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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Daily Congo Update

Daily Congo Update

by John Cole|  May 30, 20037:50 am| 5 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs

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It appears that the French contingent of 1200 troops will be in place as soon as next week:

The French commitment to lead a force of more than 1,000 international troops could become a reality by next week, if the Security Council adopts a resolution authorising France to “take all necessary means” – including the use of force.

“We have been asked to lead a multinational force in Ituri, and France has accepted to lead such a force”, French UN ambassador, Jean Marc de La Sabliere told journalists in New York after briefing the UN Security Council on Thursday on his government’s plans.

Yesterday, I described this as a good first step, and I should probably retract that statement in light of what Gary Farber has written about the issue, in which he states that this woefully inadequate force is worse than doing nothing because people are just happy something is being done:

Because then they, you know, think something good is being done. And relax a bit. When, in this case, nothing whatever good is being done by sending 1,200 infantry troops with only small arms. The “Democratic Republic” of Congo is, according to the CIA Factbook, 2,345,410 sq km. Its land boundaries: total: 10,730 km border countries: Angola 2,511 km (of which 225 km is the boundary of Angola’s discontiguous Cabinda Province), Burundi 233 km, Central African Republic 1,577 km, Republic of the Congo 2,410 km, Rwanda 217 km, Sudan 628 km, Tanzania 459 km, Uganda 765 km, Zambia 1,930 km

So, let’s see, that makes about one trooper for every two thousand square miles. I’m sure they’ll have no trouble each securing that amount of territory. What, exactly, other than guard a single airport, or a few square miles, do you think 1200 troops, from two separate armies, with only small arms, can do in Congo? What is the point of securing a single village, when there are tens of thousands of foreign troops and militia troops running around?

Besides PR. Which appears to be more successful than I would have anticipated.

He is right. The perception that something, anything, is being done may make people complacent, and this force is decidedly inadequate. On a more positive note, both Kaus and Sullivan have now written about the issue, so perhaps this is starting to get some attention.

Matt Yglesias points to this New Yorker article by Philip Gourevitch (via the Filibuster), which has the following to state about US policy:

Speaking on Al Jazeera television, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice dismissed the U.N.

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5Comments

  1. 1.

    Brandon

    May 30, 2003 at 11:46 am

    You may also remember that in Rwanda in 1994, the French UN troops’ contribution was to create a temporary safe zone for the Hutu murderers. There purpose in the Congo is probably to create a safe method for Congo government officials to siphon money into Paris banks.

  2. 2.

    Dean

    May 30, 2003 at 12:35 pm

    On a non-partisan note, don’t expect much in the way of US intervention. The key to US military activity (other than evacuations) is logistics infrastructure—i.e., are there bases nearby that can handle not just a few cargo aircraft, but millions of tons of stuff, tens of thousands of gallons of POL, plus highways or at least railways.

    The US military is NOT suited to intervening in places that are distant from such facilities—like it or not, Congo is one of those.

    Evacuate the local diplomatic staff plus biz people and tourists? Sure. A few days on the ground at most, set up a perimeter, get ’em out.

    But actually pacify the place? Now you’re talking lots and lots of troops, supply lines, and most of all INFRASTRUCTURE. Mobotu spent a lot of money, but didn’t build much infrastructure. Consequently, I sincerely doubt that we can (or will) therefore do much there.

    Ironically, the Sierra Leone government got quite a bit done w/mercenaries—until the UN and various “humanitarian” NGOs protested. One has to wonder if that might not be the more realistic (and better) solution, in the end?

  3. 3.

    JKC

    May 30, 2003 at 2:55 pm

    Dean-

    I got depressed reading your post: not because I disagree, but because I think you’re probably right about US intervention.

    The problem with mercenaries, IMHO, is that they can be a cure worse than the disease. If our Special Forces weren’t already spread too thinly, I’d wonder what they could accomplish.

  4. 4.

    Dean

    May 30, 2003 at 3:44 pm

    JKC:

    Keeping in mind that the failure of the US to intervene, as I noted, has NOTHING to do w/ our morality or such, but simply on the basis of physical ability to move things.

    Which brings us to your SF comment. In general, I’d venture that the answer is “Very Little.”

    What does SF do? It observes (biggest, most important role). It can sometimes train people (given enough time). It can destroy point targets. It can help other forces destroy larger things (airfields, munitions dumps). In some cases, it can assassinate individuals.

    Now, in Congo, unless there’s some specific individual, camp, or site that needs destroying, SF just can’t do that much.

    Especially not in a country the size of, what Texas? Alaska? (So, even if you could knock out individual targets, your effect is very localized.)

    Moreover, SF depends on intelligence, and relies on the formulation of links to people. Greasing palms can hurry the process, but even then, there are limits. So, unless we’ve had contact w/ folks for quite a long time, you’re probably dropping folks relatively blindly into the middle of a civil war. Not healthy for SF teams, and not a very good policy in general.

    Finally, who are the opponents in this war? Is it a specific leader? Or is it much more like the Interhamwe of Rwanda, decentralized groups relying on blind hatred to motivate folks to slaughter each other? The latter just isn’t very amenable to point, precision strikes (any more than the Interhamwe would’ve been susceptiable to net-centric warfare).

    As for mercenaries, not sure why they’d be worse—the ones in Sierra Leone are generally credited w/ crushing the rebels, and were far preferable to what those lunatics were doing.

    Keep in mind that the Gurkhas have always been mercenaries, throughout their long, illustrious history.

  5. 5.

    JKC

    May 30, 2003 at 8:21 pm

    Dean-

    Thanks for the info. You seem to know a hell of a lot more about both Africa and SF than I do. Not bad for a flinty-hearted conservative… ;)

    I still wish there was something we could do in Africa to stop this… you may yet convince me of the wisdom of using mercenaries. Question is, though, what would we do next? It seems to me we’d be stuck trying to do nation-building from scratch, and I think THAT would make Iraq and Afghanistan look like a walk in the park.

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