What went wrong

U.S. military cooperation with Mali dates back to 1961, but the relationship thrived after 9/11. The Pentagon quietly shifted its attention to the African Sahel region, where Al Qaeda affiliates like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb were, and are, deeply entrenched. Powelson’s thesis focuses on the period 2009 to 2012.

The main problem with the U.S. approach in Mali, Powelson writes, was its episodic nature. He highlights a catastrophic engagement between Malian forces and AQIM fighters in July 2009. The firefight came several weeks after the targeted killing of well-connected Malian colonel Lamana Ould Cheikh by suspected AQIM operatives.

Shocked by the assassination, the Malian military launched an offensive against AQIM camps in the country’s north. But militants overran a government unit while it bivouacked on the night of July 4. Poor planning and perimeter security were likely factors in the army’s vulnerability. No fewer than 28 soldiers died—the costliest defeat for the Malian army since 1991.

Powelson lists at least four different Joint Combined Exchange Trainings, during which U.S. Special Forces trained and mentored Malian units—and which took place just months prior to the July battle. It’s clear that U.S. expertise could not prevent the “tactical and strategic disaster,” the major writes.

“While the disastrous July 4 ambush symbolized the inherent weaknesses of the Malian military,” Powell explains, “it also serves to discount the notion that episodic training events, on their own, can build sufficient military capability.”

Malian organization exacerbated the sporadic nature of U.S. assistance. “In general, most Malian soldiers served in the north on a rotational basis, much as members of the U.S. military have done in Afghanistan,” Powelson writes. “The north was considered a hardship tour. Approximately every three years, soldiers were replaced en masse with new soldiers from the south.”

Additionally, Mali’s main fighting units, the Echolon Tactique Inter-Armée, each drew their 160 members from several different branches of the armed forces—and these, too, would rotate every six months with other members of their original regiments.

“In a military without a developed culture of training, six-month turnovers within the ETIAs, and an overall turnover every three years, presented significant and essentially insurmountable problems for those attempting to assist the Malians to improve their capabilities,” Powelson argues.