Clausewitz in the Sahel: An Analysis of Operation Serval through the Lens of On War
By Major Chad K. Brinton, U.S. Army
Disclaimer. The ideas expressed in this article are the author’s own and in no way represent official policy of the Department of Defense or Department of the Army.
Introduction
It is difficult to find a more different setting than Carl von Clausewitz’s 19th century Prussia when examining unrest in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, it is precisely this stark contrast that presents a litmus test for the validity of Clausewitz’s theories about war and strategy vis-à-vis France’s 2013 Operation Serval in Mali. Beginning with a historical background of Operation Serval followed by an analysis of the conflict through the lens of Clausewitz’s seminal work, On War, this article shows how Clausewitz’s theories relate to one modern military operation and help explain Mali’s continued instability. The analysis focuses on the two principal armed belligerents, France and jihadist fighters, but also discusses the roles of other relevant actors including secular Tuareg separatists and the Malian government. Clausewitz’s concept of a “Trinity” provides structure to organize the discussion into three categories: government reason, demographic passion, and military uncertainty. This organizational tool however does not preclude discussion of relevant concepts from On War outside the Trinity itself.
Operation Serval
Operation Serval was France’s military-led response to a “jihadist advance on Bamako” in early 2013. By 2012, the threat to France’s economic and strategic interests in Mali foreshadowed engagement to stop terrorist activity connected to dangers within France and those threatening French citizens abroad. Much of these dangers grew from the Arab Spring, which catalyzed the hostile influences of religious extremism and secular separatism in Mali. Three main jihadist groups rose to compel their shared vision of a Sahelian caliphate on populations in Mali: Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), and Ansar al-Dine. At the same time, Tuareg separatists fought for northern independence in Mali to remedy perceived disenfranchisement and political isolation by the government in Bamako. The most influential separatist group was the National Movement for the Liberation of Azwad (MNLA), a force of unemployed Tuareg mercenaries, previously engaged by Qadhafi, that journeyed into Mali after the dictator’s downfall in Libya. The jihadists capitalized on MNLA experience and Tuareg grievances to further their own vision for a Sahelian caliphate.
In January 2012, the Jihadist-Tuareg confederacy butchered Malian military forces in northern Mali. Malian forces responded against their own government with a symbolic coup, claiming that Bamako’s incompetence and corruption led to the slaughter. In any case, Mali’s military ineffectiveness allowed the jihadists to consolidate power in the north and install Sharia law across their controlled territory to the detriment of secular Tuareg influence.
One year later, on January 9, 2013, jihadists made the strategic error of invading southern Mali while attempting to expand their caliphate. This aggression outraged the international community and triggered Mali’s request for French assistance. It also provided justification for the use of military force under international law.
On January 11, 2013, France began military action by employing their special forces stationed in Burkina Faso. Larger scale operations developed as French forces from other African nations (e.g. Chad, Cote d’Ivoire) joined the fight to stop the jihadists. With superior organization and overwhelming airpower, France regained control of the regions south of the Niger River Bend by January 22, 2013.
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Figure 1. Concentration of Armed Jihadist Groups before Intervention (AQMI = AQIM,
Ansar Eddine = Ansar al-Dine), author’s translation.
Source : État-major des Armées, Centre de Planification et de Conduite des Opérations (CPCO).
Figure 2. Operation Serval Rebel Held Territory.
Source: Map shared by Orionist via Wikipedia; CC BY SA 3.0. Adapted by Michael Shurkin.
Seizing the momentum, French generals moved to quickly reconquer northern Mali. Air strikes transitioned to troop movement maximizing mission command to rapidly engage the enemy. Lines of communication stretched across large distances in austere conditions as operations retook the historically city of Timbuktu along with the operationally relevant city of Gao. Jihadist fled to their fortifications in the rugged Adrar Ifoghas mountains as the local population celebrated their freedom from Sharia law
French forces pursued their enemy into the Ifoghas mountains where, with the help of Chadian forces, they engaged in the fiercest fighting of Operation Serval. Enduring extreme heat well into 120 degrees Fahrenheit and carrying heavy loads tipping scales at nearly 100lbs per rucksack, French forces painstakingly cleared the rocky valleys of the jihadists’ safe havens and dislodged them from their logistics and weapons depots. Over the course of a month, Operation Serval forces killed approximately 400 enemy fighters and seized over 130 tons of munitions and equipment.
Figure 4. Phase 3: Transition to African Forces as of May 1st…, author’s translation.
Source : État-major de l’armée de Terre.
Note: Map shows French control transitioning to Burkina Faso in Timbuktu,
Chad in Tessalit and Kidal, Mali in Gao, and Niger in Menaka.
In just four months, France had achieved its goals of: securing Bamako, stopping the insurgency, and allowing Mali to regain its territorial integrity. Most judged Operation Serval a clear victory. French officials labeled it a “major success […] even better than we expected.” Even the Americans praised the Operation as “absolutely excellent.” By April 2013, France reduced its military tempo to stem the rising costs of operations and to ensure longevity of political support.
Despite Operation Serval’s successes, several problems lingered for France. The country’s intervention in the Maghreb elevated France’s value as terrorist target. UN peacekeepers unable to ensure Mali’s security required enduring counterterror operations through Operation Barkhane, which continues to yield French casualties. Indeed, the current situation draws comparisons with the U.S. experience in Afghanistan and Iraq as “France’s Forever War.”
Carl Von Clausewitz
France’s illusion of triumph in Mali would not surprise Carl von Clausewitz, who reiterated in his writings that “in strategy, there is no such thing as victory.” Operation Serval did render the jihadists temporarily powerless and showed the usefulness of exploiting tactical victories for strategic advantage and further tactical success, but it did not permanently end the conflict in Mali.
Clausewitz’ definition of war: “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will,” describes the context of Operation Serval in the Sahel. Jihadists sought to compel its enemy (Mali) to do its will (cede territory to allow a Salafist caliphate) by using force. France responded by using military power to compel its enemy (jihadists) to do its will (relinquish control of northern Mali). By following Clausewitz’ script for the use of strategy, these actors both employed force as the primary means to carry out their purposes of war.
Clausewitz’s insight into war and politics also accurately captures the political landscape surrounding Operation Serval. Clausewitz attributes war to a group’s use of force to further its policies against an opposing group. The conclusion that “war is merely the continuation of policy by other means,” implicates armed forces who fight as political instruments for governments in the collective interest of the state, which represents its citizenry. This fundamental interplay between governments, peoples, and militaries led Clausewitz to his “‘Wonderous Trinity,’” a cognitive model representing the complex interaction between: 1) government policy or reason, 2) a people’s primordial violence or hostility, and 3) a military’s attempt to influence chance. Given the universality of the Trinity, it is natural to use this as a model for Operation Serval within a Clausewitzian framework.
Reason / The Government
France’s newly-elected president, François Hollande, faced easy criticism for military intervention in Mali given his repeated campaign promises to finish with Françafrique, a term indicating corrosive French interference on the continent. Yet, the new reality in Mali endangered economic, military, and energy interests abroad and destabilized security interests at home. Moreover, ignoring the situation would threaten France’s global relevance. In this context, targeting the extremist threat facing Bamako represented a political decision to promote the best interests of France, conforming to Clausewitz’s idea that war is politics by other means.
Operation Serval shows that politics-through-war also implicates non-state actors. Clausewitz wrote of this phenomenon applying to groups having less than “a high degree of civilization.” Interpreted broadly this includes the autonomous jihadist and separatist actors in Mali. One can easily view the jihadists’ ideological ambition to impose a caliphate in Mali as a political objective addressed by Clausewitz, which applies equally to the MNLA’s design to gain Tuareg independence.
Clausewitz understood that political intrigue and national self-interest will take precedence over bilateral ideals and alliances in war. Even if two countries share a common enemy, political considerations will ultimately dominate each country’s commitment, resulting in a “business deal” that touts maximum effort but provides less than available means. France shows this tendency by sending a relatively modest number of forces (4,000) to Mali, a country nearly three times larger than France. A starker example comes from the secret agreement reached between MNLA and French forces, under which the MNLA provided intelligence about AQIM to locate hostages and enemy forces in exchange for MNLA bargaining leverage during post-conflict negotiations.
Conversely, Clausewitz’s idea that war completely replaces other political tools is not helpful in the modern international system. First, local politics restrained total war in France’s modern western democracy. Second, the modern international system of norms and laws regulated the use of force in Mali. France relied on authority from the international system (e.g. Article 51 of the United Nations [UN] Charter) to justify its military actions under legitimate-defense theory and to pursue cooperation with regional organizations (e.g. African Union, European Union, and Economic Community of West African States). Finally, France urged UN Security Council Resolution 2100 authorizing peacekeeping forces to enable its military decoupling. The disconnect between Clausewitz’s theories and the modern international system is understandable given his unfamiliarity with the nature of the post-World War II institutions designed to minimize conflict.
Passion / The People
While political organizations (i.e. France, AQIM) managed the execution of the war, Operation Serval remained “the business of the people.” Populations in France and Mali generally supported French military action in Mali and the international community concurred. These populations judged that self defense, humanitarian interests, stability in the Sahel, and protection of economic interests justified violence. As Clausewitz predicted, hostility would erupt with such interests at stake, just as the threat to important interests caused conflict in his own day.
AQIM keenly understood the importance of population support and counseled Ansar al-Dine against the initial application of Sharia law to avoid disenfranchising the local population. AQIM also realized the strict application of Sharia law would likely bring international condemnation. AQIM desired more cooperation between the islamists and Tuareg separatists in order to win the support of the most important tribes. These concerns were well-founded; indeed, ignoring them would offend the local population, drive the international community to authorize the use of force, and disenfranchise the MNLA to the point of cooperating with France.
Clausewitz implicates the passion of the people through his insight that governments should abandon their object of war should costs become too high. Recognizing the popular risks of long-term engagement in Mali, France was carefully efficient in its military action and quick to claim success. The country also ardently supported a rapid UN peacekeeping transition to influence the perception that the international community held a stake in the use of force. Nevertheless, as the only nation capable and willing to continue effective engagement, France retained responsibility for antiterrorist operations by initiating Operation Barkhane.
Chance / The Military
The military shoulders the burden of operating within the chaos of war, which Clausewitz describes as the discrepancy between theoretical war and real war separated by the concept of “friction,” separated into two categories: 1) “general” friction including danger, physical exertion, and uncertain intelligence, and 2) “incidental” friction meaning uncertainty or chance.
Operation Serval presents clear examples of general friction. AQIM and French combatants faced danger. Many lost their lives, and more were exposed to horrors of war including torture and executions. They also endured the physical exertion, hunger, and thirst involved with lengthy movement and maneuver in the desert. Uncertain intelligence about jihadist control of sophisticated Libyan weapons worried France. French access to advanced imagery and electromagnetic communication tools did not preclude entering battles without a complete intelligence assessment. Clausewitz’s conclusion that “many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false” seems overly cynical, but the axiom that “most are uncertain” remains relevant.
In contrast to the way France labored through general friction, France mitigated special friction’s uncertainty and chance through careful planning and meticulous organization. Rather than accepting a reactionary mindset against a mysterious “all-pervading element” that is “difficult to describe,” France undertook effective preparation and execution to make the complex look simple. Indeed, France mobilized troops from Europe and across Africa. Additionally, coordination with allied support filled necessary requirement gaps including airlift, refueling, medical and ISR to prevent uncertainty from impeding missions facing strained logistics in harsh conditions.
Another factor that affects the outcome of wars is leadership “genius,” which Clausewitz describes by the French term “coup d’oeil,” that allows commanders to reach exceptional achievements based on their ability to identify objective truths despite uncertainty caused by the “fog” of war. France chose Brigadier General Grégoire de Saint-Quentin to take operational control of Operational Serval given his special operations background and existing relationships within Africa. His success, and that of subordinate commanders, resulted in part from this characteristic, as only qualified individuals could have produced such successful results even when considering the low levels of jihadist military competence.
Finally, French forces followed Clausewitz’s recipes for tactical and operational success. France leveraged the primary advantage of attack over defense by concentrating force at decisive points in the well-defended Ifoghas mountains to achieve local superiority against the defenders in repeated victories that cleared AQIM from their fortifications. France also targeted enemy centers of gravity to defeat AQIM, one of Clausewitz’s most important criteria for victory. By focusing on a decapitation strategy, France killed the AQIM “ringleader” Abu Zeid and dislocated other key leaders and fighters.
Conclusion
France’s military superiority clearly dominated jihadist opposition during Operation Serval. Thus, one might expect the eradication of toxic influence followed by a peaceful rebuilding of the Malian government. However, the current political situation is unsatisfying from both military and political perspectives as jihadist influence remains a threat to Mali and Operation Barkhane continues into its seventh year. Meanwhile, Mali’s fundamental internal political troubles just erupted with another military coup and fall of the country’s president.
Operation Serval does reveal shortcomings in Clausewitz’s ideas as they relate to modern warfare. New technology offers greater fidelity of information that allows for more complete planning and questions Clausewitz’s dismissal of reliable intelligence. French efficiency during Operation Serval also undercuts the usefulness of incidental friction as an explanation for uncertainty. Finally, the modern international system regulates war contrary to Clausewitz’s understanding through a framework of institutions and laws intended to minimize conflict and build international consensus to an extent unforeseen by Clausewitz in his time.
Nevertheless, Clausewitz’s theories do provide a valuable framework to explain the causes, events, and outcomes of Operation Serval. Key military tactics such as the concentration of forces, attack and defense, and centers of gravity retain their importance for strategic influence. Operation Serval illustrates the interrelationship between tactical success, military strategy, and government policy as predicted by Clausewitz. Clausewitz’s concept of the Trinity is valuable as an accurate model describing the fundamental complexity between rationality, uncertainty, and passion applied by the forces of governments, militaries, and people in pursuit of competing interests. The unresolved situation in the Sahel vindicates Clausewitz’s predictions that victory may be illusory. In any case, it is remarkable to discover predictions and explanations for these phenomena in the 200-year-old ideas of a German military theoretician as they relate to modern insurgency warfare in sub-Saharan Africa.
About the Author
Major Chad K. Brinton, J.D., is an Army FAO focusing on sub-Saharan Africa (48J). He is currently finishing Advanced Civilian Schooling at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In 2019, Chad completed In-region Training based in Dakar, Senegal including a short deployment as acting Security Cooperation Office Chief in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. In 2018, Chad graduated from the Army’s Command and General Staff College. Prior to transitioning to the FAO functional area, Chad served as an Army Judge Advocate, during which he practiced various fields of law including administrative, criminal, family, international, operations, and tax law. Previously, Chad served as an Army Counterintelligence Agent.