The news that Trump is considering military intervention in Nigeria opens a very much larger can of worms. This proposal is based on the killing and supposed persecution of Christians by Islamic terror groups.
The Catholic Weekly reports a cautious but slightly upbeat response from church leaders, who point out that interfaith coexistence is a major issue. The mix of faiths in Nigeria includes a large Christian minority.
The focus is also misleading. It’s not “just” Nigeria, to start with. Terrorism in this region has been ongoing for many years. It’s one of Africa’s festering sores and has been more or less continuous. Boko Haram and ISIS are in the catalogue of participants. The two groups are directly affiliated.
There’s another issue at the Nigerian governmental level. Nigeria denies “Christian genocide” stating that all groups are attacked by the terrorists.
This is a very different war in many ways. They’re real power groups with basic military capacity ranging across multiple countries. They have fought local national armies with limited success, but they survive.
This is also a truly huge regional area with very fluid borders. It makes cross-border wars in Afghanistan look relatively simple. Boko Haram’s known areas of operation are also obviously linked to economic and “turf wars”. Operationally they can strike across Nigeria in the north-east and the center of the country. They regularly conduct raids and publicize them well.
In short, it’s a mess that can get a lot messier with third parties getting involved. Let alone the US, with the usual shipload of added political baggage.
From a purely military perspective, “going in guns a-blazing” comes with more than a few caveats.
Any US troops on the ground could be facing not just asymmetric warfare but from multiple directions and a large mix of different, often mutually conflicting parties and countries. That’s fairly normal in terror wars.
The big and defining difference is that these are long-established groups with many external links in the Middle East. In an escalated conflict, they can be expected to upgrade and call in extra resources.
This is not a subject for military naivete on any level. The theory of fighting the bad guys is fine, but these are very experienced bad guys. Far better intelligence and thorough evaluations are the minimum requirements for any sort of military operations from the boots up.
The mere presence of US troops would also be a magnet for jihadis. Attacking Americans adds a lot of propaganda value. The large African military arms black market and at the very least arm’s length national players, could be expected to get involved almost instantly. Africa’s terrorists are cashed up and can certainly obtain meaningful support from outside.
The US does not need yet another war with no clear properly defined winning strategy.
How would you beat these groups?
If the war against ISIS is any guide, they have to be militarily destroyed as a fighting force at the bare minimum. You need local support like the Kurds, who did so much inexcusably unappreciated work, stopping ISIS and grinding them down in years of hard fighting.
The terror support networks must be totally eliminated. External bases and networks like those of the Taliban in Pakistan are also likely to be major issues.
This would be a major operation. A few airstrikes will just motivate them It’ll also be ultra-expensive. It could be a matter of years to actually achieve anything.
You have to wonder how anyone can just blithely sprinkle military forces into multiple largely thankless and objective-less scenarios. Vietnam is not just another overworked but apt metaphor in this case. It can happen.
This has all the hallmarks of a very bad idea.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
