What Everyone is Missing About the Mali Intervention

French soldier manning an APC's 50 caliber machine gun

On this blog, I highlighted the need of a Western intervention into Mali, more specifically, I went through a comprehensive strategy I thought Western and regional powers should employ in order to meet a chance of victory on the battlefield. So far, France has fulfilled my desired role for them by providing a slab of special forces and regular forces alongside air elements to participate in a (so far successful) ground operation. However, their intervention has been the subject of heavy scrutiny by Western media outlets and analysts. As expected, the French have been pummeled by a couple criticisms, namely, their reliance of American and British logistical prowess.

As valid as these criticisms may be, I think most people are missing the implication of French intervention in Mali. Up until recently, European interventions, especially against armed combatants, have produced little to no tangible benefits. Mostly, they would send some soldiers, set up a base, and then yell really, really loudly that it's very wrong for the bad guys to rape women, burn villages, and kill children. Shockingly, the bad guys would continue right along with their genocides or what have you. Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an over exaggeration, but when their strategy of not actually truly getting involved didn't work, the situation would either continue to deteriorate or they'd grovel to America.

But within the past few years, European powers have gotten involved with the intention of producing tangible benefits, even if that means America isn't going to be providing a leading role. For example, Libya, European forces launched a large air campaign against government forces, maintaining a no fly zone and striking ground targets. Granted, they were barely able to sustain what should have been a simple operation, and rumors have floated that France was actually dropping concrete blocks near the end, but it was ultimately successful nonetheless.

Now, this streak is continuing with the French intervention into Mali. Ground troops have been deployed successfully onto the field of battle in what is a unilateral Western action against a well armed foe. Sure, it's sad that the French have to rely so heavily on America and the United Kingdom in order to get their troops to the A.O. (Area of Operation), but it's a steep in the right direction.

What people have to understand is typically international interests precede military expansion. A country isn't going to amass a large military force unless they are going to use them to further meet national objectives. You can't expect a group of nations that have primarily relied on America militarily since the end of World War Two to suddenly be able to conduct operations large scale. No, it's a process. And with a further decline of America on the global scene, Europe will be forced to act more unilaterally in military operations. Thus requiring them to create a more robust military force to meet their needs, which will be slowly created in the next 10 to 15 years, in my opinion.

Of course, the deciding factor of wether or not Europe actually continues with this level of international involvement depends on wether or not the current economic crisis cripples the European Union. If it does, you might expect to see their militaries devolve even further.

With that said, one could argue that the Libyan and Malian interventions were the product of French (who holds a lot of weight in the E.U., I think a French expansion will result in an E.U. wide expansion) sympathy towards former European colonies (especially it's own), and that this isn't the beginning of a more internationally involved Europe.

- Tom