The conflict in Nigeria highlights the limitations of US power and the difference between peoples' expectations of US power and the actual reality. US officials today candidly discussed the difficulties in seeking to rescue the girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram and whose freedom is a subject of a massive and ongoing Twitter campaign.
The basic problem is that we can only do so much to help other countries unless they are willing to help themselves. Nigeria's army, as documented by human rights groups, is guilty of massive human rights violations, which is fueling the present conflict. The next consideration is the vast expanse of territory and the very real possibility that the girls might not all be together. The danger is that we could become entangled in another Somalia or another Vietnam.
Other units, as noted by the US, are afraid to even engage.
“We’re now looking at a military force that’s, quite frankly, becoming afraid to even engage,” said Alice Friend, the Pentagon’s principal director for African affairs. “The Nigerian military has the same challenges with corruption that every other institution in Nigeria does. Much of the funding that goes to the Nigerian military is skimmed off the top, if you will.”
What the US can provide is sharing its own vast experience from counterinsurgency conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan along with reconnaissance and technical assistance. However, just like the conflict in Ukraine has to be solved by the Ukrainian people, this conflict has to be solved by the Nigerian people. We learned the hard way that we can't step in and referee the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan without the consent of the government. We should have learned that lesson from our own history, when we broke away from England in 1776.
To its credit, the government is finally learning the lesson that Superman learned a long time ago. Superman could not get rid of all the world's nukes; the world had to solve its own problems. And the US is finally starting to get it:
Even as terrorist groups throughout the world have engaged in more kidnappings for ransom to finance their operations, Pentagon officials have worried that the success in killing Osama bin Laden and a movie like “Captain Phillips,” which depicted the capture and killing of Somali pirates, have placed unrealistic expectations on the American authorities.
“The United States of America doesn’t have the capacity, the capability to go rescue every kidnapped person around the world,” Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, the Air Force chief of staff, said in an interview this week.
For the last few years, the US has been trying to get Nigeria to offer opportunities for its people and to create dialogue.
“We have been urging Nigeria to reform its approach to Boko Haram,” said Robert P. Jackson, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “From our own difficult experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, we know that turning the tide of an insurgency requires more than force. The state must demonstrate to its citizens that it can protect them and offer them opportunity. When soldiers destroy towns, kill civilians and detain innocent people with impunity, mistrust takes root.”
Administration officials say they have tried to persuade the Nigerian authorities to adopt a more holistic approach to fighting Boko Haram, which the State Department branded a terrorist organization last year. The Pentagon, for instance, has supported programs to counter improvised explosive devices and build greater cooperation between the Nigerian military and the public, in part to help generate tips on suspected terrorists and their operations. The efforts have had mixed results, at best.
The problem is that the Nigerian government has yet to show that it is willing to make the changes that are needed in order to prevent another such tragedy.