How Western Powers are Failing West Africa – and Why the Future is Grim
On July 26, the final domino came crashing down across the Sahel region, a large swath of land separating North Africa from the Sub-Saharan portion of the continent. On Nigerien state television, Colonel-General Amadou Abdramane announced that pro-Western President Mohamed Bazoum had been overthrown. The military said it was taking over governance of the country, citing “poor economic and social governance.”
The Sahel has a reputation for long-running insurgencies. Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have all faced Islamist and separatist rebellions, which the West, especially former regional colonial overlord France, was eager to help defeat. However, Western influence waned as one by one the region’s governments were overthrown by military juntas that forced the withdrawal of Western forces and, in Mali’s case, invited the Russian Wagner Group in as a replacement. After the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) backed down from its feint at a military intervention to restore Bazoum, the West appears to have lost its hold on the region. How did the collective military might of Europe and the United States fail so spectacularly at defeating militants across the Sahel?
Paris and Washington’s failures were rooted in the very approach they pursued. Western anti-terrorism objectives met their fateful end due to the interventions delegitimizing the very governments they were meant to support and policymakers’ underestimation of the difficulties of fighting multiple competing armed groups. Through misadventures like Operation Barkhane, a years-long French military operation to fight jihadism in Mali, Western powers pursued a clientelist approach, relying on already weak and unpopular governments and making them appear even more illegitimate. This exacerbated violence across the region, contributing to the string of coups. With Western powers gone and no suitable replacement in sight, West Africa is likely to face years of multi-sided insurgencies without clear winners, further challenging state and regional institutions.
The building blocks of catastrophe
One of the key reasons for the failure of Western efforts to suppress terrorist groups across West Africa is that foreign interference increased violence by making governments appear illegitimate and subservient to Western backers. Pro-government interventions involving large numbers of ground troops are likely to increase suicide attacks. France did itself no favors by pursuing a heavy-handed, militarized approach that cost dozens of civilian lives and likely helped insurgent recruiting; it motivated anti-French and anti-government sentiments, paving the way for coups. In turn, the putsches have increased states’ vulnerabilities. While the military juntas’ real commitment to return to civilian rule is dubious, evidence shows that governments in a state of transition are especially vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
The multiplicity of insurgent groups acting across West Africa further complicates any effort towards a resolution. The al-Qaeda-aligned JNIM and the Islamic State’s regional affiliates–the Islamic State’s West Africa Province and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara–are both present in the region. Together, they have prolonged the violence through outbidding, escalating their attacks as they compete for support. While the Malian government and JNIM have hinted at their desire for some sort of dialogue, odds are high that any attempts at negotiating an end to their conflict would encourage the Islamic State (IS) branches to act as spoilers. This means increasing violence to perpetuate the conflict and avoid a settlement that would marginalize them within the wider Islamist movement.
Darker days to come
The future of West Africa is likely one of stagnation, as Sahel states fight a series of long-running, unwinnable insurgencies that might continue to spread across the region. This runs the risk of possibly prompting more coups, exacerbating international tension, and weakening ECOWAS as more member states are suspended. The region’s governments are ill-suited to emerge victorious from the current insurgencies and have been weakened even further by the withdrawal of French and other European forces. The West, particularly France, helped prop up client states dependent on Western military presence, and the sudden withdrawal of that support is likely to cause setbacks.
Research of good governance versus coercion approaches to counterinsurgency suggests that the Russian Wagner Group could make up for these shortcomings. It is possible a focus on victory through brute force and coercion could work better than the West’s nominal push for democratic reforms. However, this success is unlikely to materialize. Wagner’s record in Mozambique, where it withdrew after suffering extensive casualties and failures, speaks to its weaknesses and unreliability. Furthermore, violence in Mali has actually increased since Wagner’s deployment. French involvement was already plagued by a lack of transparency over civilian deaths, so it remains unclear how a smaller, less professional foreign presence will succeed where the West’s own highly militarized strategy could not. Ultimately, Moscow and Wagner are likely to fail and leave Mali, (along with Burkina Faso and Niger, if invited there), just the way they found it: dependent on another foreign power that abandoned the ship when it started sinking.
This is not to say that a Jihadi triumph is certain. Infighting is likely to keep the militants from achieving a total victory, dooming the region’s states to protracted, bloody conflicts with no clear outcome in sight. However, circumstances could change drastically if either JNIM or IS were to gain a hegemonic position over the other, opening the door to either a negotiated settlement or a complete Afghanistan-style takeover of the governments in Bamako, Niamey, and Ouagadougou.
What now?
Moving forward, there is not much left that Western powers can, or should do, in the Sahel. Paris, Washington, and their allies came in, failed to execute their strategic goals, and withdrew when the regimes they supported collapsed around them. Western powers should reconsider whether every potential terrorist threat warrants repeated militarized responses, with their associated costs in lives and stability. Afghanistan, where 20 years of war, over 3,000 Coalition casualties, and over 46,000 civilian deaths ended with the Taliban in Kabul again, should have taught them that much.
If Russia fails, the responsibility to rebuild the region’s shattered institutions will fall to ECOWAS and its member states. ECOWAS governments must hold the juntas accountable to reasonable transition timelines to eliminate the harmful effects of interim military governments. They must foster negotiations between governments and militants when possible. Ultimately, they must develop a West African-led security infrastructure that eliminates the temptation of foreign military interventions against spoiler groups or in the context of state collapse.
The path forward will be long, bloody, and arduous. But as ambitious and far-fetched as it might seem, the people of West Africa, too often made into pawns of great powers’ strategic vision, deserve peace, safety, and hope, on their own terms. The world owes them that much.
Author: Pablo Molina Asensi
Managing Editor: Alexander Sarchet
Web Editor: Daniella Ciniglio
