Francois Vreÿ

Peace, Profit or Plunder: The privatization of security in war torn African societies

This publication is about a theme that is presently a rising issue of concern on the national security agendas of states and other bodies grappling with security issues. This concern takes place against the tendency of an increasing number of issues being dumped into the security dustbin. Privatisation of security holds both the potential to soften the security dilemmas of countries as well as to threaten the marginal security of weak states. The publication deals with both sides by pointing out the constructive as well as the destructive potential of the private security industry.

Bad order at sea: From the Gulf of Aden to the Gulf of Guinea

At the dawn of the 21st century - in particular as a result of increasing bad order at sea - maritime matters have increasingly edged their way upwards on national and international security agendas. Kaplan recently reiterated the conflict-commerce and resource connections in an essay published in Foreign Affairs in which he depicted the Indian Ocean as the future battleground between the rising powers of India and China. In a similar vein, Forrest and Souza pointed to the Gulf of Guinea in the western Atlantic as a maritime zone of international strategic importance, but one showing growing disorder at sea.At the dawn of the 21st century - in particular as a result of increasing bad order at sea - maritime matters have increasingly edged their way upwards on national and international security agendas. Kaplan recently reiterated the conflict-commerce and resource connections in an essay published in Foreign Affairs in which he depicted the Indian Ocean as the future battleground between the rising powers of India and China. In a similar vein, Forrest and Souza pointed to the Gulf of Guinea in the western Atlantic as a maritime zone of international strategic importance, but one showing growing disorder at sea.

African Maritime Security: A Time for Good Order at Sea

AbstractAfrican security concerns tend to reflect a dominant landward focus; regime security, militaries dominated by armies and irregular forces fighting incumbent regimes frame much of the African security landscape, and as a consequence, African maritime matters often come second to a fixation with security matters on land. Since 2006, events off the African coast became more precarious and threatening to the maritime community at large, as piracy became endemic off the Horn of Africa and intermixed with rebel and criminal agendas in the Gulf of Guinea. Although piracy tends to be the current face of African maritime threats, it represents only one strand of a much wider maritime threat landscape. By 2010 international concerns about security in African waters coincided with more explicit African stances to deal with threats to good order at sea. In the meantime international concerns resulted in several United Nations resolutions that set in motion an international response to securitise piracy and de...Abstract African security concerns tend to reflect a dominant landward focus; regime security, militaries dominated by armies and irregular forces fighting incumbent regimes frame much of the African security landscape, and as a consequence, African maritime matters often come second to a fixation with security matters on land. Since 2006, events off the African coast became more precarious and threatening to the maritime community at large, as piracy became endemic off the Horn of Africa and intermixed with rebel and criminal agendas in the Gulf of Guinea. Although piracy tends to be the current face of African maritime threats, it represents only one strand of a much wider maritime threat landscape. By 2010 international concerns about security in African waters coincided with more explicit African stances to deal with threats to good order at sea. In the meantime international concerns resulted in several United Nations resolutions that set in motion an international response to securitise piracy and deploy naval contingents off the Horn of Africa. It appears that Africa’s seas are drawing an ever-increasing range of actors that brings both security, as well as insecurity to the African offshore domain. Good order at sea has now become an imperative for African decision makers.

MIGRATION FROM THE OAU TO THE AU: EXPLORING THE QUEST FOR A MORE EFFECTIVE AFRICAN PEACEKEEPING CAPABILITY

This thesis explores the quest for a more effective African peacekeeping capability.It seeks to answer the question what is different now that can enable the AfricanUnion (AU) to establish an effective peacekeeping capability after the Organisationof African Unity (OAU) failed to do so in the past. The study is a descriptiveanalysis of efforts by the AU to enhance its peacekeeping capabilities in resolvingconflicts in Africa. The thesis traces the challenges that limited security cooperationand conditions that enhanced such cooperation in recent years, culminating in theapproval of a continental standby force. It establishes that Africa was stagnated bysecurity problems and at the same time it was reluctant to directly commit itself toresolve such problems, but instead sought assistance from the internationalcommunity or relied on its own ad hoc arrangements. The study identifies thereason for this approach to have been the value of sovereignty entrenched in theOAU Charter, which forced leaders to pledge non-interference in each other’sinternal affairs.The study further reveals that the establishment of the AU in 2000 was meant to giveAfrica the capability to resolve its own problems by consolidating intra-Africansecurity cooperation. The establishment of the Peace and Security Council (PSC)and its implementation tools such as the African Standby Force (ASF) opened a newwindow of hope in peace and security matters. However, the PSC is facingoperational challenges, principally because of financial and logistical constraints,above its own lack of institutionalised mechanisms to ensure effective partnershipsand burden sharing with its partners. This is against the revelation that the AU hasinsufficient capacity to embark on multidimensional peacekeeping operations on itsown. This was highlighted by the AU peacekeeping operations in Burundi andDarfur (Sudan).The study concludes that although there is more political will, an improvedcontinental security architecture and better United Nations-African cooperation, it isunlikely that the AU will be able to achieve an effective peacekeeping capability inthe short to medium-term. This is against the backdrop that at the moment, the AUhas severe limitations in both material and human resources. The AU is also unableto raise sufficient funds to pursue its peace and security agenda, and therefore theAU is still heavily dependent on external donors in its peacekeeping endeavours.However, the intended operationalisation of the ASF represents a promisingachievement towards a long-standing Pan-African ideal that calls for “Africansolutions to African problems”.

Revisiting the soft security debate: From European progress to African challenges

Proponents of soft security strive to ensure the goal of individual security without resorting to armed coercion. Given the extended scope of security sectors falling within the ambit of soft security regional co-operation is indispensable – a phenomenon most visible in European security architecture and that of Northern Europe in particular. Not only European decision-makers, however, pursue the soft security option. As Africa entered the twenty-first century, co-operation and an implicit realisation of the importance of soft security threats increasingly configured its regional security arrangements. A new wave of warfare simultaneously entered the African realm and any security approach had to contend closely with the inhumane profiles of these so-called new wars. Subsequently, African security architecture had to straddle the resultant hard-soft security domains more acutely than that of Europe. This required appropriate military options and the adjustment of African armed forces towards softer security policy instruments. For Africa in particular, the maintenance of a hard divide (even if only conceptually) between hard and soft security as imposed by Northern Europe in particular, remains more declaratory than real.

Securitising piracy: A maritime peace mission off the Horn of Africa?

Piracy forms part of a wider array of maritime threats and vulnerabilities that are seeping into the African security landscape. While landward peacekeeping by the United Nations (UN) and other regional organisations dominates the literature – particularly with regard to Africa – piracy has become a maritime threat that has drawn significant international attention since 2007 and has become the object of international securitisation activities. Securitisation as speech acts by interested parties articulating the threats piracy hold, communication of the threat to several audiences and calling for their support and actions, as well as responses by member states, galvanised international cooperation against piracy off the Somali coast. By 2008 the UN played a prominent role in the securitisation process by creating a more conducive operating environment against piracy through four UN Security Council resolutions. The deployment of scarce naval platforms by member states in response to the UN call for action poses the question of whether a UN maritime mission is taking shape off the Horn of Africa. However, the naval response serves both UN peace support activities in the Horn of Africa and significant national and other economic interests. It appears that the naval cooperation off the Horn does not reflect an emergent UN maritime mission in support of the Somali debacle, but the question of an emergent UN maritime mission does offer fertile ground for further research.Piracy forms part of a wider array of maritime threats and vulnerabilities that are seeping into the African security landscape. While landward peacekeeping by the United Nations (UN) and other regional organisations dominates the literature – particularly with regard to Africa – piracy has become a maritime threat that has drawn significant international attention since 2007 and has become the object of international securitisation activities. Securitisation as speech acts by interested parties articulating the threats piracy hold, communication of the threat to several audiences and calling for their support and actions, as well as responses by member states, galvanised international cooperation against piracy off the Somali coast. By 2008 the UN played a prominent role in the securitisation process by creating a more conducive operating environment against piracy through four UN Security Council resolutions. The deployment of scarce naval platforms by member states in response to the UN call for action...

Entering the blue: conflict resolution and prevention at sea off the coast of East Africa

Scholarly work on maritime peacekeeping and responses to maritime insecurity increased notably in the early twenty-first century with much attention turning to Africas maritime landscape. Africas offshore security governance became particularly salient as a result of threats to good order at sea as well as how actors in the international system responded. One way of describing the responses to Africas maritime domain is to view it as part of the response continuum depicting conflict prevention and conflict resolution. Security arrangements at sea depict a growing recognition of the importance of Africas oceans to the extent that the landward focus of many leaders and security actors has gained a parallel domain – that of maritime security. Thrust upon the wider African security agenda by piracy off East Africa, the importance of the African maritime landscape dawned not only upon the international community and the UN in particular, but the African leadership as well. Threats at sea around Africa have an umbilical connection to what transpires on land and are equally complex to deal with. In a certain way, as suggested in this piece, reactions to promote maritime security governance off eastern Africa have become part of the wider conflict resolution agendas of actors as displayed off the Horn of Africa and in waters of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) further to the south.Scholarly work on maritime peacekeeping and responses to maritime insecurity increased notably in the early twenty-first century with much attention turning to Africas maritime landscape. Africas offshore security governance became particularly salient as a result of threats to good order at sea as well as how actors in the international system responded. One way of describing the responses to Africas maritime domain is to view it as part of the response continuum depicting conflict prevention and conflict resolution. Security arrangements at sea depict a growing recognition of the importance of Africas oceans to the extent that the landward focus of many leaders and security actors has gained a parallel domain – that of maritime security. Thrust upon the wider African security agenda by piracy off East Africa, the importance of the African maritime landscape dawned not only upon the international community and the UN in particular, but the African leadership as well. Threats at sea around Africa have...

Maritime aspects of illegal oil-bunkering in the Niger Delta

Abstract Oil bunkering holds a positive meaning in a general sense, but in the rich oil fields of the Niger Delta in West Africa the term more often than not implies a criminal practice embedded in political, social and economic controversies. As a practice to gain financially, to adjust what is perceived to be governmental discrimination and to finance a range of opposition and criminal activities in the delta region, illegal oil bunkering grew to proportions that elicited a coercive government response in order to protect a vital national asset of the Nigerian state. A practice involving the Nigerian state, regional communities in the Niger River delta, and multinational oil companies, illegal oil bunkering holds local, regional and international repercussions. Due to the almost seamless transition between the vast delta and the waters of the Gulf of Guinea, illegal bunkering complicates the deteriorating offshore situation in the Gulf of Guinea and collectively they elicit security responses from the Nigerian government. Threatening the vital Nigerian oil industry, military deployments, new acquisitions of maritime vessels and even cooperation between state agencies and private security companies comprise the Nigerian reaction to counter the practice and impact of illegal oil bunkering.AbstractOil bunkering holds a positive meaning in a general sense, but in the rich oil fields of the Niger Delta in West Africa the term more often than not implies a criminal practice embedded in political, social and economic controversies. As a practice to gain financially, to adjust what is perceived to be governmental discrimination and to finance a range of opposition and criminal activities in the delta region, illegal oil bunkering grew to proportions that elicited a coercive government response in order to protect a vital national asset of the Nigerian state. A practice involving the Nigerian state, regional communities in the Niger River delta, and multinational oil companies, illegal oil bunkering holds local, regional and international repercussions. Due to the almost seamless transition between the vast delta and the waters of the Gulf of Guinea, illegal bunkering complicates the deteriorating offshore situation in the Gulf of Guinea and collectively they elicit security responses from the Ni...

Forewarned is forearmed: futures research and military strategy

A century ago, military instruments were readily deployed in imperialistic adventures or the defence of national interests. Today the strategic environment is more complex and diplomatic protocols more established. The information revolution is meanwhile telescoping time frames and proliferating futures scenarios. But even if the politicians are driving the agenda, the security imperative remains the same. For defence planners that implies new models and mechanisms, and a closer nexus in the formulation of political and defence policy.

South Africa and the search for strategic effect in the Central African Republic

This article provides a critical assessment from a strategic perspective of the South African military involvement in the Central African Republic that culminated in the Battle of Bangui. The strategic assessment was aimed at an understanding of the South African armed forces and their government’s strategic approach and logic (i.e. strategic ways) through a consideration of, firstly, their strategic objectives and end states and, secondly, a critical reflection on the military means that were available and employed in the Central African Republic. The authors question the logic of South African political and military objectives through an emphasis on the absence of South African interests in the Central African Republic, the failure of the executive to inform parliament, the dubious and blurred intentions of the African National Congress government and the absence of a clear political–military nexus for the operation. The lack of sufficient military capabilities for the deployment was assessed through a consideration of overstretch, obsolescence, neglect and mismanagement of military resources. The article concludes that not only did the government set the military up for failure; it also succeeded in creating the perfect conditions for a strategic fiasco.