#Mali

The French intervention and the African-led multilateral force have saved Mali from a total collapse. At the same time, the country is far from long-term stability.

While news about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Greek debt floods the airwaves, other hotspots simmer just out of view.

While the world focuses on the calls for partition by pro-Russian citizens in the south and east of Ukraine, similar calls from a small African nation are drawing less attention — despite horrific human rights abuses occurring on its territory. In what the U.N. human rights body and Amnesty International have called “ethnic-religious cleansing” between the […]

This is something rare. Knowledge of a rapidly deteriorating situation in Africa and a somewhat timely, actual action by those in the world with the power to intervene. The situation is in the Central African Republic. And that intervening is the first step to stabilizing the slaughter and – hopefully – stopping another genocide from […]

Where do European interests lay? What are Europeans’ priorities? How can Europeans influence and shape their environments? In a recent speech, HR Ashton declared that the CSDP faces several challenges; one being that “there is no agreed long-term vision on the future of CSDP.” These questions are fundamental in order to discuss the future of the […]

On December 19 and 20, 2013, the European Council will be discussing the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), simply known as European defense. In order to cover such event a multi-part analysis will be adopted comporting several dimensions: context; the meeting; reflections on the aftermath of the Council meeting. All scholars and experts on […]

After the fall from power in 2011 of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya’s de facto ruler for forty-two years, there was no lack of backslapping bonhomie among NATO country members who had helped overthrow the despot from power. Indeed, the West’s bombing sorties had been skillfully executed, with France and Great Britain playing key roles in a campaign […]

To coup or not to coup? Who cares? Whatever label it is being given, coup or revolution, what the Egyptian military accomplished less than one week ago is removing a government supposedly democratically elected. This comes on the heels of a previous removal of a long-standing dictator — Hosni Mubarak —  just over two years […]

Beginning in January, French and Malian forces took just over a month to rid Mali’s north of Islamic militants. The Tuareg-dominated MNLA however claims a remote, remaining area. With elections scheduled the end of July, most Malians are refusing to compromise Kidal, a city in the far north-east, is the hub of Kidal province, bordering […]

  A few weeks ago, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution calling on Morocco and the Polisario Front to “continue negotiations without preconditions and in good faith […] with a view to achieving a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution” to end the Western Sahara conflict.”  (The Polisario, a Cold War era separatist […]

Brussels was the scene of an international donor conference last week to pledge €340 million in support of stabilizing Mali. The conference comes after a recent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for a 12,600-strong peacekeeping force in Mali and offers a significant lesson in the intervention calculations at work in the U.N. The […]

Nigeria increased its offensive last week against the insurgence group Boko Haram in an attempt to reclaim the northwest region where the rebel group has attempted to carve out an Islamic state for the last four years. The conflict has left more than 3,000 people dead and thousands living in a state of fear as […]