Token (non) Forces

I'll continue with yesterday's Boko Haram situation by looking at what is happening vs. the options I suggested for effective action.  From Time:

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the team “could provide expertise on intelligence, investigations and hostage negotiations, help facilitate information sharing and provide victim assistance. It would include U.S. military personnel, law-enforcement officials with expertise in investigations and hostage negotiations, as well as officials with expertise in other areas that may be helpful to the Nigerian government in its response.”

Not sounding promising; what else?

White House press secretary Jay Carney said President Obama and Kerry would discuss the ongoing effort to locate the girls in their meeting Tuesday afternoon.
“We are not considering at this point military resources,” Carney said, saying the military personnel being sent are to take on an advisory role for the Nigerian government.
“What I can tell you is that it is certainly Nigeria’s responsibility to maintain the safety and security of its citizens,” Carney added.

Emphasis mine.  The last point about Nigeria being responsible for its' citizens is of course correct, however dismally the government has discharged that responsibility.  I will state that unless things are more than they seem here, precious little will actually be accomplished toward the necessary goal of neutralizing these jihadist assholes.  Getting the girls back is morally imperative but a tactical (bandaid) action.  Smashing the Boko Haram organization (like AQ was smashed in Iraq, and AQIM has been smashed in Mali) is the strategic objective, and only "military resources" can achieve that.

Salafists/jihadists, what-have-you are vermin, and like vermin they can be managed but not exterminated.  There is little to stop the determined lone-wolf terrorist (Boston Marathon bombings as an example), but when they are roaming the countryside in large groups wearing stolen army uniforms with armoured vehicles, the threat has metastasized and requires serious bombs and drones-type action.

The drones are of course a modern tool, guys with infantry weapons and determination have and can still do the job without them. I guess Obama's team figures this gives them a fig leaf to hide behind and say "Look, we did something!", but that's all I see here.  Hostage rescue negotiators? Seriously?

In the slightly-less-useless category we have the ongoing Western response to events in Ukraine.  Canada has sent "several dozen" ground troops to Poland for exercises while six more CF-18s are bound for Romania.  It was confirmed that the planes will not be flying armed, BUT the Chief of Defence Staff was explicit about the weapons being available should the situation change from a "training" one.  That is already more ballsy than the American administration has been; the NATO commander is an American who knows what needs to be done so I won't blame their armed forces.

Things are hotting up in Ukraine and it's already a low-level civil war.  When it gets to the real deal the Russians will move in officially, and then we'll have an actual war to decide what to do about.  Ukraine has decided to fight, and if it comes to it I'm a bit conflicted on if we should help them directly or not.  Geopolitically it should be Europe's problem; that's way above my pay grade, moving into UN Chapter VII territory. 

Legion Etranger a louer?

The world (e.g. mainstream media) has finally figured out that Boko Haram is an unpleasant organisation.  Think of them as Al-Queda of the sub-Sahara and you get the idea; they've been running amok in Nigeria for a few years now, so everyone posting "Bring Back our Girls" to Facebook are both behind the times and useless to the actual situation.

As is my wont, I don't simply enumerate problems, I propose practical solutions.  Knee-jerk response is for Nigeria to get its' head out of its' ass and send the entire army on a search and destroy mission to wipe BH from the face of the earth.  Rank corruption and incompetence make that impractical or it would have happened already, so something else then.

The French have shown the way in Africa (Mali and most recently Central African Republic), and as un-PC as it is, it's 1st-World armies to solve 3rd-World problems.  In my world, if it's locals causing the problem, opposed locals should be able to solve it with minimal assistance.  People on Facebook seem to think this is America's responsibility, a default option with surprisingly racist undertones if you think about it.  Normal media racism is directed solely against whites (damn all that privilege!) but when you assume that Western armies are the only ones capable of dealing with African problems, that's a flat-out colonial attitude.  What's worse is that it's demonstrably true (Rwanda's RPF in 1994 an exception).

The key to an effective military is professionalism, something that the anarchy and crony despotism of most African states doesn't produce a lot of.  I'm reminded of a report I saw from the mess in South Sudan earlier this year.  In an army column sent to rout some rebels there was one young Sandhurst-trained Lt who appeared to know his business, but the rest of them were hopeless.  Individual platoon commanders led by crony generals don't get much done, however.

So Nigeria needs western troops to do the job right, but the West is broke, tired and overstretched, not likely to jump into things.  The necessary ingredients for a successful intervention are:

1. Competent, motivated troops;
2. Political will, and;
3. Money.  

"We" have 1, Nigeria has 3 (pay us in oil if need be), and as long as Nigeria has 2 as well, we can make something work.

I think this was the origin of "Hammer's Slammers" but using our trained volunteer troops as mercenaries is as close to an optimal solution to this problem as we are likely to see.  There is no shortage of type-A adrenalin junkies in Western armies to volunteer for a unit like this and putting an English-speaking international Brigade Group together is feasible, however unlikely it may be. 

Failing that, maybe it's time to bring "Mad" Mike Hoare out of retirement.  He's a bit past it of course, but he and the other Congo Mercenaries showed how it could be done.  Nigeria is unlikely to hire a bunch of primarily white mercs for this job, but I wonder how close we are to the point where the government and the populace will countenance anything that will get the job done?  As things stand, the government is the problem so I don't hold out much hope for improvement in the near term.

Update: the Yanks are sending people to help out at the request of the Nigerian government, so we'll see if they provide the nucleus of a force to wipe Boko Haram off the map. I'm willing to be surprised.