Modeling the Country’s Participation in Armed Conflict Resolution: Case of Germany’s Activity in Mali

Abstract

In the early 2020s, the challenges of maintaining a Western presence in the zones of armed conflicts in Asia and Africa increased dramatically. This was most evident in Afghanistan, while notable difficulties were also observed in the Sahara-Sahel region. In trying to understand the reasons for this, the author turned to the situation in Mali, trying to correlate the Germany’s actions in Mali with the author’s theoretical-practical scheme of participation of an outside actor in the resolution of an armed conflict. Reaching the position of a full-fledged global actor, Germany is especially interested in creating a strategic presence in the instability zones and is sensitive to its loss. At the first stage of the resolution, the key tasks are the bracketing of radical forces, especially terrorist groups, and the reconciliation of the moderate ones, which are interested in preserving the institution of the state as such. The second stage is the time for full-scale international peacekeeping. The third stage is the nationalization of the resolution, i.e. the transfer of control over the process to the authorities and security forces in the country of conflict’s origin. The study explores the forms, scale, and geographical features of Germany’s use of military tools and diplomatic capabilities in the first two stages of the 2013-2019 resolution. The main “bottlenecks” of the approach are identified, including the persistent delay in applying sufficient efforts and the determinism of this trend. For 2020-2021, two contradictory paths are shown against the background of a new wave of activation of terrorist groups in the south of Mali: an accelerated transition to nationalization with a possible withdrawal of German and French support, and a postponement of the third stage, linked to the preparations for the continued presence of Western countries in Mali.

Keywords

• instability
• peacekeeping
• security sector reform
• germany
• france
• sahel
• terrorist groups