Do you consider military intervention in Africa as successful? Focus on the policies in Africa of the UN.

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Intervention in Africa                                                                                               Shah Ali

Do you consider military intervention in Africa as successful? Focus on the policies in Africa of the UN.

“For more than 50 years, United Nations (UN) military interventions have been one of the cornerstones of international efforts to restore or support governance and stability,” (Babcock, 2003, p9).  However, the reason this question arises due to the fact that military interventions in Africa have had a higher proportion of failure than elsewhere in the world and in Africa there has been 60 Peacekeeping Operations since 1948 and since the end of the Cold War more than half peacekeeping missions have been in Africa.

This essay will argue even though military interventions in Africa have been judged to have “mixed success”, and this is true when looking on the surface of the situation.  When looked somewhat deeper, there is far more of a case for it judged to be a failure.  As with any trend there are anomalies and for this instance there are successes in the cases of Namibia and Mozambique.  However, both Namibia and Mozambique though considered a true success; it is questionable whether it is a success for the UN military intervention itself.  The rest, even those who have positive outcomes, known as partially successful, essentially must be judged as a failure.

This essay will be divided into four sub-sections: the first section will define the essential terms used in the essay.  The second section will argue there has been undeniable success for the UN, in cases as Namibia and Mozambique but questionable if this is due to the success of UN military intervention.  The third section will argue that though some argue certain cases are successful; these of which cannot be judged successful as only certain elements are, such as the humanitarian side or the military side.  The fourth section will argue that for the majority of cases, military intervention has been unsuccessful, but moreover there is a case they have negative effects on the situation.

This essay will define UN military intervention as including direct and indirect military intervention.  Direct military intervention is defined as the sending of troops on a unilateral (by one state) or multilateral level (within an ad hoc coalition, a regional organisation such as the EU or NATO, or an international organisation such as the UN).  Indirect military intervention is the funding and military support of international troops such as UN troops, regional troops such as ECOWAS and the AU.  

Military intervention in Africa has taken two forms, that of peacekeeping and that of peace enforcement.  Peacekeeping is defined generally as military and civilian deployments for the sake of establishing a “United Nations presence in the field, hitherto with the consent of all the parties concerned,” as a confidence building measure to monitor a truce between the parties while the diplomats strive to negotiate a comprehensive peace or officials attempt to implement an agreed peace.  Peace enforcement on the other hand is that of “action with or without the consent of parties to ensure compliance with a cease-fire mandated by the Security Council acting under the authority of Chapter VII of the UN Charter.”  Therefore, force is able to be used and not just in self-defence.  These military forces are composed of heavily armed, national forces operating under the direction of the secretary-general (Doyle & Otunnu, 1998, pp2-3, quotes p3).  

In terms of peacekeeping, there has been evolution of the term in an effort to gain greater success.  The term ‘traditional peacekeeping’ refers to UN peace operations involving the “deployment of military contingents to monitor, supervise and verify compliance with ceasefires, ceasefire lines, withdrawals, buffer zones and relate military agreements,” (Findlay, 2002, p5).  They provide transparency, an impartial assurance that the other party is not violating the truce.  Such missions have a limited role and therefore a limited life as they a re withdrawn promptly after implementing a truce or peace settlement (Doyle & Otunnu, 1998, p6 and Findlay, 2002, p5).

After the cold war there emerged what has been widely recognised as a new form of peacekeeping, known as second-generation peacekeeping.  Where peacekeepers once avoided tackling the root causes of armed conflict in favour of containment and de-escalation, they were now mandated to seek just and lasting resolutions for a long term settlement of the underlying conflict.  These are multifunctional operations which involve establishing or re-establishing democratic, accountable governance, promoting the growth of civil society and providing impetus to for economic development.  Between 1987 and 1994, military forces deployed in peacekeeping operations increased from fewer than ten thousand to more than seventy thousand.  The annual peacekeeping budget accordingly skyrocketed from $230 million to $3.6 billion in the same period (Findlay, 2002, pp3-7 and Doyle & Otunnu, 1998, p6).  

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This second section evaluates the successes of military intervention in Africa.  Some operations have seemed to have been wholly positive in their outcomes and to have made a clear difference for the better.  As relations warmed between the United States and the Soviet Union, it became possible to resolve a number of long-standing regional conflicts.  The first and perhaps the most unambiguous of UN successes was in Namibia.  There a large-scale operation was launched, designed to facilitate the transition from war to peace and from an authoritarian to pluralistic political system.  Admittedly after some shaky moments in the start, ...

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