African Standby Forces

This research report appraises the concept of the African Standby Forces, analyze the progress in developing five regional standby brigades on African continent and, ultimately, assess outcomes and their impacts on political and military arenas.

In essence, the report concludes that it is likely that the West African Standby Brigade and the Southern Africa Standby Brigade achieved capabilities to generate mission forces for operation of UN Chapter VI, under condition that the mission is designed on a leading nation basis.

This report recommends that cooperative security arrangements between European Union/Sweden and African states ought to have multiple channels. On a strategic-political level, direct arrangements between European Union and African Union are optimal. On the strategic-military level, direct arrangements between Sweden/European Union and African nations acting, or emerging, as a core nation of regional security arrangements are instead optimal. Priorities ought to be assigned to support development of command and communication systems, including PLANELM, logistics concepts and structures as well as to the forgotten domain of carabinieri/gendarme-type military units and civilian police forces.