Leveraging Lessons Learned for Innovation in Threat Response Models: A Utilitarian Approach to Addressing Security Challenges in Africa
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17159/9b2dsh64Keywords:
African Union, African Peace and Security Architecture, threat response, African Standby Force, Security in AfricaAbstract
The design of the African Standby Force (ASF) was informed by threat scenarios in Africa following the end of the Cold War. Despite being declared operationally ready in 2015, the ASF is yet to be utilised in its originally envisaged form. Instead, African states have devised measures to address threats outside the ASF’s defined scenarios. We explore how deficits in the various threat response models deployed by the African Union (AU) over the years produced lessons that shaped the context for AU member states’ preference for ad hoc security initiatives to address their shared security challenges. Through this, we contribute to the growing literature on ad hoc security coalitions (AHSCs) by curating relevant lessons learned from their deployment and how the AU can develop a structured framework to guide future operations. We do so by discussing two AHSCs deployed on the continent: the Coalition of States in East Africa against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan, and the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) against Boko Haram in Nigeria. We elaborate on particular aspects of their operations that produce lessons and how the AU has leveraged some of these lessons.
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