While political setbacks, terrorist attacks, and discord between the Malian authorities and external actors occupy the bulk of the limited bandwidth provided by international reporting, the story told in this book offers a complementary testimonial of how concerted actions by the Malian parties to the conflict and the international community managed to deliver results. It is a story about the use of negotiation, cooperation, and mediation at the practical level of peace agreement implementation to overcome seemingly intractable incompatibilities. Indeed, whenever time-sensitive and externally imposed political priorities were confronted with decades-long historical grievances and competing ideologies, these coalesced to form complex challenges often unfit for solely political measures. To add depth and insight to this book s account, aspects of mediation theory permeate its narrative.

Lieutenant General (ret.) Dr Dennis Gyllensporre is an Associate Professor in Security Policy and Strategy at the Swedish Defence University, currently at Oxford University as a Visiting Fellow.

The co-author, Axel-Charles Monin Nylund, is a former military interpreter with the Swedish Armed Forces and political advisor to the United Nations Force Commander in Mali.