Friction. Practice does not always conform to theory. In his magnum opus On War, von Xxxxxxxxxx distinguished friction as the concept that distinguishes real war from war on paper.319 Friction is arguably not limited to war in a narrow sense but is applicable where large organizations strive to accomplish a certain mission. Friction occurs when theory collides with the practical course of events, with chance impacting decisions as well as actions. This section will investigate to what extent the Malian crisis took two European governments by surprise. The case studies concern France and the Netherlands, countries with differing but significant interests in Mali (both continued to play an important role in Mali after the crisis). The reason for this selection is twofold. First, the authors had access to French and Dutch language reports, and were able to conduct several semi-structured interviews 318 Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century, Reprint edition (New York, NY Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 234. 319 Clausewitz, On War, 138–140. with (former) government officials involved with policy/analyses on Mali. Second, both countries saw Mali as an important partner but from different perspectives. For France, Mali was vital for security (and economic and cultural) reasons. For the Netherlands the development aid sector played a pivotal role. By focusing on the governments’ assessments of the situation on the ground, it will become clear if and how these countries’ analyses diverged from the public indices on the Malian state fragility. After all, intelligence analysts and policymakers equally use open source data for their own analyses and policy advice. This section will further investigate which agencies within government held particular viewpoints on Mali’s fragility. In doing so, it will compare how intelligence communities viewed Mali, and what the analyses of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs were, distinguishing between the ministries in the capitals and the French and Dutch embassies in Bamako. These disparate organizational units have diverging interests, outlooks, and standpoints. Both France and the Netherlands represent different relationships that Western countries have with African ones, potentially revealing how the prisms of geopolitics and development aid can lead to different understandings of the local situation. France, as the former colonial power in Mali, retained strong p...
