Abstract
Introduction …peace is the goal for which all nations should strive, and where this breaks down, internationally agreed and non-violent mechanisms, including effective arms control regimes, must be employed. (Mandela, 1994) This statement, made by the late President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, is illustrative of the African Union’s (AU) ambition when in 2002 it included in its formation an African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). This was supposed to include both non-violent and robust control regimes mechanisms, providing the continent with an effective conflict management structure. The East African Standby Force is one of five regional structures that are intended to provide robust tools to the continental conflict management regime. In the book The Future of African Peace Operations from 2016, de Coning et al. shows the changing nature and role of African Peace Operations (Coning , Gelot, & Karlsrud, 2016). They also ask the key question about the future of the African Standby Force, and end by asking an open and important question: how should the future force be structured and equipped to enable it to deal effectively with the hybrid threats that confront African states, which have themselves become an increasingly important actor in providing peace and stability to a continent that is still plagued by conflict and state fragility. There is a “new” African Peace model that is based on the narratives of “African Solutions to African Problems”, as well as the question, “Why send in a peacekeeping force where there is no peace to keep?” This points to the future in which international peace operations will see a division of labour between Chapter VIII organizations like the African Union (AU) and the United Nations, with the latter focusing on peace-keeping, whilst the more robust engagements will increasingly be undertaken by regional entities like the AU. The continent’s peace operations have developed from relatively simple observer missions into increasingly robust and multidimensional peace enforcement and even counter-insurgency campaigns. The AU project has, despite the obvious challenges, been transformed from a grand idea into a real peace operations tool. This chapter starts with an apparent conundrum: Is it possible for weak and fragility-prone states to form and create effective regional security institutions? The logical answer would be no, since combining two weak units does not create something strong. Nevertheless, that is what the states in East Africa are attempting to do with the establishment of the EASF, which was declared fully operational in December 2014, one year before the December 2015 deadline announced by the African Union (AU). This part of Africa is plagued by the wars in Somalia and Sudan, the latent conflict and active proxy war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the post-conflict societies along the Great Lakes, the politically unstable states of Kenya and Ethiopia, porous borders with uncontrolled cross-border activities and a relatively ungoverned maritime space. Will it therefore ever be able to transform itself into an effective security management regime, with the ability to handle the challenges facing the region? The regional enmities between the states seem to be widespread, deep-rooted and nearly chronic in nature. In June 2015 the African Union and its member states announced that they expected the five regionally based standby brigades to be fully operational by December 2015. Their readiness was tested in the continental field exercise, Amani Africa II, that took place in South Africa in October-November 2015 (Defence Web, 2015) The exercise successfully tested both the rapid deployment capability and the multidimensional peacekeeping capacity of the ASF structure. However, the exercise was dominated by the southern African countries, with South Africa in the lead, and only had a light East African footprint (Mandrup, Fieldwork at Amani II, 2015). Nonetheless on 15 January 2016 the head of the AU Chiefs of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Constantine Chiwenga, declared to the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) that the Amani II exercise had shown that the ASF, including the EASF had reached full operational capability (FOC) (Chiwenga, 2016). The chapter will start by mapping out the security dynamics and architecture in East Africa, including its membership circles and priorities, in the context of the continental regional security system. The chapter then scrutinizes the ambitions the EASF as an example of regional security cooperation before finally assessing to what extent this institution will be able to function as an effective regional security regime.