CAR Central African Republic: Fragile, failed and forlorn

[jmm99]

At least, that's Deutsche Welle's analysis, French troops fail to stop the violence in CAR:

France launched Operation Sangaris one month ago in a bid to stop the catastrophe unfolding in the Central African Republic. But the violence has only escalated, and the number of displaced has risen to one million.
...
One reason for the failure of the mission was that there were not enough soldiers, said Jean-Claude Allard, director of research at the French Institute for International and Strategic Relations. "With 1,600 soldiers, how can you even police Bangui, which has almost one million inhabitants?" Even the planned increase of MISCA troops to 6,000 would not be enough to restore security, according to Allard.

French troops are powerless

What is even more problematic than insufficient troop strength is that "there is no political solution to the conflict in sight," Allard said. For them to still achieve their goals, the international community and France would have to stay in Central Africa for a long time, Allard said. A "brief" deployment – the French government had spoken of about six months – is out of the question.
....

Stan's comments to the SWJ article on CAR (cited by David in the prior post) are well founded in reality (something not understood by avid interveners and state builders) - here's some Stan:

100M or even the 700M that I had at my disposal in the 80s and 90s would not fix Rwanda then and not CAR now. We lack engagement because the cold war is over and a tiny land-locked country with little to offer is not enticing enough for the American people nor USG. No surprises there !

You can’t prevent something you know little about. We suck at Africa and we have no investment other than appeasing our European partners with airlift. Rwanda then, CAR now.

Do you seriously think an MSG is going to change things ? Why ? Modern comms ? How about old fashion real intel work on the ground with the locals ? If the embassy does an evac, it’s because the insurance costs for all those souls is far more costly than a slight black eye. Done it 4 times and it doesn’t get better. All the gear in the world won’t save your alpha when you are not authorized to return fire. DUH !

What difference does it make if the embassy and DAO are fully manned ? Underfunded ? We do that all the time. Under strength ? We do that to this day. What’s the point ?

Investing in preventing something we know nothing about is anything but cheap. We do not need an engagement with boots and equipment in a country that will go Tango Uniform with the next dictator. Providing resources so they can do what ? Kill their own civilians ? Done that too bro ! ...

And so it seems to go on ... and on.

Regards

Mike