Our Next Geopolitical Crisis Will Come From Africa — In The Sahel

-Analysis-

The Israel-Hamas war, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the tensions between the U.S. and China have obscured another trouble spot from making bigger headlines: the Sahel. But the next geopolitical crisis is brewing there right now.

The term “Sahel” refers largely to the former French colonies of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as parts of Cameroon, Senegal and Chad. It is a region in north-central Africa which jihadist terror is spreading, predominantly in three countries, where military juntas have come to power in the past two years.

In Niger, more than 200 people have been killed in jihadist terror attacks since the military seized power at the end of July. In Burkina Faso around 4,000 people have been killed since the coup in September 2021. Approximately 5,000 people have died in Mali since May 2021. Over the past decade, tens of thousands of people have been killed in these three countries. Hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee. And the situation is only getting worse.

This is in large part because neither the United Nations nor Europe – led by the former colonial power of France – has significant political influence or a military presence. The French were celebrated in 2013 after they liberated, as part of Operation Serval, the iconic city of Timbuktu from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and associated militias. Now they are no longer welcome.

The ensuing large-scale Operation Barkhane (2014-2022) failed for a number of reasons: a lack of clear aims or significant help in building civil society as a basis for stability, and the neo-colonial attitudes of the French generals and government. In 2020, when Mali’s then President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta announced that he would negotiate with AQMI’s leaders to find a political solution through a national dialogue, France blocked the move, in what Sahel expert Wassim Nasr described as a “flagrant breach of Mali’s sovereignty”.

German army withdrawn

France’s attempts to impose security infrastructure on the region, such as the G5 Sahel, a coalition among Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad, have also failed. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger left the organization. MINUSMA, one of the largest UN peacekeeping missions, with more than 11,000 soldiers from 61 countries, including Germany, was expelled from the country in 2022 after it accused the Malian army of human rights abuses.

The last German soldiers withdrew in December. The most important regional organization — ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), made up of 15 West African states — is also powerless. Although Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger were suspended and sanctioned after the military coups, the juntas remained unmoved. Instead, they founded their own organization, the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS).

Another world power has stepped into the void.

Another world power has stepped into the void left by the French, the EU and the African states: Russia. Last month, Niger’s Defense Minister visited Moscow and announced an expansion of military cooperation between the two countries. Russian soldiers are believed to have already arrived in Burkina Faso.

Russia has long had a military presence in Mali, through the Wagner Group and more recently through its successor, the Africa Corps, which is directly controlled by Moscow. Widespread Russian disinformation campaigns depicting Europeans, especially the French, as corrupt colonisers plundering the country for natural resources have also had an impact, with anti-Western sentiment boiling over.

The Russians have replaced the French in the fight against the jihadis. But they are not effective — in fact, their actions are counterproductive. Russian soldiers do not have the necessary resources to carry out aerial reconnaissance and targeted strikes, so they rely on extreme brutality, including against civilians.

Mass atrocities, torture, booby traps

According to the NGO Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which gathers data in conflict zones for the UN, Russian soldiers in Mali have relied on “mass atrocities, torture, summary executions, looting […and] booby traps”.Their crimes against civilians are believed to be more widespread than those committed by the Malian army and jihadist groups, who are known for their brutality.

The Russians are not offering any aid when it comes to civil society or development, only what is most important to the dictatorships: helping them to cling to power. And they are doing so without any burdensome conditions such as respecting human rights, women’s rights or those of ethnic minorities — let alone preserving democracy.

A model for future dictatorships, whose violence may force tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes or fall into the hands of jihadis. The IS offshoot the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM, meaning “Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims”), which emerged from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, are engaged in bloody in-fighting. But their numbers are growing.

The focus should not only be on the former French colonies of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. The Sahel region should be viewed in its entirety. In Arabic, Sahel means coast or shore. A beautiful word for the 600 km-wide strip of land that runs for more than 6,500 km from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The semi-arid region owes its names to Arab traders who, on their journey south from the Mediterranean, passed through the Sahara and finally glimpsed green on the horizon for the first time after hundreds of kilometers.

Chad is the same size as Germany, France and Italy put together

Depending on how you define the region, it includes parts of between 11 and 13 countries, and is around the same size as all EU member states put together: beginning on the Atlantic coast with Mauritania, then passing through Senegal, followed by Mali, the north of Burkina Faso and the southernmost part of Algeria, Niger, the north of Nigeria, Chad and finally Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia on the Red Sea. Some geographers also include Djibouti and parts of Somalia.

More than half a billion people live in these countries, and 150 to 200 million live in the Sahel itself. These huge states (Chad is the same size as Germany, France and Italy put together) are almost all among the poorest in the world. Many are failed states, which are unable to provide social care, healthcare or security to people outside the major cities.

Drug smuggling, people trafficking and gunrunning

It is impossible for these governments to control such vast areas of land. The borders were mostly drawn up by colonial powers, using a ruler to draw straight lines across the map, without taking into account which people groups live there: the Tuareg, Fula, Hausa, Kanuri, Arabs and Somalis. Over many centuries, droughts have led to famines, and people have been targeted by marauding gangs, as well as conflicts igniting between settled farmers and cattle-grazing nomads.

For many years, drug and arms smuggling and people trafficking have been on the rise. Today, new threats are overlapping with existing conflicts and feeding off them: ruthless regimes and jihadist groups, who have established themselves in every country of the Sahel.

The mostly Arab Mediterranean countries could become destabilized once again.

As in Iraq or Afghanistan, we could see jihadist emirates springing up almost unnoticed, which could plunge the entire region further into chaos. Jihadism is also taking hold further south, in oil-rich Mozambique. In the north, the mostly Arab Mediterranean countries could become destabilized once again.

If the danger from jihadist groups is not averted, millions of people could be forced to flee, and many of them would try to reach Europe. If the need to avoid great suffering in Africa is not enough reason to turn Europe’s eyes to the Sahel, that should grab its leaders’ attention.

“We are very concerned about the situation,” said a leading German diplomat, who lamented the EU’s lack of a “formulated approach or consolidated position” on the Sahel.

Even among EU member states, there are contradictory views. French generals regret that, during the coup in Niger, they did not immediately intervene with their own troops to keep the elected President in power.

“Moral appeals are useless”

But French President Emmanuel Macron decided against it. At the same time, France ended the majority of its aid for civil society and temporarily stopped issuing visas to Nigerien intellectuals and artists. Germany’s position is very different. “The Russians will not be driven out if we run away,” said the German diplomat, who argues that we need to help rebuild civil society in order to have greater influence in these countries. “Moral appeals are useless, we need concrete transactional aid in rebuilding the state and the economy, including through the reform of security infrastructure.”

There is also a need for this in the countries that are not currently under military dictatorships, as part of a coherent European policy. Behind the scenes, the French have renewed calls for Germany to engage more closely.

This request is a chance for Germany to take the lead in developing an EU-wide policy toward the Sahel. The EU urgently needs a joint foreign and security policy to assert its strategic autonomy. Europe will be the first region affected if the Sahel goes up in flames.