Two Faces OF Europe's Military - Chad Edition

My previous post (here) covered European comments about how eager the EU was to deploy their 'Rapid' Response Forces while completely ignoring a need for additional troops in Afghanistan, which while being a NATO Operation, includes countries that have contributed troops to the EU's Rapid Response Forces.

As it turns out that Afghanistan is not the only mission that the EU has been trying to ignore. They have had a peacekeeping force on the ground in Chad but it too is in desperate need of reinforcements, which the EU has been having trouble to fill.

AN “EMBARRASSMENT”, says a diplomat of the delays over a European Union peacekeeping mission to Chad. It is eight months since France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said there was an urgent need to stabilise Chad's border with Sudan, and to protect refugees from Darfur. Since then EU members have squabbled over who should provide troops, kit and helicopters—and who should pay the bills. Military chiefs proved “very cautious about casualties”, comments the diplomat.

This week deployment of the 3,700-strong EUFOR was postponed yet again, because of rebel attacks on Chad's capital - Economist

At the very least, the EU is sitting on troops ready to deploy, despite calls for troops from two separate missions, one of which they are in charge of. Oddly enough, it seems that the Europeans took on this mission more so to show up the US, which they believe should not be active in the area. Now that they did take the mission, they don't know what to do next and they don't have the benefit of being able to blame the US for their failure.

So Europe is slowly learning (just give them a couple hundred more years) that it is not so easy to solve other country's problems. They have been blaming problems in Afghanistan on the US, claiming that what is really needed there is more 'Nation Building' and not fighting. This then forms the excuse why they are not sending troops there. But funny how there is no mention of Nation Building for Chad.

No matter, the EU sucks at Nation Building. Take the training of police forces for Afghanistan. That is a very important part of Nation Building. Germany has failed spectacularly in that task which has directly impacted progress in Afghanistan.

There is another problem with Nation Building as a solution in Afghanistan. That is that the taliban want to turn the clock back on society and Nation Building would result in a society that is the complete opposite of their world view. In one respect the taliban terrorists are now fighting against Nation Building in Afghanistan. So one could claim that the EU's demands for Nation Building is itself one of the causes of instability in the country.

I had also pointed out that by failing to fully fight the taliban in Afghanistan might result in Europe being forced to fight greater threats later on. Just today comes word that al qaeda in Afghanistan has decided to step up operations targeting Germany. Had Germany been more willing to fight in Afghanistan, then there might be less decision-makers on the loose to decide to target Germany.

Note: I found the Economist article quoted above from coverage at EU Referendum here. They also have commentary on this issue in their post titled "Another failure unrecorded"

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The Two Faces OF Europe's Military Might - 6 Feb

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