Military Operations | Council on Foreign Relations

Syrian Civil War

What Are U.S. Military Options in Syria?

Military threats to deter chemical attacks have so far failed to restrain the Syrian regime, and they risk escalating the horrific conflict even further.

Interview with Zachary Laub and Mona Yacoubian April 13, 2018
Vietnam War

Fifty Years After the Tet Offensive: Lessons From the Vietnam War

Panelists discuss the fiftieth anniversary of the Tet Offensive, launched in late January 1968, and the lessons learned or forgotten from the Vietnam War for the United States today.

Event with Frances FitzGerald, Fredrik Logevall, Lien-Hang Nguyen and James M. Lindsay February 8, 2018 Lessons From History
Sub-Saharan Africa

Podcast: Vigilante Groups and Countering Insurgencies in Africa

Ned Dalby is a senior research analyst with International Crisis Group and lead contributor to the new report, Double-Edged Sword: Vigilantes in African Counterinsurgencies. He joins me to discuss the origin, operation, and demobilization of these groups, their role in counterinsurgency, and ultimately, what makes the reliance on vigilante groups by the government successful in some cases and not in others. Vigilante groups usually arise in weak states with deteriorating security situations in which locals feel compelled to take their security into their own hands. The state will often try to co-opt these militias, who are afforded a level of legitimacy in their communities that the military is not, at least initially, and thus have a distinct advantage in counterinsurgency operations. The reliance on vigilantes presents interesting questions for a state's sovereignty and their legitimate monopoly on the use of force. How the military and the state treat these groups will help determine both the success of the counterinsurgency and the prospects for the eventual demobilization of the vigilantes. You can listen to my conversation with Ned here.

Blog Post by John Campbell February 8, 2018 Africa in Transition

India

'Our Time Has Come: How India Is Making its Place in the World' by Alyssa Ayres

Alyssa Ayres discusses her new book, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World.

Event with Alyssa Ayres and Richard Haass January 24, 2018 CFR Fellows’ Book Launch
Nigeria

Nigerian General Leading the Fight Against Boko Haram is Replaced

The Nigerian Army announced on December 6 that Major General Rogers Ibe Nicholas is replacing Major General Ibrahim Attahiru as the commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, the military effort against the jihadist insurgency Boko Haram. Nigerian and other media speculates that the replacement, made without official comment, is in response to the military’s shortcomings over the past months in the fight against Boko Haram. If so, the personnel change reflects a welcome focus on accountability of the military leadership at the highest level. It also reflects a willingness to address problems instead of denying that they have occurred. According to the Nigerian media, General Nicholas has been outspoken against military abuse of civilians, which is an important driver of Boko Haram recruitment. That, too, is a positive aspect of his assignment to Borno. General Nicholas is a native of Imo state, in the south. In Nigerian social media, his is identified as an Igbo. His name would indicate that he is a Christian, though the Nigerian military does not identify religious or ethnic affiliation of its personnel. In the south and east, the Buhari administration is often accused of a strong, northern bias. Nicholas’s appointment is a refutation of that perception.

Blog Post by John Campbell December 13, 2017 Africa in Transition
Military Operations

The Use of Force: Strategic, Political, and Legal Considerations

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, John B. Bellinger III assessed the domestic and international laws governing the authorization for use of military force.

Testimony by John B. Bellinger III December 13, 2017 U.S. Foreign Policy Program

Niger

Will the Niger Attack Shift U.S. Policy in West Africa?

An attack on Green Berets in southwest Niger has reignited a debate over U.S. policy in the region that stretches back decades.

Interview with Claire Klobucista and Jason Warner November 6, 2017
Nigeria

There Is a Difference: Nigeria and Niger

With the increased media attention to the Sahel in the aftermath of the killing of four U.S. soldiers in western Niger, U.S. commentators (especially on radio) sometimes confuse Nigeria with Niger. For example, some commentators linked the notorious kidnapping of the Chibok school girls in northern Nigeria to the Niger killings, episodes perhaps a thousand miles apart by road. This apparent confusion is understandable. Both countries are fighting jihadist insurrections and movements in the Sahel, the region that borders the Sahara on the south. The two countries share a long border, and Niger and northern Nigeria are predominately Muslim. The Niger-Nigeria border is artificial; it was drawn in the colonial period by London and Paris, a process driven in part by the desire to check German expansion in West Africa rather than recognition of ethnicities or other indigenous factors. Border crossings are also impossible to control, as a practical matter. In many ways, Niger and northern Nigeria have much in common culturally and the lingua franca of both regions is Hausa. Reflecting their respective colonial experiences, however, elites in Niger are Francophone, while those of Nigeria are Anglophone. Nevertheless, the contrast between Nigeria and Niger is, in more ways than not, stark. While Niger is geographically larger than Nigeria, 80 percent of its land area is covered by the Sahara desert. Its population, at a World Bank-estimated 20.67 million, is perhaps one tenth the size of Nigeria’s. Niger’s people are very poor, and the country consistently is ranked either last or next to last by the United Nations Human Development Index. Elected in 2011, President Mahamadou Issoufou presides over Niger’s weak governance and limited bureaucratic capacity. Though both Niger and Nigeria have a long history of military coups, in the case of the former, military intervention has been much more recent. Nigeria is the giant of Africa, with an estimated population of more than 200 million. One out of every four or five sub-Saharan Africans is a Nigerian. It also trades places with South Africa as sub-Saharan Africa’s first or second largest economy and it is usually Africa’s largest producer of oil and gas (depending on theft and vandalism). While the country is mired in corruption and most of its citizens are poor, Nigeria is on a positive governance trajectory. In 2015, for the first time in its democratic history, the leader of the opposition became head of state through credible elections, in which the defeated incumbent conceded. U.S.-Nigeria bilateral ties are close, with traditional cooperation on a host of regional issues of mutual concern. For Washington, as for most other world capitals, Nigeria is much more important than Niger. With respect to jihadi movements, those operating in Niger appear to have close links with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, with a heavy overlay of criminality associated with narcotics trafficking, smuggling, and kidnapping. While they enjoy some domestic support, jihadi movements in Niger tend to be largely influenced from abroad. In Nigeria, by contrast, Boko Haram is much more indigenous, and its persistence indicates greater domestic support. Boko Haram operates in Niger, Cameroon, and Chad, but primarily in areas that are ethnically linked to northern Nigeria. For members of these militant groups, as for most people, the Niger-Nigeria border is largely irrelevant. The United States partners with Niger in the fight against terrorism, and there are perhaps eight hundred U.S. military personnel from the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in the country. A large percentage, however, are support personnel rather than boots-on-the-ground. U.S. military personnel in Niger are almost entirely involved in the training of the Niger military and the maintenance of drone bases for surveillance purposes. Hence, U.S. forces in Niger are small in number and do not have a combat role. The military-to-military relationship between the United States and Nigeria is less developed. There are fewer U.S. military personnel stationed in Nigeria than in Niger. The Trump administration is in the process of selling sophisticated military aircraft (A-29 Super Tucanos) to the Nigerian military. That transaction, however, is cash-and-carry. It is not a form of military assistance. Historically, the Nigerian military has been stand-offish about a closer relationship with the United States.

Blog Post by John Campbell October 24, 2017 Africa in Transition
Niger

U.S. Casualties in the Sahel Highlight Jihadi Persistence

The American military presence in Niger is attracting increasing attention in the United States following an ambush that killed four American soldiers. The tone of President Donald Trump’s condolence call to the widow of one of the victims has become a major—if likely ephemeral—domestic political issue. Little appears to be known about the circumstances of the ambush. Senator John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has even threatened to hold up judicial nominees until he gets satisfactory answers from the Trump Administration. American officials have praised the response of the French military, who drove off the attackers, and the Department of Defense has sent a team to Niger to investigate. Despite the recent publicity, the U.S. military presence in the Sahel is relatively small, mostly comprising small units training local militaries. As to the identity of the perpetrators, the usually well informed French media reported that the attack was likely carried out by the Islamic State of the Sahel, led by Adnan Abu Walid. Based on accounts by local witnesses, the attackers were light-skinned, spoke Arabic and Tamashek, and were unknown to local people. Tamashek is the language of the nomadic Tuareg people, who are also described as light-skinned. Adnan Abu Walid is a prime example of the fluidity of adherence to various radical movements in the Sahel. At one point, he was the chief spokesman for the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), one of the groups that attempted to establish a radical jihadi state in Mali in 2012, with links to al-Qaeda. After the French drove the jihadists out of northern Mali’s cities, MUJAO and its jihadi partners went underground, far from defeated. In 2013, Abu Walid merged MUJAO with Mokhtar Belmokhtar and his followers. The consolidated movement was called al-Mourabitoun. Belmokhtar is Algerian by birth, a smuggler who has become rich, not least through kidnapping Westerners and ransoming them. Notoriously he and his men took eight hundred hostages in 2013 at the Tigantourine Gas Facility in Algeria. They murdered thirty-nine of the captives before the Algerian military dislodged them. Belmokhtar’s operations and rhetoric indicate he continues to fight the Algerian state. He strategically married four Tuareg and Berber wives, thereby grounding himself among the local clans where he operates. Less is known about Abu Walid, including his nationality, but his rhetoric is directed at the destruction of the Kingdom of Morocco. Belmokhtar and Abu Walid appear to have split in 2015 when the latter swore allegiance to the Islamic State. There are reports, not verified, that Belmokhtar tried unsuccessfully to kill Abu Walid. Local security services periodically report, with little credibility, that they have killed Belmokhtar (much like the numerous times Nigerian security services reportedly killed Abubakar Shekau of Boko Haram). Jihadis in the western Sahel appear to shift their ideological identities quite easily. Most of those who are prominent appear to be first and foremost smugglers and kidnappers, in addition to ideologues. Though bitterly divided, adherents to al-Qaeda (Belmokhtar), the Islamic State (Abu Walid), and others all appear to be hostile to state authority of any kind and to support the establishment of an Islamic state. To a greater or lesser extent, the sub-Saharan states in which they operate—Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso—are weak and dominated by elites that are unresponsive to their populations. In many cases, government authority hardly exists outside cities. Hence, without improved governance and responsiveness, these groups are likely to be around for a long time. ‘Sahel’ is the Arabic word for ‘shore,’ reflecting the sense that the Sahara is like an ocean. Like the ocean, it can be crossed, and has been by caravans for millennia. The preoccupations of Abu Walid and Belmokhtar are examples where events in North Africa, across the ‘ocean,’ can be influential in sub-Saharan, West Africa.

Blog Post by John Campbell October 20, 2017 Africa in Transition
Niger

Three Green Berets Killed in Niger

Correction: After this blog was originally posted, it was confirmed that four, not three, Green Berets were killed in western Niger. The United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) has announced that three U.S. Army Special Forces, Green Berets, were killed while two were wounded in an ambush in western Niger. There were also five Nigerien casualties. AFRICOM says that the operation was a routine training mission, not a combat operation. The perpetrators are unknown and, thus far, no group has claimed responsibility. Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State (IS) operate in western Niger, as do numerous criminal gangs involved in smuggling and kidnapping, and whose allegiance is constantly shifting. According to the New York Times, these are the first U.S. casualties from hostile fire in Niger. Across the Sahel region, American casualties of any sort have been few and far between, in part because the U.S. presence is very small. As part of the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership, the U.S. military provides training to Sahelian militaries, including Niger’s, but this involves relatively few U.S. civilian and military personnel. The Sahel is not an area of American tourism, there are limited economic interests, and most victims of kidnapping are European. Thus, there is little reason for a large U.S. presence. France, on the other hand, has a much more robust security relationship with the Sahelian states, most of which are francophone, and French casualties from hostile fire are accordingly much higher. So, too, is the number of French civilian victims, reflecting greater French economic interests and a tradition of French tourism in the region. Nevertheless, U.S. military personnel have now been killed and wounded in combat in the Sahel. It remains to be seen if there is a domestic U.S. reaction, and what impact that may have on AFRICOM’s mission. In the 1993 “Blackhawk Down” episode in Mogadishu, Somalia, eighteen U.S. uniformed personnel were killed, and a mob dragged some of their corpses through the streets. At the time, U.S. public opinion appeared to have little tolerance for U.S. causalities in African operations. In the aftermath of Blackhawk Down, the Clinton administration backed away from security engagement in Africa. As the New York Times observes, the Trump administration appears to be continuing the policy of his Democratic and Republican predecessors by providing training and equipment to indigenous militaries rather than deploying large numbers of U.S. military personnel. That policy, if sustained, will limit U.S. casualties in the region, which likely remain unacceptable to American public opinion.

Blog Post by John Campbell October 5, 2017 Africa in Transition
Military Operations

A Conversation with Senator Jack Reed

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) discusses the president's approach to dealing with North Korea and Russia; Iran's compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA); and the U.S. military's state of preparedness.

Event with Jack Reed and Jonathan Karl September 29, 2017
Nigeria

Biafra is Back

Tension is rising in Nigeria over secessionist claims by “Biafran” organizations in southeast Nigeria. The Nigeria Security Tracker for the week of September 9 to 15 documents significant bloodshed in fighting between the security forces and alleged Biafran secessionist movements. The Nigerian army is currently conducting an exercise, called Operation Python Dance II, in the territory of the 1967-70 secessionist state of Biafra. Observers claim that the soldiers participating in the exercise are committing widespread human rights abuses against civilians, so much so that a human rights umbrella organization based in the region is preparing to “monitor” it. Meanwhile, the army and the security services, joined by the southern governors, have labeled the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), its leader Nnamdi Kanu, and other pro-Biafran groups as “terrorist.” Kanu and other’s associated with the IPOB have gone into hiding and the security services are seeking their arrest. His lawyer has not heard from him since September 14, and fears the worst. (Kanu is on trial for 'treasonable felony charges,' but was granted bail for health reasons.) Meanwhile, there is a swirl of charges and counter charges of ethnic and religious attacks across the country but tied in various ways to the southeast region. The security services claim the IPOB is securing weapons and uniforms and creating a “secret” army. The IPOB maintains that it is a peaceful movement for self-determination. However, an IPOB spokesman is warning that the movement might resort to violence. He said that the organization’s Directorate of State, headquartered in Germany, would meet soon “to vote on the vitality or otherwise of continuing our struggle in this non-violent manner.” Another Biafra secessionist organization, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) denies that the security services and the southeast governors have the authority to declare organizations to be “terrorist,” a point also made by others, including Senate President Bukola Saraki. Members of parliament from the southeast are calling for the “de-escalation” of military operations. Human rights groups are saying that it is the police that should be concerned with maintaining internal order in the country, not the army. There are similarities between the current Biafra secessionist movement and the Biafra of the 1967-70 civil war, but the differences are perhaps more significant. The Biafra of the civil war was a territorial state. It inherited the administrative structures of one of the three regions that then made up Nigeria, and its army was led by officers who had defected from the Nigerian army. As it was a territorial state, the Nigerian federal forces defeated it by taking back the seceded territory, just as Union forces reoccupied formerly Confederate territory until little was left of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. The current movement for Biafra is more diffuse and administers no territory. The formal institutions of government in the region are opposed to secession, as has been made clear by the southern governors. Nor is it clear that the current movement has the widespread domestic support that Biafra enjoyed, at least during the early days of the civil war. The concern must be, however, that abuses by the security service and mismanagement by the federal authorities could fan the flames. The decision of the security services to designate Biafran secessionist organizations as “terrorists” does not help and is probably illegal.

Blog Post by John Campbell September 20, 2017 Africa in Transition
Israel

Israel's Bombing of a Weapons Factory in Syria: What Comes Next?

This week Israel bombed a site in Syria, from Lebanese air space. This was the so-called Scientific Studies and Researchers Center in Masyaf, a city in central Syria, and it was hit because it is a military site where chemical weapons and precision bombs are said to be produced. Israel had made clear in a series of statements in the last six months that such a facility in Syria producing such weapons for use by Hezbollah against Israel would not be tolerated. I was reminded of 2007 and 2008, when Israeli officials repeatedly told me and other American officials that the rocketing of Israel by Hamas in Gaza was intolerable. If it does not stop, they said, an operation is inevitable. They meant it, and the result was Operation Cast Lead, which began on December 27, 2008. We in the Bush administration had been given fair warning. Today again, Israel has given the United States fair warning that there are limits to what Israel will tolerate in Iranian conduct and the Iranian presence in Syria. Israel has long intervened, perhaps 100 times over the years, to stop advanced weaponry from being transferred by Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Those were moving targets: caravans of trucks carrying such weaponry. But this week there was a stationary target, and I imagine the decision to fire from Lebanese air space was also a message—to Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. On August 23, Prime Minister Netanyahu visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The goal, I believe, was to tell Putin certain actions by Iran in Syria would be intolerable, and to ask him to restrain Iran—his ally in Syria. Putin’s reply was negative. In effect, he told Netanyahu “I’m not restraining you and I’m not restraining them. Not my job. Take care of your own security.” Having learned that there would be no help from that quarter, the Israelis acted. The Russians seem not to object: Netanyahu is doing what he said he would do, and what Putin would do in a similar situation. Israel is also acting in part because the United States does not seem willing to restrain Iran in any serious way in Syria. We are doing less, not more, while the Assad regime’s forces and Iran’s gain ground. Some news stories have suggested that war between Hezbollah and Israel is very likely now. In my view, the chances may have risen but I do not see why it is in Hezbollah’s interest to start such a war now. They are deeply involved in Syria, and they—and Iran—appear to be gaining ground steadily. Why start a war that may well involve Syria as well, with unpredictable effects on the conflict there? Why not continue making gains in Syria, and consolidate those gains? Bottom line: Israel is protecting its security, exactly as it has been telling the world it would. Israel’s strategic situation has been seriously damaged in the last several years because there is now an Iranian presence in Syria. The Israelis are not going to go into Syria and try to drive Iran, the Shia militias, and Hezbollah out, but they are trying to establish some limits to acceptable Iranian behavior. In my view this ought to be part of U.S. policy in the region as well. We do appear to have taken control of the Bab el Mandab strait leading to the Suez Canal, making it clear that Iran would not be permitted to threaten shipping there (on the seas or via missiles supplied to Houthi rebels in Yemen). We have not stopped Iran from threatening our ships in the Gulf. Candidate Trump said a year ago that "by the way, with Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures that our people -- that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water," but Iran has continued to do this after a brief pause right after Trump’s inauguration. And the administration has not clarified its policies in Iraq and Syria when it comes to limiting Iran’s provocative and aggressive behavior. What lies ahead is unclear because we cannot predict whether Iran will decide that the limits Israel is imposing are acceptable. Iran could well conclude that it does not absolutely need to have factories producing precision weapons in Syria. Iran can continue as it has for years producing such weapons in Iran and trying to move them to Hezbollah by land or sea. What would be useful at this point, it seems to me, is a statement by the United States that we approve of the action Israel took, and that in the event of a conflict Israel would have our support in defending itself—for example by allowing the Israelis to have access to the stocks of weapons that we store in Israel. This is the billion-dollar stockpile of ammunition, vehicles, and missiles in the “War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel.” Such a statement might, like the Israeli bombing of the weapons factory in Syria, help persuade Iran and Syria to observe the limits Israel is imposing, and might help avoid a wider conflict.

Blog Post by Elliott Abrams September 8, 2017 Pressure Points
Global

The World Next Week: August 17, 2017

U.S. and South Korean forces hold war games on the Korean Peninsula and North Americans view a solar eclipse.

Podcast with James M. Lindsay and Robert McMahon August 17, 2017 The World Next Week
Canada

Canada's Military Gets More Cyber, and the Headaches That Come With It

Canada's new defense policy acknowledges for the first time that the Canadian Forces will develop an offensive cyber capability, a process fraught with challenges.

Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Net Politics June 22, 2017 Net Politics