Description
Since the 2000s the EU has used Africa as a ‘laboratory’ to develop its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and build its profile as a security actor; half of all CSDP missions have been deployed on the continent. However, the failure of these missions to stabilise African conflicts, accusations of French neocolonialism and the increasing appeal of Russian security assistance has raised fundamental questions about the legitimacy and effectiveness of the CSDP model. The EU has struggled to respond to these challenges. Through interviews with EU staff, document analysis and fieldwork in Mali, this paper explores how the EU’s positioning of Africa as a depoliticised testing ground – with limited regard for the effectiveness of these tests – has had counterproductive effects on the EU’s own long-term influence. It has left the EU unable to fathom why its geopolitical rivals enjoy genuine popularity in Africa or to respond strategically. Using a postcolonial decentering framework, I argue that the EU’s instrumentalisation of Africa as a ‘laboratory’ is symptomatic of a colonial mindset which overlooks African agency. This mindset has been deliberately exploited by Russia, which can draw on the USSR’s historic support for postcolonial independence movements to increase its appeal.
