The use of Security Force Assistance (SFA) is commonly perceived as a
cost-efficient foreign policy tool. Training and equipping security
forces in partner states are presented as a means to achieve provider
states’ military objectives, maintain partnerships and prepare personnel
to participate in operation abroad. There is an increasing number of
states on the global arena engaged in providing SFA. Not only the major
global actors such as the US, Russia and China, but also several states
in the Gulf, as well as rising powers like Brazil. Regional and
international organizations have relatively recently introduced
multilateral SFA through
missions such as EUTM Mali or Somalia.
There is a risk that the provision of SFA will become another weapon
in the intensifying global Great Power competition and that it will be
used as a way for regional powers to wage proxy warfare. In addition,
the fact that there are a multitude of overlapping, uncoordinated and
competing SFA programmes may result in a number of unintended negative
consequences – not only for the recipient states and their populations,
but also having a negative impact on global security as a whole.
In two Roundtables that are gathering academics, practitioners and
policy makers, we are tryingto identify differences in motivation and
strategy between larger and smaller states as well as zooming in on SFA
in Africa. The aim of the discussions is to search for strategies and
approaches to SFA that have the potential of resulting in sustainable
solutions for recipient countries and workable strategies for providing
countries.
The event is co-organised by PRIO, the Egmont Institute and the Dutch Defense Academy and is hosted by the Egmont Institute in Brussels.