Ugandan children hiding at night from LRA kidnappers, public domain.
This week, President Barack Obama authorized 100 Special Forces operatives to enter Uganda in an advisory capacity aimed at wiping out Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The militia originated in 1988 in Northern Uganda as a pentecostal Christian-influenced sect aimed at undermining the legitimacy of President Yoweri Museveni. Not long into his tenure as leader of the movement, Kony and his followers gained notoriety as one of the most brutal militias in the world. They have a long history of kidnapping and drugging children for use as child soldiers – and are also known for raping and torturing civilians, often cutting off the lips and noses of prisoners. When driven from northern Uganda between 2005 and 2007, the organization regrouped in the Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and what is now South Sudan.
Notwithstanding Rush Limbaugh’s comically wrong-headed remark this week about Obama “targeting Christians,” it is not at all helpful to understand this as a conflict between Christians and Muslims. Museveni himself is a fundamentalist Christian and member of the international dominionist group, the Family.
Nor is it useful to understand it as a conflict between the forces of good and evil. The LRA is a brutal criminal organization, but Museveni is, at best, an autocrat. He enjoys wide popularity among western leaders largely for his cooperation with western military interests.
But he has also been complicit in undermining democratic reforms in Uganda and committing atrocities against his people. As Columbia political scientist Mahmood Mamdani powerfully argued in his 2002 book, When Victims Become Killers, he arguably had a hand in fomenting civil war in Rwanda and sending Tutsis en masse to their genocide. And the UN has accused him of overseeing more recent atrocities in the DRC.
Museveni is a “friendly tyrant” when it comes to US military interests in the Horn of Africa, functioning much as Hosni Mubarak did in the Middle East. In particular, his government has supported actions against the al-Bashir regime in Sudan, as well as against the Wahabbist al-Shabaab organization in Somalia. Plus, the US values the level of order and stability that Museveni’s regime has enforced in Uganda.
The Stakes for Uganda and the US
Though the LRA no longer operates in Uganda, Museveni remains invested in capturing Kony and dismantling the organization. A successful mission would shore up international as well as domestic support for the President, who has come under increasing scrutiny for his autocratic tendencies in recent years.
But capturing Kony and defeating the LRA has not always been Museveni’s unambiguous goal. In 2010, Joe Bavier argued in Foreign Policy Magazine that:
Museveni learned very quickly that more was to be gained from fighting the LRA than from defeating them. Using Kony as a bogeyman and Washington’s political cover as a guise, he began to channel more and more of his largely donor-funded budget toward the ultimate guarantor of his power – the army. Over the objections of the International Monetary Fund, Uganda’s defense spending has ballooned from nearly $82 million in 1992 to around $340 million in 2009.
Still, the LRA is something of a personality cult driven by Kony’s charisma, so official strategy has long been to bring down the organization by capturing and defeating him. Museveni’s inability to do this is, in all likelihood, part cynical strategy and part actual incompetence. The Ugandan military’s failure to apprehend Kony over the years is an international embarrassment for a country with such high military spending.
The US, of course, needs to ensure Uganda’s continued support in future military operations in Somalia and elsewhere in the region. Obama signed the “Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act” in 2010, so it is in his best interests to follow through quickly and resolve the matter. If all goes as planned, this could be an opportunity for US forces to have a quick, decisive and inexpensive military victory.
Though the US is primarily self-interested, some level of humanitarian concern may be in play. Despite its small size, the LRA has committed atrocities against many tens of thousands of people. Human rights organizations have lauded the move already.
Of course, taking out Kony and his fighters is likely to pose some risks for civilians as well as the stolen children who fight his battles. If this is meant to be a humanitarian project on the part of the US, it is unclear what kind of humanitarian function 100 Special Forces troops could actually serve. They might be of strategic use when it comes to capturing Kony, but probably little else. Uganda has been unable to protect civilians on its own, and it’s unclear how 100 troops working in an advisory capacity could help with this.
South Sudan, Regional Politics and National Sovereignty
In the past, the Sudanese government has exchanged weapons with the LRA in return for fighters in its wars on Darfur and what is now known as South Sudan. But things have changed for Sudan with South Sudan’s independence in July.
It is too early to know precisely how this will affect Khartoum’s relationship with the LRA. Though tensions between Sudan and South Sudan remain high and Khartoum continues committing war crimes in Darfur, it is unclear what kind of military relationship Khartoum will have with the new nation in the south.
Will Sudan continue funneling LRA fighters and associates into South Sudan in the first place? And if so, will South Sudan be more capable of controlling its borders? Multilateral military aid is more transparently available to the country than it was before independence. If South Sudan can organize and train its military effectively, it may be better able to police its borders and shut down internal LRA activity. Over time, Khartoum’s aggressive policies against South Sudan may weaken or transform as both nations adapt to the new borders.
Though the US Special Forces team has been invited to serve in an advisory capacity, the troops could move into a combat-oriented role if they saw a quick way to apprehend Kony. Even if the US maintains its stated advisory role, it will be advising – and possibly training – a foreign military to cross borders and defeat a multistate militia.
So, the Ugandan military – assisted by the US military – will ostensibly participate in military operations not invited by other states in the region or sanctioned by an international body. I think there is near universal agreement that taking out the LRA is necessary, and Uganda has more of a capacity to complete the operation than the CAR, DRC and South Sudan combined.
But the politics of the region are complicated by any standard, and all parties seem to have conflicting interests. These 100 troops are unlikely to provide the quick and simple policy solution that Obama envisions. Kony is quite skilled at avoiding capture. He is smart and good at hiding – as well as endearing himself to people when he needs protection. Given the depth of control that he has over his followers – and the fact that these followers now span multiple countries – it may not be so easy to defeat the LRA after all.
We may just have to hope that the major players have something more substantive in the works than 100 US advisory troops. In the meantime, we should be asking the important questions. Specifically, what can 100 US troops actually do to combat a small but fanatical militia organization that has already existed for over two decades? Is Museveni really invested in taking down Kony, or is this just fodder that he can use to show Ugandans just how impossible it all is?
And perhaps most importantly of all: What if this escalates and lands the US in another endless war it cannot afford? Are there contingency plans in place to prevent that from happening? Politics throughout the region, at best, are messy, and they’re downright treacherous in the Horn. So, what exactly is the plan, Mr. President?