Operation ‘Serval’: A Strategic Analysis of the French Intervention in Mali, 2013–2014

Abstract

OPEN ACCESS: In 2013, France launched Operation ‘Serval’ to halt the southwards advance of Islamist insurgents in Mali. Using a Clausewitzian analytical framework, this article provides an assessment of France’s political and military aims in Mali and the degree to which they have been attained. Clear political goals, coordinated international diplomacy, an effective use of military force and blunders by the rebel forces turned ‘Serval’ into a short-term success. Strategically, however, the mission has proven unable to address the conflict’s underlying causes. Serval’s long-term effect is probably better measured by what it prevented than what it contributed.

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Operation ‘Serval’: A Strategic
Analysis of the French
Intervention in Mali, 2013–2014
Sergei Boekea & Bart Schuurmana
a Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Leiden
University, The Netherlands
Published online: 24 Jul 2015.
To cite this article: Sergei Boeke & Bart Schuurman (2015): Operation ‘Serval’: A
Strategic Analysis of the French Intervention in Mali, 2013–2014, Journal of Strategic
Studies, DOI: 10.1080/01402390.2015.1045494
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Operation ‘Serval’: A Strategic
Analysis of the French
Intervention in Mali, 2013–2014
SERGEI BOEKE AND BART SCHUURMAN
Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Leiden University, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT In 2013, France launched Operation ‘Serval’to halt the southwards
advance of Islamist insurgents in Mali. Using a Clausewitzian analytical frame
work, this article provides an assessment of France’s political and military aims in
Mali and the degree to which they have been attained. Clear political goals,
coordinated international diplomacy, an effective use of military force and
blunders by the rebel forces turned ‘Serval’into a short term success.
Strategically, however, the mission has proven unable to address the conflict’s
underlying causes. Serval’s long term effect is probably better measured by what
it prevented than what it contributed.
KEY WORDS: Mali, Operation ‘Serval’, Clausewitz, Politics, Strategy, Chance,
Diplomacy
In January 2013, the Islamist militants who held northern Mali
launched a military offensive against the government-controlled
south. In the capital Bamako, interim-president Dioncounda Traoré,
fearing that the Army would not be able to withstand the attack,
made an official request to France and the United Nations (UN) for
military assistance. On 11 January 2013, French President Hollande
deployed troops to Mali. The intervention was called Operation
‘Serval’, after a desert wild cat. Within a matter of days, a combina-
tion of French airpower and special forces had succeeded in halting
the rebel offensive. Key northern cities were retaken by French troops.
Abandoning their drive south, the militants fled back to safe havens in
the inhospitable mountains along Mali’s north-eastern border with
Algeria and Niger.
Over the course of the following three and a half months, French
forces and their African allies tracked down the insurgents and engaged
them in close quarters combat. Ultimately, a third of the estimated
2,000 Islamist fighters are believed to have been killed with 430 taken
The Journal of Strategic Studies, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2015.1045494
© 2015 Taylor & Francis

prisoner.
1
Many others fled to Niger and Libya, or dissolved into the
local Malian population. Six French troops and, according to official
accounts, 38 Chadian soldiers were killed in the fighting during this
phase.
2
As the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown, initial
military success does not guarantee long-term strategic gain. France
launched Operation ‘Serval’to halt an Islamist offensive on politically
fragile and embattled southern Mali. During the operation, these
limited objectives expanded to reconquering of all of the territory held
by rebel forces. By intervening, France secured key regional political
and economic interests in the short term, at the cost of becoming co-
proprietor of a complex set of security and governance problems in
Mali. More than two years on from Serval, which ended in August
2014, many of the fractures in Malian society that gave rise to the
conflict in the first place are proving difficult to address.
3
Various
parties within Mali have been undermining the precarious restoration
of the government’s authority and territorial control. Concurrently, the
Malian government has proven an unreliable partner.
4
Corruption is
still rife, the government has frustrated reconciliation and negotiation
efforts with rebel factions, and in large parts of the country the state is
losing the little legitimacy it had by failing to provide basic services.
5
The French government has declared ‘Serval’a success.
6
However,
the mission’s inability to address any of the socio-political causes of the
Malian conflict raises the question to what extent ‘Serval’s’accomplish-
ments extend beyond a series of initial military victories. This article
asks what ‘Serval’s’political and military objectives were, the degree to
which these were attained and, most importantly, to what extent the
pursuit of these objectives has translated into strategic gains for the
French government. In one of few reports written in English, Michael
Shurkin provides a good tactical and operational analysis of the
1
Thomas Hofnung, ‘Mali: raid audiovisuel sur l’opération Serval’,Libération (16 Oct.
2013).
2
Sarah Halifa Legrand and Vincent Jauvert, ‘Mali: Les Secrets D’une Guerre Éclair’,
L’Obs (11 June 2013).
3
In Serval’s wake, a regional counterterrorism operation has been launched labeled
Operation ‘Barkhane’.
4
Grégory Chauzal, Commentary: Bamako’s New Government (The Hague:
Clingendael 2015). <www.clingendael.nl/publication/commentary bamako%E2%80%
99s new government>.
5
Human Rights Watch, ‘World Report 2015: Mali’,/<www.hrw.org/world report/
2015/country chapters/mali?page 1>.
6
‘Terrorisme: après Serval au Mali, la France lance “Barkhane”au Sahel’,L’Obs (13
July 2014).
2Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

operation.
7
This article complements his analyses with a discussion of
the strategic, political and military aspects of the mission.
To address these questions, the authors use an analytical framework
based on the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s trinitarian
conception of war.
8
Consequently, the core of this article draws
attention to the military, political and chance-related factors that
most strongly influenced the design, execution and outcomes of
‘Serval’. This analysis is preceded by a brief discussion of the
continued relevance of Clausewitz’s nineteenth century ideas to
contemporary armed conflicts and the provision of some relevant
background information on the Malian conflict. With regard to
sources, this article relies on Francophone media reporting, academic
studies and official reports issued by the French government. The
authors believe that their analysis is relevant to both academics
interested in contemporary asymmetric conflicts and policy-makers
faced with the continuing threat posed by Islamist non-state actors
using strategies of insurgency and terrorism.
Clausewitz, ‘New Wars’and Operation ‘Serval’
Carl von Clausewitz’sOn War has arguably become the most
authoritative work on strategy in the Western world.
9
It has also
attracted considerable criticism from authors who question its applic-
ability to contemporary armed conflicts. Because Clausewitz died before
completely revising On War, he bequeathed an unfinished book
containing numerous puzzling contradictions that have enabled myriad
interpretations of his work.
10
Scholarship has affirmed that chapter one
of book one contains Clausewitz most mature insights, making it only
logical to focus on this part of On War as the most valuable for
deducing theoretical insights into the nature of war.
11
The most
important of these is that war’s essence resembles a ‘trinity’composed
of primordial violence, chance and instrumental purpose.
12
Clausewitz,
by way of example, connected these elements to the people, the military
7
Michael Shurkin, France’s War in Mali: Lessons for an Expeditionary Army (Santa
Monica, CA: RAND 2014).
8
Carl von Clausewitz, On War (New York: Everyman’s Library 1993), 101.
9
Beatrice Heuser, Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico 2002), x, 12 23.
10
Azar Gat, A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War
(Oxford / New York: OUP 2001), 201 2.
11
Eugenio Diniz and Domício Proença Júnior, ‘A Criterion for Settling Inconsistencies
in Clausewitz’s on War,’Journal of Strategic Studies 37/6 7 (Dec. 2014), 879 902.
12
Clausewitz, On War, 101.
Operation ‘Serval’3

and the political leadership in what has become known as his
‘secondary trinity’.
13
Critics have used the secondary trinity to claim that Clausewitz’s
work is state-centric and of limited utility to understanding contempor-
ary conflicts in which non-state actors are proliferate.
14
But it is the
primary trinity that deserves our attention as the most mature synthesis
of Clausewitz’s thinking, a concept that is applicable across a broad
range of conflicts and combatants.
15
That Clausewitz also lectured and
wrote extensively on guerrilla warfare provides further reason to
assume that the ideas he set out about war’s nature are as applicable
to ‘big’and ‘conventional’wars as they are to ‘small’,‘irregular’or
‘new’ones.
16
Clausewitz’s trinity is the synthesis of his argument about the nature
of war. Its first part is the thesis that war, in theory, will escalate to
absolute levels of violence as the combatants attempt to best each
other.
17
His antithesis is that war in reality looks quite different. The
tendency towards extremes is thwarted by untold sources of ‘friction’,
such as bad weather or poor intelligence, and the fact that war is an
instrument of policy and politics, which means that the levels of
violence correspond with the nature of the goals being pursued.
18
Thesis and antithesis are then subsumed in Clausewitz’s primary trinity,
which adds the element of chance and allows us to understand war as
the interplay of irrational (violence), non-rational (chance) and rational
(use as an instrument of politics/policy) elements.
19
Yael Brahms argues that, even if essential characteristics of war exist,
knowledge of them is of limited practical benefit to soldiers and
generals.
20
Clausewitz never intended his work to be used as an
13
Edward J. Villacres and Christopher Bassford, ‘Reclaiming the Clausewitzian Trinity’,
Parameters 25/3 (1995), 13 14.
14
Mary Kaldor, ‘Inconclusive Wars: Is Clausewitz Still Relevant in These Global
Times?’,Global Policy 1/3 (2010) 271 3; Martin van Creveld, On Future War
(London: Brassey’s 1991), 40.
15
Colin S. Gray, ‘War Continuity in Change, and Change in Continuity’,Parameters
40/2 (2010), 6 8; M.L.R. Smith, ‘Escalation in Irregular War: Using Strategic Theory to
Examine from First Principles’,Journal of Strategic Studies 35/5 (Oct. 2012), 618.
16
Sebastian Kaempf, ‘Lost through Non Translation: Bringing Clausewitz’s Writings on
“New Wars”Back In’,Small Wars & Insurgencies 22/4 (2011), 548 73; Beatrice
Heuser, ‘Small Wars in the Age of Clausewitz: The Watershed between Partisan War
and People’s War’,Journal of Strategic Studies 33/1 (Feb. 2010), 139 60.
17
Clausewitz, On War,83 87.
18
Ibid., 86 100.
19
Villacres and Bassford, ‘Reclaiming’, 13.
20
Yael Brahms, ‘‘Get Real’a Pragmatic Approach to a Philosophical Debate on the
Changing Nature of War’,Defense & Security Analysis 27/3 (2011), 225 35.
4Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

operational manual, but as a means of stimulating his readers’critical
thinking on matters of strategy.
21
It is precisely in this fashion that his
ideas on the nature of war are used here. If war is governed by the
interplay between violence, chance and rational purpose, then gaining
an understanding of the outcomes of particular conflicts will require an
evaluation of all three of these factors and the links between them. Far
from being state-centric, the timeless elements of war captured in
Clausewitz’s primary trinity make it an analytical framework suitable
for studying a broad range of conflicts.
22
As a result, this study
investigates France’s political aims, its military strategy and the
influence of chance to luck to better understand Operation ‘Serval’s’
outcome and its longer-term strategic significance.
Background to the French Deployment
Until 2012, Mali was described as a ‘poster child for democracy’and
considered the most politically stable country in a region rife with coups
d’état.
23
In reality, Mali was plagued by ethnic, social and economic
fractures. Arguably the most important of these has been the conflict
between the Tuareg, a large, nomadic ethnic group situated in northern
Mali, southern Algeria and Western Niger, and the sedentary peoples of
southern Mali. The Tuareg do not constitute a majority in Mali’s north
nor have they formed a united front against the government in Bamako.
Within the complex federation of Tuareg tribes, several factions have
historically fought for more autonomy from the capital, while others
were co-opted by Bamako through a policy of divide and rule. Since the
1960s, those tribes claiming more autonomy have launched several
rebellions against the central government, each of which was met with
violent state repression. While an elaborate peace-accord (‘flamme de la
paix’) was concluded in 1994, mutual distrust remained.
24
In January 2012, Tuareg rebels in Northern Mali launched the fourth
and most destructive rebellion since the country’s independence from
France in 1960. Catalysts for the re-ignition of ethnic conflict were the
formation of a new political movement for Tuareg self-rule, the
Mouvement National pour la Liberation d’Azawad (MNLA) in 2011
and the return to Mali of Tuareg fighters and weapons after the collapse
21
Heuser, Reading Clausewitz,8 12.
22
Bart Schuurman, ‘Clausewitz and the “New Wars”Scholars’,Parameters 40/1
(2010), 95 9.
23
Hussein Solomon, ‘Mali: West Africa’s Afghanistan’,RUSI Journal 158/1 (2013),
12 19.
24
Sergei Boeke and Antonin Tisseron, ‘Mali’s Long Road Ahead’,RUSI Journal 159/5
(2014), 32 40.
Operation ‘Serval’5

Gaddafi’s Libyan regime in the summer of 2011. From this perspective,
the crisis in Mali can be seen as one of the unintended consequences of
NATO’s intervention in Libya, which formed the spark that re-ignited a
simmering conflict.
25
In addition to the Tuareg issue, Mali has been afflicted by bad
governance and endemic corruption. During the 2002–12 tenure of
President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT), a small elite hoarded the
country’s political power and economic riches. Although underdevelop-
ment of the north is a key Tuareg grievance, southern towns outside
Bamako are equally underdeveloped and under-resourced. The Malian
Army too was hollowed out by corruption and nepotism, and crumbled
as the MNLA rebels advanced south. On 22 March 2012, hardly a
month before the presidential elections and with the country’s north
beset by rebellion, a mutiny by junior army officers turned into a
spontaneous coup, ending 20 years of uninterrupted democratic
process.
26
The coup accelerated the complete rout of the Malian Army. The
north’s major cities and two thirds of the country’s territory were lost to
rebel forces. As Mali struggled to establish an interim presidency,
MNLA rebels in the occupied North saw their own ethnic-separatist
uprising hijacked by their radical Islamist partners of convenience. The
MNLA was marginalised in June 2012 by al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for oneness and Jihad in Africa
(known by its French acronym MUJAO) and Ansar Dine. These groups
violently wrested the newly-won power from the Tuareg separatists.
From the summer of 2012 onwards, the three Islamist groups effectively
exercised control over northern Mali.
27
France’s Strategic Interests
France’s primary national interests in Mali are economic and
security-related. Mali’s eastern neighbour Niger is the world’s
fourth-largest uranium exporter. The mines at Arlit and Akoka,
near the border with Mali and also situated in Tuareg country, are
exploited by Areva, one of the world’s biggest producers of uranium
and one of France’s national economic champions. Niger’s uranium
provides 20 per cent of the fuel for France’s 58 nuclear reactors,
which are in turn responsible for generating nearly 75 per cent of
25
Ibid.
26
Johanna Siméant and Laure Traoré, Mali: Le Putsch Et Le Nord Vus De Bamako
(Paris: Sciences Po 2012), 1 8.
27
Olivier J. Walther and Dimitris Christopoulos, ‘Islamic Terrorism and the Malian
Rebellion’,Terrorism and Political Violence (Forthcoming), 3 5.
6Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

France’s electricity.
28
The importance of these mines for France is
illustrated by the fact that they are protected, from a secret nearby
location, by French commandos. Their strategic importance has also
been recognised by terrorist groups, as on 23 May 2013 MUJAO
and an AQIM splinter cell launched a simultaneous suicide attack on
the mine at Arlit and a nearby Nigerian army barracks.
29
France’s security-related interests in Mali focus on preventing the
emergence of a large terrorist sanctuary. France and its overseas
interests have formed key targets for terrorist groups from North and
North-West Africa since the early 1990s. For instance, AQIM has
attacked French embassies in West Africa and kidnapped numerous
French nationals for ransom. In addition, the French domestic intelli-
gence agency La Direction centrale du Renseignement intérieur has been
concerned about the potential radicalisation of the Malian diaspora.
During their time in control of Northern Mali, the terrorist groups
significantly expanded in size, with for instance AQIM growing from an
estimated 350 fighters in 2011 to around 1,500 in January 2013.
30
The
groups faced no impediments in ramping up local recruiting efforts, and
many foreign fighters travelled to Mali to join their ranks.
31
As Bruno
Tertrais writes, French decision-makers had a strong incentive to ‘break
AQIM’s back’when the opportunity arose in January 2013.
32
The Political Dimension of Serval’s Success
Clausewitz emphasised the strict primacy of the political over the
military: ‘[p]olicy is the guiding intelligence and war only the
instrument, not vice versa’.
33
He also stressed that political leaders
should only pursue those goals that lay within the boundaries of the
(military) means available to them.
34
Thus, if war is to be an
effective ‘continuation of policy by other means’,clearoverallgoals
must be elaborated that are based on a realistic assessment of the
warring party’scapacitytoachievethem.Fourelementswerecrucial
28
Jean Michel Bezat, ‘Areva Et La Bataille Mondiale Pour L’uranium’,Le Monde (7
October 2010).
29
Radio France Internationale, ‘Attentats Au Niger: La Présence De Forces Spéciales
Françaises N’a Pas Empêché L’attaque D’arlit’(23 May 2013).
30
Isabelle Lasserre and Thierry Oberlé, Notre Guerre Secrète Au Mali: Les Nouvelles
Menaces Contre La France (Paris: Fayard 2013), 44.
31
Bill Roggio, ‘Foreign Jihadists Continue to Pour into Mali’,Threat Matrix: A Blog of
the Long War Journal (27 Oct. 2012).
32
Bruno Tertrais, ‘Leading on the Cheap? French Security Policy in Austerity’,
Washington Quarterly 36/3 (2013), 53.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid., 98 9, 733.
Operation ‘Serval’7

to Serval’s political feasibility. France pro-actively crafted interna-
tional support for an intervention in Mali, it prepared military
contingency plans should the insurgents strike sooner than expected,
established clear overall political goals for ‘Serval’and, finally,
France benefited from a robust executive and a political culture not
averse to taking military risks.
Prelude: Procuring International Support for Intervening in Mali
On 31 May 2012, President Hollande chaired a select Cabinet meeting
on defence. At the time, six French hostages were being held by AQIM
and MUJAO. The insurgency was then still Tuareg-led and had just
taken over two thirds of Mali’s territory. The Cabinet concluded that
a new, more aggressive approach was needed to dislodge AQIM from
its sanctuary in the country’s north. A multi-pronged approach was
conceived. One part would focus on the build-up of the Malian Army,
another on harnessing the support of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS), while the third centred on mobilising
support for an EU-mission in Mali.
35
The path towards establishing an EU military training mission
proved to be an arduous one, delayed by the institutional procedures
governing European decision-making in the Common Foreign and
Security Policy. In the end, the insurgents’unexpected attack south-
wards on 9 January 2013 catalysed the slow decision making
process. The European Council authorised the European Union
TrainingMissiontoMali(EUTM)on17January2013,when
French troops were already moving northwards. The mission,
which was officially launched on 18 February 2013, encompasses
some 400–500 European trainers and is tasked with rebuilding and
training the Malian armed forces.
36
In contrast to the EU member states, Mali’s African neighbours, with
the exception of Algeria, needed little encouragement to adopt a more
assertive stance. Until June 2012, the initial regional response centred
on establishing an ECOWAS Mission in Mali (MICEMA), but this
proved impossible to deploy. Differences on the purpose of the mission
were compounded by logistical and financial constraints. The effort was
lifted to the African Union (AU) level, and when the AU proved unable
to fund an eventual intervention, to the United Nations (UN) level.
While the jihadists consolidated their control over northern Mali, the
slow bureaucratic processes focused on the creation on a UN-mandated
35
Romain Rosso, ‘Mali: Comment Paris Conduit La Guerre’,L’Express (31 Jan. 2013).
36
European Union Delegation to the United Nations New York, ‘EU Council
Conclusions on Mali’(17 Jan. 2013).
8Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

and funded but African-led International Support Mission to Mali
(AFISMA).
37
French diplomats in New York played an instrumental role in
shaping UN decision-making to enable a more assertive approach
towards the crisis in Mali. As a permanent member of the UN
Security Council (UNSC), France introduced all draft resolutions on
Mali and coordinated negotiations to ensure they were passed unan-
imously. UNSC resolution 2056 of 5 July 2012 expressed support for
the joint efforts of ECOWAS, the African Union and the transitional
authorities in Mali to restore the country’s territorial integrity.
38
October’s UNSC resolution 2071 expressed the Council’s readiness to
respond positively to a request from Mali for an intervention force to
reclaim the north.
39
Separately, on 5 December MUJAO was designated
a terrorist organisation and joined AQIM on the UN’s al-Qaeda
sanctions list.
40
Key negotiations on the authority, tasking and funding of AFISMA
took place in the first weeks of December 2012. After France circulated
a draft resolution to authorise AFISMA, considerable disagreements on
the proposition emerged. The US were especially sceptical of the
mission’s feasibility and the Malian interim government’s democratic
credentials; going so far as to describe the French plan as ‘crap’.
41
After
considerable wrangling, however, UNSC Resolution 2085 was passed
unanimously on 20 December, authorising the deployment of
AFISMA.
42
Even so, given the logistical challenge of deploying a
multinational force and the still unresolved question of how exactly it
would be funded, it appears that the UN did not envision military
action against the insurgents being possible before summer 2013.
43
Resolution 2085 did not authorise Operation ‘Serval’. But it paved
the way for a French military intervention by creating an international
consensus that the security situation in Mali needed to be addressed.
Furthermore, the creation of AFISMA and its UN authorisation also
provided the French with the outlines of an exit strategy by enabling
37
Lori Anne Théroux Bénoni, ‘The Long Path to Minusma: Assessing the International
Response to the Crisis in Mali’, in Thierry Tardy and Marco Wyss (eds.), Peacekeeping
in Africa: The Evolving Security Architecture, ed. Wyss (Abingdon / New York:
Routledge 2014), 171 89.
38
United Nations Security Council, ‘Resolution 2056‘, (2012) 1 6.
39
United Nations Security Council, ‘Resolution 2071‘(2012), 1 4.
40
United Nations, ‘Al Qaida Sanctions List’(2014).
41
Colum Lynch, ‘Rice: French Plan for Mali Intervention Is “Crap”’,Foreign Policy (11
Dec. 2012).
42
United Nations Security Council, ‘Resolution 2085’(2012) 1 7.
43
Zakia Abdennebi and Andrew Hammond, ‘U.N. Envoy Rules out International
Action in Mali for Now’,Reuters (20 November 2012).
Operation ‘Serval’9

them to hand over responsibility for Mali to this international task
force upon achieving French objectives. French diplomatic efforts were
integral to creating international political conditions favourable to a
military intervention.
Contingency Planning
Throughout this period of international negotiations, France repeat-
edly emphasised in public that it would not intervene in Mali, stating
that support for an African-led solution was the only option available
for the former colonial power.
44
However, after UNSC resolution
2071 was adopted, enabling the creation of an African-led interven-
tion force, President Hollande received several calls from African
leaders expressing concern over the viability of such a force and
requests for French combat air support should it be needed.
45
As a
result, and contrary to the government’s public statements, the French
Defence Ministry was ordered to create a contingency plan for
providing military support in Mali.
46
Crucially, however, the ministry was also ordered to prepare an
additional contingency plan to cover the eventuality that the insurgents
would strike before the international force could be deployed. This
resulted in a second scenario that foresaw the use of ground forces as
well as air assets. It led the French foreign intelligence service La
Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure to prepare target packs of
jihadist camps in Mali and to the deployment of special forces to locate
jihadist command nodes, fuel depots and logistical centres.
47
This
planning for two scenarios laid the foundations for Operation ‘Serval’
and allowed the French to react quickly when the insurgents attacked.
Signals intelligence received in the last days of December 2012
warned the French that AQIM, MUJAO and Ansar Dine were
preparing a move southwards. Intercepts indicated that the jihadists
intended to target Sévaré. The potential loss of its strategic airport,
the only one besides the runway at Bamako that was able to handle
44
See, for instance, an October 2012 statement by Foreign Minister Fabius: Parti
Socialiste, ‘Laurent Fabius Sur Le Nord Mali: <<Par Rapport Au Terrorisme, on Ne
Peut Pas Transiger>>’,<www.parti socialiste.fr/articles/laurent fabius sur le nord mali
par rapport au terrorisme ne peut pas transiger>.
45
Vincent Jauvert and Sarah Halifa Legrand, ‘Mali: Histoire Secrète D’une Guerre
Surprise’,Le Nouvel Observateur (10 Feb. 2013).
46
Rosso, ‘Mali.’
47
Jauvert and Halifa Legrand, ‘Mali: Histoire Secrète’.
10 Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

large transport planes, would seriously hamper the AFISMA plan to
reconquer the north and threaten the political future of the interim
government. Intelligence also indicated that the jihadists did not
expect France to react to their offensive, citing French refusal to
intervene militarily to aid the beleaguered president of the Central
African Republic only days earlier.
48
Jihadist groups attacked the
strategic town of Konna, some 60 km from Sévaré, on 9 January
2013 and took it one day later.
49
The Formulation of Clear Political Objectives
On the day of the jihadists’move southwards, Mali’sinterim
President Traoré sent an urgent request to France for military
assistance. The letter was initially returned by Paris, requiring the
Malian government to reformulate a more precise request limited to
air support for the Malian troops’counter-attack, which was
submitted a day later.
50
Upon receipt, French diplomats in New
York convened an emergency UNSC meeting to discuss the
situation.
51
After the closed meeting, a Security Council press
statement called on UN member states ‘to provide assistance to the
Malian Defence and Security Forces in order to reduce the threat
posed by terrorist organizations and associated groups’.
52
The next
day, President Hollande announced that France would meet the
Malian and UN request by launching military operations against the
terrorist groups.
53
At a press conference on 12 January 2013, France clarified its main
objectives: (1) stop the jihadist advance, (2) prevent these groups from
further endangering Mali’s stability, and (3) protect European and
48
Ibid.
49
Laurent Touchard, ‘Mali: Retour Sur La Bataille Décesive De Konna’,Jeune Afrique
(30 Jan. 2014).
50
Jauvert and Halifa Legrand, ‘Mali: Histoire Secrète’.
51
‘Mali Crisis: UN Calls for “Swift Deployment”of Troops’,BBC News (11 January
2013); Gérard Araud, ‘Mali Remarks to the Press by Mr Gérard Araud, Permanent
Representative of France to the United Nations’,<www.franceonu.org/france at the
united nations/press room/speaking to the media/remarks to the press/article/10 janu
ary 2013 mali remarks to>.
52
United Nations Security Council, ‘Security Council Press Statement on Mali’(2013).
53
François Hollande, ‘Declaration De M. Le Président De La République’(11 Jan.
2013).
Operation ‘Serval’11

especially French nationals present in Mali.
54
A day later, Foreign
Minister Fabius announced the additional goal of (4) restoring Mali’s
territorial integrity. ‘Serval’was no longer limited to air strikes and
special forces actions, but had the aim of reconquering an area the size
of France.
55
The exact reason for this change remains unclear. It seems
likely that France sought to capitalise on the international community’s
support for the mission. There were also practical reasons; while the
first air attacks had stopped the jihadist advance, they had not defeated
the insurgents, who were still able to launch further attacks on 14
January.
56
Also, on 13 January AFISMA participants had pledged to
accelerate the deployment of the UN mission and to immediately send
their troops to Mali, effectively enabling the roll-out of the international
mission.
57
The final political decision determining the parameters of Operation
‘Serval’was taken during a French Cabinet meeting on 14 January
2013. The Commander of the French armed forces wanted to wait for
the necessary logistics to arrive in theatre before launching the ground
offensive to reconquer the north. President Hollande, on the other
hand, did not want to wait until late February and demanded the quick
liberation of key towns in the north.
58
This approach envisaged fast and
symbolic victories, but entailed more military risks. Nonetheless, the
unambiguous mandate to move fast and to neutralise the jihadists was
welcomed by military commanders in the field.
59
In all of France’s public statements, the emphasis lay on halting the
rebel attack and supporting Malian armed forces. The means to achieve
these aims were nonetheless formulated broadly, with for example
military operations foreseen for ‘as long as necessary’.
60
France did not
act to further its own interests, claimed President Hollande, but had the
sole aim of fighting terrorism.
61
As previously pointed out, however, the
collapse of Mali would threaten France’s considerable economic and
54
Ministère de la Défense, ‘Conference De Presse Du Ministre De La Défense, Jean Yves
Le Drian’(12 Jan. 2013).
55
France Diplomatie, ‘Mali Somalie Russie Entretien Du Ministre Des Affaires
Étrangères, M. Laurent Fabius, Avec <<Le Grand Jury Rtl Lci Le Figaro>>’, (13 Jan.
2013).
56
‘Mali: Attaque Des Islamistes Contre La Ville De Diabali Sur La Route De Bamako’,
Jeune Afrique (14 Jan. 2013).
57
‘Mali: Le Togo Va Envoyer 500 Soldats’,La Nouvelle Tribune (13 Jan. 2013).
58
Halifa Legrand and Jauvert, ‘Mali’.
59
Jean Dominique Merchet, ‘Général Barrera: <<Mes Ordres Étaient Clairs: Détruisez
Les Djihadistes!>>’,L’Opinion (13 July 2013).
60
Hollande, ‘Declaration’.
61
‘Hollande: L’opération Au Mali “N’a Pas D’ature but Que La Lutte Contre Le
Terrorisme”‘,Le Monde (12 Jan. 2013).
12 Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

political interests in the region. The four objectives for ‘Serval’that the
French government publicly announced thus reflected the underlying
strategic interests that France wanted to safeguard.
A Powerful Executive and a Willingness to take Risks
Obtaining Parliamentary support for military interventions, often a
contentious issue for France’s European partners, is less problematic in
Paris. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic strongly favours the
executive and according to article 35, the government need only inform
Parliament within three days of launching a military intervention. For
Operation ‘Serval, the French parliamentary debate was held on 16
January 2013, during which broad cross-party support for the mission
was established with few dissenting voices.
62
Looking at the political prerequisites that Clausewitz identifies as
being essential for the successful use of military force, France could
muster clear goals, contingency planning, a robust executive and
international diplomatic support. The Malian request for military
assistance provided the legal basis while the UN resolutions on the
Malian crisis effectively ‘blessed’the intervention in retrospect.
63
As a
result, France was able to react quickly and decisively to events in the
first week of January 2013.
The Strategic Dimension of Serval’s Success
For Clausewitz, strategy was ‘the use of the engagement for the purpose
of the war’.
64
Short though this definition is, it brings to light a crucial
element; namely that war is not just about winning battles. It is about
planning engagements and using the outcomes of those battles to
further the political causes that brought about war in the first place.
When evaluating military effectiveness, it is therefore not enough to
determine whether individual battles or the larger campaigns they were
a part of ended in victory or defeat. Ultimately, success is determined by
asking if and how these outcomes contributed to the overarching
political or ‘grand strategy’goals.
The French-led military operation can be divided in three phases: (1)
stopping the jihadist advance; (2) reconquering the north and (3)
62
Dominique Le Villepin, ‘Villepin: “Non, La Guerre Ce N’est Pas La France”‘ Le
Journal du Dimanche (15 Jan. 2013).
63
Karine Bannelier and Theodore Christakis, ‘Under the UN Security Council’s
Watchful Eyes: Military Intervention by Invitation in the Malian Conflict’,Leiden
Journal of International Law 26/4 (2013), 855 74.
64
Clausewitz, On War, 207.
Operation ‘Serval’13

clearing the rebel sanctuaries. During the initial phase the Malian Army
played an important role before French assistance arrived by defending
border towns against the jihadists. During the second and third phases,
however, the French consciously shouldered the brunt of the combat
duties, preferring to sideline the Malian army for military as well as
political reasons. The approximately 6,000 AFISMA troops would also
see little fighting at this stage.
65
In contrast, 2,000 troops from Chad
would become involved in the intensive fighting to clear rebel strong-
holds in Mali’s mountainous border regions.
The fact that France already had troops prepositioned in Africa
enabled a fast response to the jihadist attack. Special forces had been
stationed in Burkina Faso for several years, as an eventual intervention
force to rescue French hostages held in the Sahel. The day before the
official decision was taken to intervene in Mali, these units were flown
from Burkina Faso to the airport of Sévaré in Mali, close to the front
lines. On 11 January 2013 these units would play an important role in
assisting the Malian Army in stopping the jihadists’advance. In the
afternoon, Gazelle helicopters strafed the advancing enemy vehicles.
That evening, Mirage 2000 fighter jets based approximately 2,000 km
away in Chad carried out numerous attacks. In total, some 800 French
troops based in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkino Faso and Chad, would
contribute to the military operation in Mali.
66
The quick mobilisation of additional troops in France was made
possible by the Guepard alert system. Within eight hours of receiving
orders on 12 January, a company of marines based in France was able
to deploy to Bamako to secure the airport. The Guepard system also
has one of France’s eight ‘inter-arms’brigades (5,500 soldiers each) on
standby for periods of six months, and on 13 January General Barerra’s
3rd Mechanised Brigade was mobilised. Ten days later the brigade staff
installed its headquarters at Bamako, and elements of the brigade joined
the special forces already present.
67
At the peak of military operations,
nearly 5,000 French troops were present in Mali.
After the city of Konna was retaken and an AQIM counter-attack on
Diabely was repulsed on 18 January, the second phase of retaking the
North began. The French strategy called for the quick liberation of the
important northern towns of Gao, Timbuctu and Kidal, largely through
the use of special forces. During the night of 25 January, a transport
plane landed on Gao’s insurgent-held runway and disembarked special
65
Rémi Carayol, ‘Guerre Au Mali: La Misma, Faible Force’,Jeune Afrique (16 April
2013).
66
Christophe Guilloteau and Philippe Nauche, Rapport D’information Sur L’opération
Serval Au Mali (Paris: Assemblée National 2013), 37.
67
Merchet, ‘Général Barrera’.
14 Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

forces soldiers who secured the airport. They were joined by armoured
units that had approached Gao by road, enabling the city’s recapture.
68
At Timbuctu, AQIM fighters had learned from the operation at Gao
and used explosives to blow craters into the runway. To maintain the
element of surprise, on 28 January around 250 paratroopers of the
Foreign Legion were dropped to secure the airport and the north of the
city. They were also joined by an armoured column and engineers and
bulldozers were subsequently parachuted in to repair the runway.
69
The
next target, Kidal, was taken with help from the Chadian military and
the assistance of Tuareg fighters who had allied themselves with the
French troops.
70
Despite the rapid capture of key airfields and cities, some Islamist
fighters continued to mount an effective resistance. For instance, after
Gao’s recapture, MUJAO fighters dissolved into the local population.
Mere weeks later, small groups of insurgents re-emerged to occupy key
government buildings. The French supported the Malian Army with
heavy ordinance in street fighting, but MUJAO continued to conduct
attacks in and around the city. Mali’sfirst suicide attack was executed
by MUJAO on 9 February 2013, and it was quickly followed by several
more. MUJAO had managed to recruit successfully from the ethnic Peul
and Songhai tribes that were traditionally oppressed by the Tuareg, and
with some local support a low-level but effective insurgency quickly
emerged.
71
The third phase of Operation ‘Serval’, clearing AQIM’s sanctuary in
the Adrar des Ifoghas massif, was conducted jointly by Chadian and
French troops. Between 19 February and 25 March, French marines,
paras, legionnaires and elite Chadian troops took on several hundred
AQIM fighters. French and Chadian troops cornered the insurgents in
the Ammetettai valley and cleared the area cave by cave. Close air
support proved essential and an air strike killed the key AQIM
commander, Abu Zeid, on 25 February. Unaccustomed to AQIM’s
tactics of feigning surrender and then using suicide bombers, Chadian
troops suffered heavy casualties in an initial ambush and ensuing fire
fights. The valley of around 25 square kilometres had been used and
fortified by AQIM since the mid-2000s, with support points and
68
Jean Christophe Notin, La Guerre de la France au Mali (Paris: Tallandrier 2014),
303 22.
69
Jean Fleury, La France En Guerre Au Mali: Les Combats D’aqmi Et La Révolte Des
Touareg (Paris: Jean Picollec 2013), 154.
70
International Crisis Group, ‘Mali: Réformer Ou Rechuter’(Brussels: International
Crisis Group 2013), 15.
71
Laurent Lagneau, ‘Mali: Le Mujao Revendique Les Attaques De Gao Et Kidal’,Zone
Militaire / Opex360.com (22 Feb. 2013).
Operation ‘Serval’15

defensive positions hidden in caves and crevices. It took around three
weeks, and more than a 1,000 French and Chadian troops to clear the
area. Set against this success was the failure to liberate French hostages
who had been captured by Malian insurgents in preceding years. They
were ushered out of the valley by AQIM before the troops’arrival.
72
Enabling Serval’s Military Effectiveness
Several factors enabled French military success in Mali. First and
foremost, combat air power was vital for stopping the jihadist advance
and later supporting ground troops in the reconquest of Mali’s north.
This was assured by flying more fighter jets from France into theatre,
basing some in Mali and others in Chad. With flights from Chad
already necessitating in-flight refuellings, obtaining overflight permis-
sion from Algeria was important from a military perspective. The
fraught bilateral relationship between Algeria and France made this a
contentious issue, even though French planes did ultimately use
Algerian airspace.
73
Logistics would prove to be a second crucial enabler of Operation
‘Serval’. Serval’s daily logistical requirements averaged 4,500 rations,
45,000 litres of water, 10 tons of munitions, 30,000 litres of vehicle fuel
and 200,000 litres of kerosene.
74
Through maritime and air transport,
19,000 tons of equipment and supplies were transported to Mali during
the first five weeks of the operation.
75
Without the assistance of cargo
planes from NATO partners the deployment would have been delayed
by weeks. Additionally, without additional in-flight refuelling capacity,
provided predominantly by the United States, operations would have
been severely hindered. As it was, a shortage of this latter capacity
prevented missions from being flown and deprived troops of combat air
support on several occasions.
76
Other military enablers were good tactical intelligence, French
troops’combat experience and limited media coverage. Mali had
become a priority for French intelligence services, which led to insight
into the capabilities and intentions of the different terrorist groups.
77
72
Jean Louis Tremblai, ‘Mali: La Traque Aux Islamistes’,Le Figaro (26 April 2013).
73
‘Exclusif: Les Rafale Français N’ont Pas Survolé L’algérie’,Jeune Afrique (21 Jan.
2013).
74
Ibid., 45.
75
Jean Pierre Chevènement and Gérard Larcher, ‘Rapport D’information Fait Au Nom
De La Commission Des Affaires Étrangères, De La Défense Et Des Forces Armées (1)
Par Le Groupe De Travail «Sahel»’(Paris: Sénat 2013) 128.
76
Ibid., 72.
77
Lasserre and Oberlé, Notre Guerre Secrète Au Mali, 22.
16 Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

According to French military sources, the troops’experience in
Afghanistan contributed significantly to their professionalism and
capacity to operate in the harsh environment of Northern Mali.
Finally, limited media coverage of the military operations gave the
French freedom of manoeuvre and probably contributed to the lack of
criticism in the international press. Access to information and war-
zones was strictly controlled by the French and Malian armed forces.
Billed as a ‘guerre sans images’(war without images) by journalists,
there were no videos of collateral damage or human rights violations
that could detract from the broad public support for the intervention.
78
The Role of Chance and Luck
Clausewitz likened war to a ‘game of cards’and frequently emphasised
the influence of chance and luck on war plans and the conduct of
operations.
79
In the case of Operation ‘Serval’, the luck of the draw
appears to have benefited the French. In hindsight, several errors by the
Islamist insurgents can be identified that worked in the favour of France
and its allies.
The first strategic miscalculation by the insurgents was their initial
attack southwards on 9 January 2013, which provided the pretext and
international legitimacy for the French intervention. According to letters
discovered in Timbuctu, the emir of AQIM, Abelmalek Droukdel, did
expect an eventual international military intervention in northern Mali
but ordered his commanders not take any risks in provoking one.
80
The
attack on the south was, however, initiated by fighters from Ansar Dine
who were not under his direct command. Their motives remain unclear,
but their leader Iyad ag Ghali may have wanted to assert his authority
over the fractious group by an audacious move to break the stalemate.
A second strategic mistake was former AQIM commander Mokhtar
Belmokhtar’s attack on the Algerian gas complex at In Amenas on 17
January 2013. Although framed by the attackers as retribution for
Algeria providing France with overflight permission, the attack had
probably been planned long beforehand as the assailants had detailed
knowlegde of the facilities. To the international public, the attack
illustrated that the Malian insurgent groups formed a key regional
78
Amnesty International, Mali: Premier Bilan De La Situation Des Droits Humains
Après Trois Semaines De Combats’, (London: Amnesty International Publications
2013) 1 13; Reporters Without Borders, ‘French Military Intervention Achieves ‘Zero
Image of the War Front’Media Objective’, (15 February 2013).
79
Clausewitz, On War,96 7.
80
Rukmini Callimachi, ‘In Timbuktu, Al Qaida Left Behind a Manifesto’,Associated
Press (14 Feb. 2013).
Operation ‘Serval’17

threat and it helped consolidate international political support for the
French intervention. Most importantly, the involvement of American
civilians in the hostage crisis led to more active American support for
the French operation. The US had initially remained on the sidelines,
and only agreed to meet French requests for large transport and
refuelling planes after the In Amenas attack.
81
During the reconquest of Mali’s north, chance sided with the French
once more when many of the insurgents decided not to oppose the
initial assault but retreated to their mountainous hideouts instead. The
northern airfields and cities were predominantly taken by special forces
through parachute drops and airborne landings, and these high risk
operations could have led to many more French casualties had the
insurgents remained behind in larger numbers. AQIM’s decision to
stand and fight in the Ardar des Ifoghas can in retrospect also be
qualified as an unwise one. They could have easily crossed the porous
border into Niger to live and fight another day, but chose not to. As a
result, AQIM lost the important local commander Abu Zeid, an
estimated 130 experienced fighters and 50 tons of arms and ammuni-
tion during this phase of combat alone.
82
In general, the French reconquest of the North was facilitated by the
local population’s welcoming attitude towards the ‘liberating’troops,
frequently informing them of the whereabouts of their opponents and
preventing these from dissolving into the local community. This was not
predestined, as France was not particularly popular in Mali prior to
Operation ‘Serval’. Once again, France benefited from mistakes made
by AQIM, MUJAO and Ansar Dine. In another letter written by
Droukel to his commanders, he chastises them for rushing the imple-
mentation of Islamic Sharia law (especially the harsh punishments),
ascertaining that they had alienated large segments of the population
that were not yet ‘ready’for this lifestyle. The failure to win the local
hearts and minds effectively complemented the terrorists’military defeat
with a popular one.
83
‘Serval’s’Longer-Term Effects
By the end of March 2013, the jihadists’advance southwards had been
halted, Mali’s further destabilisation had been prevented and territorial
control had been largely restored to the provisional government in
Bamako. In addition, France and its African allies had dislodged the
jihadists from their sanctuary in the Malian version of Tora Bora.
81
Fleury, La France En Guerre Au Mali, 148 9.
82
Halifa Legrand and Jauvert, ‘Mali’.
83
Callimachi, ‘In Timbuktu’.
18 Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

AQIM, MUJAO and Ansar Dine had suffered a severe tactical defeat,
losing important commanders, many fighters and significant stocks of
arms. Operation ‘Serval’appears to have been successful in halting
Mali’s collapse and safeguarding French regional economic assets. The
question is whether these short-term military success will prove to have
staying power. To what extent has ‘Serval’been able to contribute to
lasting peace and security in Mali?
Arguably, ‘Serval’s’most concrete contribution to Mali’s longer-term
stability was its role in restoring the country’s democratic legitimacy.
Malian presidential elections were held in mid and late 2013. Despite
serious shortcomings in the preparations for these elections, France
resisted calls to postpone them and significantly slowed down the
withdrawal timetable of its troops to provide security.
84
The relatively
successful, free and fair conduct of these elections was an essential
precondition for Mali to access the €3.25 billion in donor aid pledged
by the international community in May 2013.
85
Serval also accelerated
the deployment of the UN peace-keeping mission and renewed the focus
of the international donor community on Mali.
86
Democratic elections, however, are insufficient to guarantee the
longer-term stability of Mali. Although AQIM and MUJAO lost
possibly a third of their fighters during ‘Serval’, they have since
regrouped in southern Libya, creating a new sanctuary and base of
operations there.
87
Like the guerilla campaign that arose in the wake of
Gao’s recapture, this development indicates that military force alone is
hard pressed to provide long-term solutions to armed conflict. The
broader political goal of stabilising Mali is dependent on the ability to
bridge historic ethnic divides, combat endemic corruption and tackle
pervasive organised crime. Despite ‘Serval’s’military success and Mali’s
elections, the issue of reconciliation between the Tuareg peoples and the
regime and population in the south is far from resolved.
88
‘Serval’s’military success and its contribution to the restoration of
democracy in Mali offered a window of opportunity to address issues of
good governance and initiate reconciliation and peace talks between the
84
Sergei Boeke, Combining exit with strategy: transitioning from short term military
interventions to a long term counter terrorism policy (The Hague: International Centre
for Counter Terrorism 2014), 10.
85
European Commission, ‘International donor conference: €3.25 billion mobilised by
international community to rebuild Mali’(15 May 2013) <http://europa.eu/rapid/press
release IP 13 429 en.htm>.
86
For the French disappointment with the EU and the slow process of authorising and
deploying the European Union Training Force (EUTM), see Guilloteau and Nauche,
‘Rapport D’information’.
87
Chevènement and Larcher, ‘Rapport D’information’.
88
International Crisis Group, ‘Mali’.
Operation ‘Serval’19

government and the rebel factions. Unfortunately, at the time of writing
it appears that this chance has been missed. Like all military interven-
tions, ‘Serval’created a dynamic of its own and its shortcomings and
unintended consequences shaped the future prospects for peace and
stability. On the battlefield the French could not but accept the
assistance of the Tuareg MNLA separatists, who turned on their initial
jihadist allies to exact revenge for the hijacking of their rebellion. But
from the perspective of Bamako these forces were responsible for
launching the rebellion in the first place. Their close cooperation with
France further complicates already fraught peace negotiations.
89
From the perspective of Paris, ‘Serval’had the narrow goal of
preventing Mali’s collapse and then removing a terrorist safe-haven.
Responsibility for addressing the causes of Mali’s crisis was seen to lie
with the government in Bamako. As the Malian government is currently
proving unwilling and unable to structurally reform, France is stuck
between the Scylla and Charybdis of perceived excessive interference by
a former colonial power on the one hand and being seen as a passive
accomplice to a new failing state on the other. While it is clear that
France and MINUSMA are currently struggling with the situation, their
challenge will be to avoid becoming a permanent part of the problem.
In short, while Operation ‘Serval’safeguarded French interests in the
short term, its ability to make a long-term contribution to peace and
stability in Mali remains doubtful.
Conclusion
The conflict in Mali is one of the latest in a long list of post-1945
examples of states’military power being employed against violent non-
state actors.
90
Various authors have claimed that such conflicts
dominated by irregular forces have ushered in a ‘new’form of warfare
that is essentially post-Clausewitzian.
91
Often, such arguments have
been based on a questionable reading of Clausewitz’s thinking on the
nature of war, falsely attributing to him a state-centric perspective on
armed conflict. As this contribution has hoped to demonstrate,
Clausewitz’s trinity of violence, rational purpose and chance and luck
89
Cheikh Diouara, ‘French battle Mali Islamists as Tuareg problem looms’,Reuters (6
February 2013).
90
Bart Schuurman, ‘Trinitarian troubles: governmental, military, and societal explana
tions for post 1945 western failures in asymmetric conflicts’,Small Wars &
Insurgencies 22/1 (March 2011) 34.
91
E.g.: Mary Kaldor, ‘Elaborating the “New War”thesis’in Isabelle Duyvesteyn and
Jan Angstrom (eds.), Rethinking the nature of war (New York: Frank Cass 2005),
210 24.
20 Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

not only continues to be relevant to contemporary warfare, but
provides a useful lens through which to study such conflicts.
This article provided a case study of France’s intervention in Mali. By
using a Clausewitzian analytical framework, the authors analysed
Operation ‘Serval’from three separate but related angles; its political
aims and background, its military-strategic development and the role of
luck and chance. Clausewitz considered clear and realistic political aims
crucial for the successful use of military force. In this case, France had
clearly recognisable strategic interests that would be threatened by the
Malian government’s collapse. These were preventing the establishment
of a radical Islamist ‘free state’that could destabilise the region and
threaten France and French interests and the safeguarding of its
economic interests in the region. These interests were translated into
several clear political goals; to stop the jihadists’attack on southern
Mali, to prevent the further destabilisation of Mali’s interim govern-
ment and to restore its territorial integrity.
Greatly improving the political feasibility of Operation ‘Serval’were
France’s extensive diplomatic efforts. These contributed to the creation
of an EU training mission to bolster Mali’s military capabilities and UN
support for an African led support mission, AFISMA, as well as
international recognition that the Islamist insurgents needed to be
dealt with. Rounding off the political aspect of Serval was the French
government’s contingency planning, which provided both the plans and
the intelligence necessary to react quickly to the Islamists’unexpected
push southwards in early 2013, before the UN-mandated mission had
time to arrive in theatre. When France’s unilateral military intervention
began, it was able to benefit from broad international support and
accurate intelligence.
Military operations during Serval were characterised by decisiveness
on the part of France’s political executive, which mandated a rapid
response to the insurgents’advance, and the accompanying willingness
to take considerable risks. The early stages of Serval saw the Islamists’
assault halted through a combination of Malian troops, French special
forces and air power. Days after the launch of Operation ‘Serval’,
French objectives were significantly expanded by adding the goal of
retaking the north. This entailed the deployment of considerable ground
forces which, together with the forces of several African allies, notably
Chad, managed to inflict heavy losses on the insurgents and drive them
from their strongholds. Important ‘enablers’of French military opera-
tions were the availability of combat air support, reliable intelligence,
experienced troops and the crucial assistance provided by NATO allies
with regards to in-flight refuelling and air-lift capacity.
Clausewitzian theory teaches that chance and luck will work their
influence on even the most carefully prepared operations. On the whole,
Operation ‘Serval’21

these unpredictable influences worked in the favour of France and its
allies. For instance, the Islamist forces had not counted on France
actually intervening to stop their assault southwards and their harsh
imposition of Sharia law lost them the crucial factor of popular
support. By contrast, terrorist attacks such as those carried out in
Algeria bolstered the international community’s resolution to tackle
Mali’s Islamist threat and contributed to the availability of military
assets to ‘Serval’, such as in-flight refuelling capacity provided by the
US. Such mistakes, combined with French military effectiveness, led to
‘Serval’s’; ability to quickly achieve its overarching political objectives.
However, while ‘Serval’was a success as far as the attainment of
French political goals was concerned, its ability to contribute to a
longer-term solution to the Malian conflict appears limited. Set against
Mali’s broader political context, the insurgency is one of the symptoms
of several fractures that uénderlie Malian society. Their causes cannot
be addressed by military means alone. At most, Operational ‘Serval’has
diminished what was a growing threat to the region and offered a
window of opportunity to work on the complex political, social, ethnic
and economic issues that continue to plague Mali. From this perspec-
tive, Operation ‘Serval’provided a stop-gap solution and restored Mali
to the status quo ante before the Tuareg rebellion and coup d’état.
What it did not do, however, was address any of the causes that led to
both.
92
Acknowledgements
The authors are gratefulto Thijs Brocades Zaalberg and Antonin Tisseron
for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article. They would
also like to thank Thibault van Damme for his research assistance.
Notes on contributors
Sergei Boeke (LL.M., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) is a researcher at
Leiden University’s Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism (CTC)
and a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-
Terrorism (ICCT) in The Hague. His research focuses on terrorism in
the Sahel and cyber security.
Bart Schuurman (MA, Utrecht University) is a researcher and PhD
student at the CTC. His research interests include the causes of
terrorism, strong-power defeats in asymmetric conflicts and
Clausewitzian theory.
92
Boeke and Tisseron, ‘Mali’s long road’.
22 Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

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Operation ‘Serval’23

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24 Sergei Boeke and Bart Schuurman

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Operation ‘Serval’25