By Dr. Benjamin P. Nickels. Geneva Centre for Security Policy, March 2013 In a March 2013 Policy Paper published by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Dr. Benjamin P. Nickels, ACSS Chair in Transnational Threats and Counterterrorism, reviewed the complexity of the Mali crisis and recommended a unified vision and strategy to help solidify military advances and bolster the Bamako government’s legitimacy. “Mali faces not one but several challenges which, together, form its current, complex crisis,” Dr. Nickels wrote in the policy paper, titled “Analysing the Crisis in the Sahel.” “The four principal facets of the Mali Crisis are global, ethnic, governmental and environmental in nature,” Dr. Nickels wrote, “and these facets are internally fractured and synergistically interrelated.” According to Dr. Nickels, the crisis in Mali has prompted a diverse set of responses from various domestic and international stakeholders. “Responses to the Mali Crisis occur at three principal levels, namely the international, the regional and the national, with the last being the deepest and most fundamental,” he wrote. “These three levels are internally diverse as well as interconnected, with links visible through both cooperation and disagreement between levels.” “Given the crisis’ complexity and the response’s variety, the most valuable tools for enhancing responses to the Mali Crisis would be a common vision of the problem and a shared strategy for tackling it,” he wrote. “Unity of vision and strategy would help solidify recent military advances, bolster the spread and steadying of Bamako’s sovereignty and legitimacy and stave off potential flashpoints generated by friction between levels of response,” he wrote. “Three such flashpoints concern terrorism designations, hostages and Tuareg nationalism.” Download the Paper [PDF]