Military Review English Edition November December 2016

LIMITED INTERVENTION However, in Sangaris, French soldiers did have successes: they were able to adapt to the context and become militarily effective.2 Indeed, Sangaris did not resolve the CAR’s crisis, but it helped avoid genocide, it jump-started the disarmament process while fostering a nascent administrative structure, and it restored the supply of essential goods—all of this with relatively few casualties.3 Above all, Sangaris managed to be a “bridging operation” to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic, known as MINUSCA, and bridging to MINUSCA was the desired end state.4 Therefore, Sangaris shows how adapting at tactical and operational levels and accepting risk can ensure a limited military intervention achieves the desired end state. Nonetheless, questions about the sustainability of the end state conditions are warranted, and we address them here. A Look at the Numbers The number of international and French forces combined in the CAR increased from 4,500 in December 2013 to 11,700 in August 2015. France deployed 1,600 troops in December 2013, their number grew to 2,000 in February 2014, and French forces were reduced to 900 in June 2015. The Africaled International Support Mission in the Central African Republic, known as MISCA, provided 4,500 soldiers as of December 2013, later replaced by MINUSCA.5 By August 2015, MINUSCA had 10,800 troops in the CAR. The European Union force, known as EUFOR-RCA, deployed 700 soldiers in June 2014. These numbers, depending on the period under examination, represent a 1.1 to 2.2 ratio of soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants—far lower than standard force recommendations for a stabilization operation.6 Experts recommend 10–20 soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants.7 Moreover, these contingents had to execute a complex mission in the midst of an ethnic-religious civil war, and in a country as vast as France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg combined—622,000 square kilometers with approximately 5.3 million inhabitants. This is a great example of the basic disconnect between Western doctrine that calls for large deployments in stabilization operations and current Western political views that seek to avoid large deployments. MILITARY REVIEW November-December 2016 This relatively low level of French troop deployment was the result of cyclical, structural, and cultural causes. In reality, in December 2013, the French army was already overstretched: 7,400 French soldiers were deployed in operations abroad and 11,640 were employed as presence and sovereignty forces.8 One can add to this the reluctance of staff members and policy makers to embark on a new stabilization mission that promised to be long and difficult. Structurally, the French army has drastically reduced its size since the end of the Cold War: from 669,904 in 1990 to 270,849 in 2014. According to the 2013 French White Paper on Defence and National Security, the French army must be able to deploy 15,000 soldiers for 6 months to a main theater and 7,000–8,000 soldiers to a secondary theater.9 French armies are not designed for long-term stabilization missions involving high numbers of troops but rather are built for “strategic raid/ expeditionary model” operations. Culturally, France is accustomed to “operational frugality.” Since 1964, it has conducted more than 50 operations in 20 African countries. The operations, aside from Operation Licorne (2002–2015) in the Ivory Coast and Operation Serval in Mali, were almost always carried out with relatively few troops, usually between 1,000 and 3,000. This may have created the image of a French model of intervention in Africa able to produce results at a relatively low cost. Military Effectiveness through Adaption Does low-level troop deployment in a stabilization operation impair military effectiveness? Since the Vietnam War, we have known that numbers do not win a war, and that adaptations at the tactical and operational levels can allow a force to be effective despite low numbers. Let us have a look at the way the French army has adapted in the CAR. At the operational level, the deployment of two thousand soldiers in so vast an area of operations necessarily means Maj Rémy Hémez, rethinking and limitFrench army, is a ing courses of action. military fellow at This is true regarding the Security Studies French actions in CAR’s Center of the French capital city, Bangui, Institute of International which proved difficult Relations (Ifri). 73

Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 75