Improving the UK offer in Africa: Lessons from military partnerships on the continent

Abstract

This focusses on the military contribution to UK efforts in Nigeria, Kenya and Mali and, particularly on:

• The current strategic disconnect between stated ambitions for the British contribution to security on the African continent and the activities being run to build partner capacity;
• A short-term approach to partnerships that prioritises tactical activities over broader institutional support and reform that might address underlying causes of conflict.

Full text

1
In Focus
Improving the UK offer in Africa: Lessons
from military partnerships on the continent
March 2019 - Abigail Watson and Emily Knowles
Introduction
Conict in the Middle East and internaonal support
to the an-IS Coalion have dominated headlines over
the last few years. However, this is not the only region
where the UK is working with local forces in the face
of violent conict and terrorism. We call this approach
to contemporary military operaons remote warfare,
because internaonal partners are countering threats
at a distance without the deployment of large numbers
of their own military forces. The African connent is a
congested space for this sort of acvity, with mulple
overlapping unilateral, bilateral and mullateral eorts
aimed at building stability, countering terrorist acvity
and building the capacity of local partners.
Remote warfare is not necessarily a new feature of
military operaons on the connent, but it is a strategic
growth area. The March 2018 Naonal Security and
Capability Review (NSCR) outlined how Brish acvies
on the connent “will change and expand...”1 with
the subsequent Modernising Defence Programme
(MDP) detailing how the Brish presence in forty
African countries “gives us a plaorm to help develop
the instuons that will deliver peace and security in
the region.”2 Prime Minister Theresa May used a trip
to South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya in the summer of
2018 to champion “a new partnership between the
UK and our friends in Africa”, highlighng the pivotal
role the UK was playing to support its partners to ght
instability on the connent:
“Nigerian troops on the frontline against Boko Haram
have received specialist training from Britain. Count-
er-terror operaons in Mali are being supported by
Brish Chinook helicopters. Brish troops in Kenya have
trained African Union peacekeepers heading for Soma-
lia, while also working with internaonal partners to
reform the Somalian security forces for the long-term.”3
By September 2018 when we arrived in Mali and
Kenya to build on our research into remote warfare,
we were told that budgets were on the rise and
the UK was doing its best to lean in and support its
partners across the connent. The year before, the
Brish Peace Support Team, which trains local troops
parcipang in African Union operaons to counter
al-Shabaab in Somalia, had widened its geographic
mandate to cover the whole connent.4 In Mali, the
arrival of three Royal Air Force Chinook helicopters in
July 2018 had heralded ‘the next stage’ in UK support
to allied operaons to counter the spread of jihadist
groups and support local security forces.5
This upli in the UK military’s strategic aenon
to acvies in Africa is welcome, parcularly as it
forms part of broader eorts to develop a “more
strategic approach to [the UK’s] work in conict-
aected states.”6 The most visible sign of this was
the creaon of a joint pool of funding, between
the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Department for
Internaonal Development (DFID) and the Foreign
and Commonwealth Oce (FCO), called the Conict
Stability and Security Fund (CSSF). Across government,
this instuonalised a direct link between the Naonal
Security Council's (NSC) strategies and projects on the
ground; for instance, through the new Regional Boards
which put forward strategies for approval at the NSC
level and oversee the delivery of NSC strategies in their
respecve regions and countries. It also increased
programmac funding to over £1 billion a year.7
However, for anyone hoping that increased polical
aenon would lead to the clear priorisaon of
military acvies or the clarity of strategic objecves,
inial feedback is not encouraging. As was neatly
summarised by one soldier, the Brish approach
to security partnerships on the connent could

2
be described as one where “we just throw some
men here and some men there.”a This brief is based
on eld research conducted in Kenya and Mali in
September 2018 with Brish and internaonal military
personnel, as well as telephone interviews with Brish
personnel rotang in and out of Nigeria between
September-December 2018. It focusses on the military
contribuon to UK eorts in these countries and,
parcularly, on two inial ndings from a broader
project examining the factors for success and failure of
remote warfare, namely:
• The current strategic disconnect between
stated ambions for the Brish contribuon
to security on the African connent and the
acvies being run to build partner capacity;
• A short-term approach to partnerships that
priorises taccal acvies over broader
instuonal support and reform that might
address underlying causes of conict.
The disconnect between aspiration and
activity
In a 2018 assessment of the CSSF by the Independent
Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI), it was noted that
– despite some improvements – the government
sll “lack[ed] a clear logic connecng the acvies
they support to the [stated] objecve of promong
sustainable peace, stability and security.”8 Similarly,
several Framework Suppliers told the Joint Commiee
on Naonal Security Strategy that their ability to
understand and respond to the Government’s priories
was hampered by a lack of clarity.9
These same concerns were reected in our interviews
with soldiers on the ground, who were frustrated that
they seemed to be “operang in a polical vacuum”b
despite the stated strategic importance of African
partnerships. For example, in Mali, there were a few
men scaered across the mulple internaonal military
iniaves in the country being run by the EU, the UN
and the French without a clear sense of how these
acvies – in aggregate – might lead to a sustainable
improvement in the capacity of their Malian partners.
In addion, when we asked about the strategic join up
between an expanding Brish focus on the Sahel and
ongoing support to countries like Nigeria who are also
countering instability and terrorist groups operang
around the Lake Chad Basin, the response was that
work was beginning to integrate those strategies, but
that coordinaon remained personality-driven rather
than instuonalised.
Similarly, in Kenya, the expansion of the then-Brish
Peace Support Team East Africa (BPST-EA) to cover the
a Interview (4/9/2018)
b Interview (20/09/2018)
whole of the connent had only come with an upli
in capacity of a handful of personnel and no clear
direcon as to where and how to expand acvies.
Instead, many of our interviewees spoke of carrying
out legacy training courses, not because they had been
directed to do so but “because no one told [them] not
to .”c
A parcular scking point was whether it would be
beer to understand UK training acvity in countries
like Kenya as taccal and transaconal rather than
strategic and transformaonal when it came to its
impact on partner behaviour. As one soldier put it:
“As an embedded security adviser, am I making these
people any beer? Probably not. However, I am
sending a polical message.”d For instance, more than
one interviewee pointed out that oering the Kenyans
peace support training might be one way to oset the
fact that the Brish rely on a facility in Kenya to train
the enrety of the Brish infantry. This, in principle, is
no bad thing. The UK has pinpointed improving polical
access and inuence in country as a stated naonal
objecve. However, the fact that there appeared to be
some confusion about whether – and to what extent
– this was the point of acvies on the ground is not
ideal.
In both countries, soldiers were scepcal that there
was the polical appete to measure the eects of
their training acvies with local partners in a way
that would capture long-term progress or overarching
strategic goals like building accountable, eecve,
legimate local security forces. While there are
concerted and ongoing eorts to address this, many
interviewees expressed their frustraon with the fact
that they connued to lose sight of local forces the
moment they le the training courses, with no reliable
mechanism for feeding back whether their conduct or
capabilies on operaons ulmately improved.
In addion, because those developing strategy in
London were not eecvely communicang with those
on the ground, many soldiers expressed concerns
that future acvies would not have more chance of
being successful in the long-term. As an interviewee
with experience in Nigeria put it, decision-makers in
London viewed themselves as “the A team”, reducing
deployed personnel to the status of “the B or the C
team”.e On occasion this led to decisions being made
in London that would have run counter to the advice
of local troops, if they had been consulted as part
of the strategic process. Although beyond the scope
of this brieng, ICAI’s broader assessment of CSSF
programmes also agged “weak results management
and insucient learning” as a key problem with other,
non-military, eorts as well – arguing that this risked
undermining the UK “contribuon to building peace,
c Interview (20/9/2018)
d Interview (4/9/2018)
e Interview (15/10/2018)

3
stability and security.”10
As Brish strategic aims expand in the region,
matching acvity to aspiraons will become even
more important. As the next secon explores, this will
require rethinking the current approach to working
with local partners if it is to succeed in delivering bold
strategic aims for the connent.
Doing what we can
As the UK military connues to look at ways to improve
its own contribuon to Brish eorts with partners on
the African connent, it is problemac that so many
soldiers appear to agree that the courses that they
are oering partners do lile to deal with the real
problems aecng stability in the countries in which
they were deployed.
At a most basic level, UK soldiers connue to struggle
to ll courses with the right people – i.e. those in the
most suitable areas of the partner forces’ militaries
who would soon need such skills in the eld.f Due,
in part, to dierences in training priories between
internaonal and partner forces and a lack of manned
training capacity from partner forces (who undertake
training on top of their operaonal demands), this can
have a detrimental impact on the eecveness of UK
training. In Kenya, there was reference to “egg ippers”,
slang in some parts of the Brish Army for chefs, being
used to ll spaces on UK courses .g Dr Marco Jowell,
Director of the Africa Research Group, found the same
problems were true of the Internaonal Peace Support
Training Centre (based on the same site as BPST in
Kenya), who constantly struggle to ll classes with the
right people and track whether those who aend the
courses are deployed onto the right missions.11
In Mali, one soldier called for “an adult conversaon
about what [our partners’] need and what we can
deliver”, comparing the current EU training mission ap-
proach to a builder that “just turned up at your house
and started xing things you hadn’t asked for.”h Beyond
this, many soldiers argued that delivering these courses
did not address the instuonal problems which were
causing instability in the countries in which they were
engaged. In Kenya, a number of soldiers argued that UK
operaons, were not “actually [going to] achieve any-
thing”i – instead, they suggested that the UK is doing
just enough to stop things geng worsej or to look like
it is doing something. k
Similarly, Jowell says of the IPSTC in Kenya that, while
such operaons may allow donor governments to
f Interview (4/9/2018)
g Interviews (4/9/2018)
h Interview (10/9/2018)
i Interview (4/9/2018)
j Interview (4/9/2018)
k Interview (4/9/2018)
claim they have trained thousands of local forces for
peacekeeping operaons, “the eect on improved
peacekeeping is less clear.”12 The lack of polical
appete to deal with underlying problems in partner
security sectors – that may be providing space for
terrorist groups to thrive – can be stark. For example
in Nigeria, where CSSF documents highlight the clear
objecve of “support[ing] the Armed Forces of Nigeria
(AFN) operang in the North East” of the country13
(where the threat of Boko Haram is most prominent)
one said that, given the nature of the training acvies
currently being undertaken, “it is hard to show that
[our acvies are] having an impact.”l He added, the
UK was “treang the symptoms not the causes of the
problem [when] the whole defence structure here
needs instuonal reform.”m
In Mali, the EU is currently training large numbers of
local troops in basic soldiering without exerng much
pressure on the government in Bamako to introduce
structural reforms that might remove some of the
factors that are weakening the armed forces. One
example is the ethnic composion of the force, which
is skewed towards those from the south of the country.
Accelerang the growth of an unrepresentave force
in the context of ongoing conicts between dierent
ethnicies in Mali could be extremely detrimental to
long-term security. Yet internaonal training acvies
appear to be retreang to taccal acvity rather than
dealing with the long-term strategic aims of building
eecve, accountable, legimate forces who will
become beer security providers for their countries
and regions.
This is not a problem restricted to the African
connent, and it is a theme that we pick up in more
depth (along with a longer discussion of the reforms
that the Brish military are trialling to get around
these problems) in a trio of reports on the military,
polical and legal implicaons of a shi towards
remote warfare.14 While territorial successes against
groups like ISIS are bolstering hope that, under the
right condions, Western support to local partners can
provide the condions for stability, there are many
dangers with such an approach. Even away from the
high-intensity conicts in Iraq and Syria, our recent
interviews with personnel in Mali, Kenya and Nigeria
reveal the complexity of such operaons. In this sense,
the current UK military oer to Africa should perhaps
stand as a cauonary tale to those who believe such
capacity building can provide quick and easy results.
l Telephone interview (5/10/2018)
m Telephone interview (5/10/2018)

4
Conclusion
So far, despite the support of the UK and its allies
to Kenya, Nigeria and Mali, as well as other troop
contribung countries in the region, none seem much
closer to developing able, accountable and legimate
security forces. Nigeria is sll struggling to stem
violence from Boko Haram, who in January forced more
than 8 000 people to ee into Cameroon to escape
escalang violence in the North East of Nigeria.15 Mali’s
army has been described as “inecient and prone to
commit abuses against civilians.”16 Similarly, despite
the many successes of the African Union Mission in
Somalia – not least in that it is the rst me the African
Union has done this sort of operaon and that it unites
so many dierent troop contribung countries behind
a shared purpose – it is sll failing to provide security in
Somalia even aer more than a decade of operaons.17
Rather than winding down, internaonal eorts
to build stability and counter terrorist groups in
the region have intensied in recent years. United
States Africa Command has increased its operaons
in Somalia, carrying out at least 46 airstrikes in the
country last year, compared to the previous record of
38 in 2017.18 The UK, like many of its allies, have once
again promised to increase support to the Nigerian
government as it connues its ght against Boko
Haram.19 And France connues to try and rally regional,
local and internaonal actors to support its operaons
in Mali.20
As the UK looks to develop and improve its cross-
government eorts in places like Kenya, Mali and
Nigeria, lessons drawn from soldiers delivering the
military contribuon to these eorts are important.
Certainly, it highlights that while progress is being
made, more strategic direcon is required to ensure
that these operaons feed into naonal objecves
and complement non-military acvies in country.
Parcularly, many soldiers called for a “deep and
narrow” approach, where – instead of “throwing some
men here and some men there” – the UK Government
decides which areas hold the most strategic
importance and commit the resources, both polically
and militarily, required to address the problems of
instability and conict.
This will come as no surprise to the government, which
has long recognised the fact that there are no easy
answers to instability in these countries.21 Improving
the long-term impact of these eorts will, however,
require the serious priorisaon of aspiraons and
acvies if we are to stand a chance of breaking out
of a cycle of violence and seng the condions for a
more stable future.
Remote Warfare Programme
Oxford Research Group
The Green House
244-254 Cambridge Heath Road
London
E2 9DA
This report was wrien by sta at the Oxford Research
Group’s Remote Warfare Programme, formerly known as the
Remote Control Project. We were set up in 2014 to examine
changes in military engagement, with a focus on remote
warfare. This is the trend in which countries like the United
Kingdom choose to support local and regional forces on the
front lines rather than deploying large numbers of their own
troops.

5
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