The Foreign Service Journal, April 2023

32 APRIL 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL the political “cost” of chronic failure in CAR has simply been—for us—too low to force a hard look at our own mistakes? And did the international community’s failure inadvertently create the perfect conditions for Russia’s hybrid military-business force to succeed? CAR Bursts into the Spotlight We begin with a little history. In December 2012, CAR burst into global headlines when an armed group suddenly emerged on the country’s sparsely populated northwest frontier. Initially the origins, motivations, and funding of the group that called itself “Seleka” were a mystery. But the group quickly proved itself a formidable force and, in a series of ferocious pitched battles, won decisive victories. By Christmas, the Central African army had ceased to exist as a fighting force. Although the region’s lead- ers managed to negotiate a temporary truce, three months later Seleka’s forces marched into the capital, sending then President François Bozizé fleeing into exile. Seleka proved far more proficient at fighting than governing. Its fighters, largely Chadian and Sudanese veterans of the Darfur conflict, had been promised payment in pillage. And pillage and killing is precisely what they proceeded to do, for months on end. The very scale of the group’s atrocities, however, would prove to be its undoing. A horrified Western public demanded an inter- national response, and in December 2013, a French expedition- ary force sent Seleka’s fighters fleeing north out of the capital. Ultimately, however, neither the French nor a subsequent African Union peacekeeping mission was large enough to stabilize the countryside. So long ignored by the world, CAR had now become a hot topic in peacebuilding circles. Demands for a full United Nations peacekeeping mission quickly multiplied, and by early 2014 an initially reluc- tant U.S. government finally agreed. Known by its acronym MINUSCA, the mission would eventually grow to a combined military and civilian force of 12,000—far outnumbering the country’s own army. It was not, moreover, alone: Indeed, it was robustly supported by bilateral security assistance programs, notably from the European Union, France, and the United States, as well as an array of development and humanitarian initiatives. The traumatized Central Africans greeted this response with jubilation. They felt certain that a professional U.N. force would make quick work of armed groups, reestablish order, and create the conditions for reconstruction. At first glance, that optimism did not seem unfounded. In those early days, not only did the various armed groups number only a few thousand, but they were on the defensive and desperately short of revenue to pay their fighters. Further, the Central Africans had themselves rallied around a new transitional government, which in turn quickly organized a national forum to provide popular support for the rebuilding process. In short, if a robust international sta- bilization effort could have succeeded anywhere, it should have been in CAR in 2014 and 2015. Sadly, it was not to be. Despite the deployment of MINUSCA garrisons around the country, over the next eight years, the armed groups became both more numerous and more deeply embedded while the democratically elected government never succeeded in reestablishing its authority. Instead of peace, a dysfunctional but resilient status quo emerged: The government (supported by MINUSCA) controlled the capital and surround- ing countryside, and various armed groups controlled and exploited regional fiefdoms, while chronic low-level violence occupied the lands where government and warlords’ spheres of influence ebbed and flowed. Central African Republic, 2011. ENCYCLOPAEDIABRITANNICA