utilization of the ASF may largely rest on its ability to provide strategic guidance through authorization of regionally mandated deployments.

The chapter is divided into four sections. The first provides a trajectory of the development of the ASF and other instruments such as the African Capacity for Immediate Response to Crisis (ACIRC), which was developed as a stop-gap measure pending the operationalization of the ASF, and the ad hoc security initiatives, created in response to peculiar security situations confronting some member states. The second section provides an analysis of the changing security landscape on the continent, obstacles to the AU’s employment of the ASF, and the ensuing responses generated by the RECs/RMs as well as affected member states. The third section provides op-tions for enhancing the AU’s ability to effectively utilize the ASF to deliver on its mandate. In the final section, the chapter concludes that given the varied security challenges confronting the continent and the theoretical underpinnings of the standby forces as collective defense mechanisms, the AU needs a number of response mechanisms. The conclusion recommends that competition between the ASF and other RRMs and security initiatives on the continent be minimized.

A trajectory of the development of the African Standby Force

Following the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) into the AU, African leaders established the Peace and Security Council (PSC) to “facilitate timely and efficient response to conflict and crisis in Africa.”² To be able to implement its mandate, the PSC is supported by the African Union Commission (AUC), three main tools and a funding arrangement: a Continental Early Warning mechanism; the Panel of the Wise, a mechanism for preventive diplomacy; the African Standby Force, the force implementation and law enforcement tool for the PSC; and a Special Fund to allow for timely responses to conflict and crisis situations on the continent. The ASF is therefore part of the larger African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). It is a multidimensional and multinational standby arrangement comprising five such arrangements at the regional level that are readied by member states and placed on standby for deployment at appropriate notice. The ASF may be deployed either as a measure to prevent the escalation of conflict into armed violence or in response to armed violence, in order to create an enabling environment for a political settlement.

Following the adoption in 2002 of the Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council, which provided inter alia for the establishment of the ASF, a Policy Framework for the Establishment of the African Standby Force and Military Staff Committee was adopted by the African Chiefs of Defence Staff in May 2003. The objective of the policy framework was to facilitate the development of the ASF. Using a number of conflict scenarios, the framework provides six main scenarios under which the ASF may be utilized, and timelines for deployment:

• Scenario 1: deployment as an AU or regional military adviser to a political mission.
• Scenario 2: deployment as an AU or regional observer mission co-deployed with a United Nations (UN) mission.
• Scenario 3: a standalone AU or regional observer mission.
• Scenario 4: an AU or regional peacekeeping force deployed for UN Charter Chapter VI and preventive deployment purposes.
• Scenario 5: an AU Peacekeeping Force for complex multidimensional peacekeeping missions involving low-level spoilers.
• Scenario 6: an AU intervention—e.g. genocide situations where the international community does not act promptly.³

In addition to the envisioned scenarios, Article 13(g) of the protocol also provides that the ASF can also be deployed by the PSC for the performance of any other functions related to the maintenance of peace and security.⁴

In terms of deployment timelines, the policy framework envisages that in the event that pre-mandate actions have been undertaken, deployment for Scenarios 1–4 should be within 30 days while the military component of Scenario 5 situations should be able to start deploying in 30 days, and be completed within 90 days. The framework recommends that the AU should deploy within 14 days in Scenario 6 situations. In cases of deployment under Scenarios 1–3, contingents are expected to deploy with self-sustainability for 30 days while contingents deploying under Scenarios 4–6 are ideally expected to be self-sustaining for 90 days.⁵ Since the essence of the ASF is to enable the AU to respond swiftly to situations of insecurity, the inclusion of a rapid deployment capability was a fundamental assumption in its conceptualization and each regional standby force is expected to have an inherent rapid deployment capability.

The framework recommended a two-phase approach to the operationalization of the ASF and three “roadmaps” were subsequently developed to guide its development. Roadmap Two, which spanned June 2006 to March 2008, provided “clarity on the key steps required for the operationalization of the ASF in Phase 1.”⁶ It also facilitated the development and adoption of base policy instruments covering doctrine, training and evaluation, logistics concepts, communication information systems and standard operating procedures for the operationalization of the ASF.

Roadmap Two focused on the development of additional documents as well as consolidation of the progress made through the implementation of Roadmap One. Roadmap One culminated in the continental Field Training Exercise (FTX) AMANI Africa 1, which tested the outputs of Roadmap One. Although the ASF was expected to attain FOC in 2010, the FTX showed that it was not ready. Based on the report of the FTX, a third roadmap was developed for December 2010 to December 2015. This aimed at consolidating the progress of Roadmaps One and Two, and implement outstanding issues from the roadmaps as well as the lessons learned from the FTX in order to ensure full operationalization of the ASF by 2015. Following the recommendations of the Independent Panel of Experts established by the chairperson of the commission to assess the ASF and provide recommendations for the attainment of FOC by 2015, Roadmap Three was revised.

In 2013, citing the stalled operationalization of the ASF and the lack of an effective tool for translating the political commitment of the AU into reality, the chairperson of the commission recommended the establishment of the ACIRC.⁷ The ACIRC was established as a transitional tool to provide the AU with a rapid response mechanism to address situations of insecurity and conflict on the continent⁸ pending operationalization of the ASF. Based on voluntarism and the capacities of the participating countries, the deployment of the ACIRC is contingent upon a request by one or more member states to the PSC.⁹ Even though ACIRC was developed to fill a gap, it has yet to be deployed to address any of the crisis situations on the continent. Although it was established as an interim mechanism, ACIRC has not been dissolved despite the ASF having attained full operational capability. Instead, having been tested alongside the ASF, it was recommended for integration into the ASF concept.¹⁰ The continued existence of ACIRC remains the elephant in the room as the tensions surrounding the co-existence of the two mechanisms¹¹ remain palpable.

Even though the ASF has now attained FOC, it has not as yet been mandated for deployment by the AU. The closest that the AU came to this was in December 2015, when following the escalation of attacks in Burundi over the third-term bid of President Pierre Nkurunziza, the Peace and Security Council, meeting at the level of ambassadors, decided upon deployment.¹² However, the planned deployment did not see the light of day when the PSC meeting at the level of heads of state and government decided that a military intervention was premature, and called instead for a political resolution of the conflict.¹³ Since then, the AU has not broached the topic of deploying the ASF.

Instead, using the framework provided, the RECs/RMs and member states of the AUC have utilized the concept and framework of the ASF to mandate their regional standby forces, and obtained authorization from the AU to respond to conflict and crisis situations.¹⁴ This is attributable to a number of factors, including the enhanced capacity to respond to threats to peace and security provided through the development of the regional standby arrangements,¹⁵ a stronger assertiveness by the regions in the areas of peace and security caused in part by their enhanced capacities vis-à-vis the slow response of the AU to the contemporary security threats confronting the continent, and the assurance of reimbursements through the European Union’s Early Response Mechanism.

A fundamental distinction between the ASF as a rapid response mechanism and other RRMs, notably the European Union Battlegroups and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) Response Force, is that the ASF concept is built on regions rather than member states. This means that in matters relating to the ASF, the AU does not deal directly with member states but rather with the RECs/RMs. Indeed, the peace and security relationship between the AU and its regions is based on the principles of subsidiarity and complementarity. The policy framework provides for the deployment of the regional standby arrangements by the RECs/RMs for collective self-defense, upon the authorization of the AU.¹⁶ Also, Article XX of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Area of Peace and Security between the African Union, the Regional Economic Communities and the Coordinating Mechanisms of the Regional Standby Brigades of Eastern Africa and Northern Africa, states that:

Without prejudice to the primary role of the Union in the promotion and maintenance of peace, security and stability in Africa, the RECs and, where appropriate, the Coordinating Mechanisms shall be encouraged to anticipate and prevent conflicts within and among their Member States and, where conflicts do occur, to undertake peace-making and peace-building efforts to resolve them, including the deployment of peace support missions.¹⁷

The use of “peace support missions” in the memorandum provides a broad scope for all types of deployments, including interventions. This means that doctrinally, the utilization of the ASF, including for the purposes of military intervention, is not limited solely to the African Union through the PSC. However, in cases of military interventions, the regional mechanisms are required to seek authorization from the AU.

The ASF concept does not envisage a situation where the entire continental architecture would be employed wholly to address a given conflict situation. Instead, it is generally expected that the standby arrangements would be employed within their regions, to address security challenges. Therefore, although inter-regional deployments were envisaged, they were to be the exception rather than the norm. Thus, it is fair to conclude that although the AU has only authorized use of the standby arrangements in West and Southern Africa, the ASF has actually been utilized since its operationalization.

Obstacles to the AU’s utilization of the ASF and responses to Africa’s security challenges

Africa’s political and security landscapes have undergone significant transformations since the establishment of the ASF in 2002. These transformations have increased the complexities of the continent’s security challenges, but also facilitated the development or strengthening of non-traditional response mechanisms for the AU. This section examines obstacles to the AU’s employment of the ASF and the responses that have evolved to address Africa’s security challenges.

Regional economic communities have considerably institutionalized a capacity to provide responses to matters of peace and security—primarily within their regions but also on the continent generally. This is in part a result of the processes for the development of the African Standby Force that required the RECs and RMs to develop structures for the operationalization of their standby forces. The enhanced capacities of the RECs have given them an edge over the AU in their responsiveness to crises. With shared vulnerabilities that create a more direct sense of the need for collective security and smaller memberships, RECs are able to take timely decisions.

The AU, to the contrary, with its larger membership and more varied political interests, is not always able to respond in a timely manner to the threats confronting the regions and member states. As a result, even though the AU has demonstrated a great level of responsiveness to the peace and security challenges of the continent in its very early stages—mandating and deploying six peace support operations in four countries in the first seven years of its existence^1...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: Rapid response mechanisms—strengthening defense cooperation and saving strangers?
• 1. Tools in a toolbox: The African Union’s repertoire of mechanisms for addressing peace and security on the continent
• 2. EU Battlegroups: From standby to standstill
• 3. The NATO Response Force: Bellwether of NATO’s commitment to regional deterrence
• 4. United Nations rapid reaction mechanisms: From SHIRBRIG to a UN Vanguard Force
• 5. Multinational rapid response forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Another example of winning battles, but losing the peace?
• 6. Rapid response and inter-organizational competition: Four international organizations, two key states, and the crisis in the Central African Republic
• 7. Tangled up in glue: Multilateral crisis responses in Mali
• 8. EU–NATO inter-organizational relations in counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa
• 9. Conclusion: Military rapid response—from institutional investment to ad hoc solutions
• Index