Thoughts on the LRA from Louisa Seferis,  
Demagogues and Dictators Sudan Region Analyst

I'd like to point out 2 things:

Michael Wilkerson over at FP poses a fairly simple question - why can't anyone stop the LRA? - and then fails to satisfactorily answer is own query.  The short answer - regional governments are too weak to do anything, and nobody with sufficient resources (read: U.S.) is interested.

Why is the LRA still around? The Ugandan government has been trying to wipe out the group for ages, with some recent support from the United States. The governments of the DRC, South Sudan, and CAR have pitched in, all to no avail.
On top of it, the LRA should, in theory, be quite easy to defeat. It's relatively small -- according to a Ugandan Army spokesperson it has just 200 active fighters. The Enough Project estimates that there are another 800 or so kidnapped civilians on top of that -- two-thirds of which are likely children. The LRA has little firepower -- most of the DRC attacks were committed with blunt weapons like sticks and axes. It has no support from the civilians it preys on. Of course, its leader, the elusive and still at-large Joseph Kony, claims to commune with spirits and have mystical powers. But setting aside the supernatural, how is it possible that the LRA -- with no support base or weaponry -- is still thriving?

First of all, Wilkerson overplays the role of the U.S.  Yes, in recent years, the America military has provided some intel and perhaps even a bit of training for the Ugandan Army.  It's a nice PR gesture and an attempt to highlight the "good neighbor" aspects of the newly established AFRICOM.  But that token support has been extremely limited, and there's only so much help AFRICOM can provide to Ugandan forces operating far outside their own country.  If the U.S. was seriously committed to killing or capturing Kony, and provided a fraction of the resources going to Afghanistan, the LRA would no longer exist.

Second of all, the notion that "the governments of the DRC, South Sudan, and CAR have pitched in" is laughable. [READ MORE]

Well this TIME piece is just about the most depressing thing I've read all week.

How can southern Sudan become an independent nation when it possesses so little of what defines one? Many aid workers and development experts in Juba doubt it can. They have coined a new term to describe its unique status: pre-failed state.

I'm no expert on development, but it seems overly teleological to call it a "pre-failed" state.  Clearly a newly independent South Sudan would be impoverished, but it's impoverished now as a part of Sudan!  Moreover, poverty does not inevitably cause state collapse.  Good governance, coupled with international aid, could presumably keep the nation afloat until a real economy develops.

I'm not saying it will be easy, but isn't it too pessimistic to assume a new state would inherently fail?