Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 75
LIMITED INTERVENTION
However, in Sangaris, French soldiers did have
successes: they were able to adapt to the context and
become militarily effective.2 Indeed, Sangaris did not
resolve the CAR’s crisis, but it helped avoid genocide, it
jump-started the disarmament process while fostering
a nascent administrative structure, and it restored the
supply of essential goods—all of this with relatively few
casualties.3 Above all, Sangaris managed to be a “bridging operation” to the United Nations Multidimensional
Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African
Republic, known as MINUSCA, and bridging to
MINUSCA was the desired end state.4
Therefore, Sangaris shows how adapting at tactical
and operational levels and accepting risk can ensure a
limited military intervention achieves the desired end
state. Nonetheless, questions about the sustainability of the end state conditions are warranted, and we
address them here.
A Look at the Numbers
The number of international and French forces combined in the CAR increased from 4,500 in
December 2013 to 11,700 in August 2015. France
deployed 1,600 troops in December 2013, their
number grew to 2,000 in February 2014, and French
forces were reduced to 900 in June 2015. The Africaled International Support Mission in the Central
African Republic, known as MISCA, provided
4,500 soldiers as of December 2013, later replaced
by MINUSCA.5 By August 2015, MINUSCA had
10,800 troops in the CAR. The European Union
force, known as EUFOR-RCA, deployed 700 soldiers in June 2014. These numbers, depending on
the period under examination, represent a 1.1 to 2.2
ratio of soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants—far lower
than standard force recommendations for a stabilization operation.6 Experts recommend 10–20 soldiers
per 1,000 inhabitants.7 Moreover, these contingents
had to execute a complex mission in the midst of an
ethnic-religious civil war, and in a country as vast as
France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg
combined—622,000 square kilometers with approximately 5.3 million inhabitants. This is a great example of the basic disconnect between Western doctrine that calls for large deployments in stabilization
operations and current Western political views that
seek to avoid large deployments.
MILITARY REVIEW November-December 2016
This relatively low level of French troop deployment
was the result of cyclical, structural, and cultural causes.
In reality, in December 2013, the French army was
already overstretched: 7,400 French soldiers were deployed in operations abroad and 11,640 were employed
as presence and sovereignty forces.8 One can add to this
the reluctance of staff members and policy makers to
embark on a new stabilization mission that promised to
be long and difficult.
Structurally, the French army has drastically reduced
its size since the end of the Cold War: from 669,904
in 1990 to 270,849 in 2014. According to the 2013
French White Paper on Defence and National Security, the
French army must be able to deploy 15,000 soldiers for
6 months to a main theater and 7,000–8,000 soldiers to
a secondary theater.9 French armies are not designed for
long-term stabilization missions involving high numbers of troops but rather are built for “strategic raid/
expeditionary model” operations. Culturally, France
is accustomed to “operational frugality.” Since 1964, it
has conducted more than 50 operations in 20 African
countries. The operations, aside from Operation Licorne
(2002–2015) in the Ivory Coast and Operation Serval in
Mali, were almost always carried out with relatively few
troops, usually between 1,000 and 3,000. This may have
created the image of a French model of intervention in
Africa able to produce results at a relatively low cost.
Military Effectiveness
through Adaption
Does low-level troop deployment in a stabilization
operation impair military effectiveness? Since the
Vietnam War, we have known that numbers do not
win a war, and that adaptations at the tactical and operational levels can allow a force to be effective despite
low numbers. Let us have a look at the way the French
army has adapted in the CAR.
At the operational level, the deployment of two
thousand soldiers in so
vast an area of operations necessarily means
Maj Rémy Hémez,
rethinking and limitFrench army, is a
ing courses of action.
military fellow at
This is true regarding
the Security Studies
French actions in CAR’s
Center of the French
capital city, Bangui,
Institute of International
which proved difficult
Relations (Ifri).
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