Lakhasly

In the past two weeks, the coup in Niger has snowballed into a confrontation pitting civilian-led states against military juntas in West Africa, leaving jihadist insurgents that have seized large swathes of territory in Mali and Burkina Faso poised to take advantage of the turmoil.But the standoff between the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, and the military-led regimes in neighboring Sahel countries is a symptom of broader dysfunctions in the global system that underscore the need for the European Union and its member states to reassess their approaches to foreign policy.Over decades, flawed strategic choices by EU member states as well as local actors have contributed to a rising tide of instability that has turned the Sahel into a global flashpoint.The behavior of domestic and external actors has been shaped by destructive colonial legacies and postcolonial patronage systems that reinforced clientelist authoritarianism.The most visible one pertains to how the remnants of neocolonial networks that sustained European influence long after formal imperial rule ended in African states are close to a breaking point.Now the challenges generated by the creeping collapse of these power structures provides three key lessons for European policymakers.The durability of links between French military and corporate interests and well-connected local elites enabled France to act as primary security guarantor in much of Africa until as recently as several years ago.

In the past two weeks, the coup in Niger has snowballed into a confrontation pitting civilian-led states against military juntas in West Africa, leaving jihadist insurgents that have seized large swathes of territory in Mali and Burkina Faso poised to take advantage of the turmoil. But the standoff between the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, and the military-led regimes in neighboring Sahel countries is a symptom of broader dysfunctions in the global system that underscore the need for the European Union and its member states to reassess their approaches to foreign policy.

Over decades, flawed strategic choices by EU member states as well as local actors have contributed to a rising tide of instability that has turned the Sahel into a global flashpoint. The behavior of domestic and external actors has been shaped by destructive colonial legacies and postcolonial patronage systems that reinforced clientelist authoritarianism. Now the challenges generated by the creeping collapse of these power structures provides three key lessons for European policymakers.

The most visible one pertains to how the remnants of neocolonial networks that sustained European influence long after formal imperial rule ended in African states are close to a breaking point. The durability of links between French military and corporate interests and well-connected local elites enabled France to act as primary security guarantor in much of Africa until as recently as several years ago. But that generated complacency within EU institutions over the stability of the system widely known as “Francafrique.”

Yet as West African societies’ links with the wider world beyond Europe intensified and new generations born after independence emerged, many of the social foundations of European influence have withered. In the 1970s and 1980s, even revolutionary leaders such as Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara and Guinea’s Sekou Toure operated in intellectual frameworks that were heavily influenced by French traditions. After the Cold War, however, the growth of West African diasporas in the U.S., Canada and the EU, as well as access to news and culture from around the world through social media, expanded cultural frames of reference for younger people across the region.

The complacency in Paris and Brussels over the waning strength of established neocolonial structures helps explain why French governments and EU institutions struggled to adjust to the pace of change across West Africa. European policymakers were aware of how public frustration with neocolonial inequalities were hollowing out the willingness of elites to sustain the old order. But their assumption that they would be able to control the pace of change through regional military interventions or extensive development aid proved utterly misguided. As counterinsurgency campaigns against jihadists faltered and economic growth stagnated, widespread frustration with a status quo underpinned by French and EU policy opened the space for protest movements and ambitious military officers to mobilize anti-Western feelings in the service of their own strategic goals.

The extent to which anti-French sentiment in particular has helped various political actors stoke threats to stability across the region indicates that France and its EU partners need to fundamentally rethink how they position themselves in West Africa. Authoritarian actors as varied as jihadist insurgents, Russian mercenaries and military juntas have found it easy to sustain support from much of the public by stoking anti-colonial resentment against France. That is a sign that the tactical utility of large numbers of European troops leading counterinsurgency efforts in the region no longer outweighs the harm the resentment of their presence within West African societies does to efforts to provide security and prosperity.
But the military juntas—backed by Russian mercenaries in Mali—have proven unable to contain the jihadists in their own states. So the French and their EU partners face complex dilemmas when it comes to finding more constructive ways to assist a part of the world that is still tightly connected to the EU through trade, diaspora migration and border security.

With much of the past decade marked by an unraveling of European influence, the second lesson from turmoil in the Sahel is that other external actors are not in a position to replicate the dominance these neocolonial structures exerted at their height in the late 20th century. The U.S., Russia and China, as well as India and Turkey, all find themselves struggling with their own strategic limitations when it comes to replacing established structures of power in West Africa.

During the era of Cold War competition, the Soviet Union could barely sustain military and economic aid for its allies in Africa. With fewer resources at its disposal today, Moscow can at most provide limited military assistance through the Wagner Group and other mercenary networks. These can help secure the position of authoritarian juntas that are willing to hand over control of gold mines and other economic assets in return for regime security, and they have even beat off undisciplined rebel militias in the Central African Republic. But Russian mercenaries have proven less able to counter strategically astute jihadist insurgents in Mali, and that is likely to remain the case should they be employed in Burkina Faso and Niger.

When it comes to China, Turkey and India, their investment in infrastructure and trade is not matched by the strategic effort needed to shore up security across the region. Despite the concerns in Washington over Beijing’s global ambitions, China has mostly relied on the efforts of Western militaries to ensure the safety of its economic interests in Africa. And for all the overwhelming power Washington can deploy in the region, including its expensive drone bases in Niger, U.S. strategic priorities remain focused on the Indo-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, with Africa considered a secondary theater of operations.

None of the great powers who might offer alternatives to waning European influence has the will or capacity to act as a stabilizing force in West Africa. Moreover, Russia and China may be popular among local constituencies hostile to Western pressure. But the transactional nature of their approach to African states also looks likely to generate the kind of legitimacy deficit that stoked hostility toward French neocolonialism and U.S. arrogance across the region. Widespread frustration over dependence upon outsiders is likely to undermine the position of any external great power that tries to create its own version of Francafrique.

The inability of these non-European powers to act as effective security guarantors points to the final lesson to emerge from the Niger crisis. Geopolitical transitions caused by imperial decline can crystallize before local power structures are ready to take up the challenges that land at their feet. As external actors in the Sahel falter, the responsibility to construct a stable order in the region is visibly shifting toward the ECOWAS states. But they are hampered in assuming that responsibility by their struggles to overcome their own immense economic and political challenges.

Nigeria is the largest ECOWAS state, with the population size, military strength and economic weight to eventually develop strategic autonomy and even become a great power on a global scale. Together with other partially democratic ECOWAS members such as Ghana, Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire, which have substantial resources of their own, Nigeria already had the potential to eventually push meddling external actors aside to become the primary security guarantor in West Africa and the Sahel. Yet the accelerating decline of European influence alongside lack of capacity or focus of other external powers means that Nigeria and its ECOWAS partners are being forced to act as arbiters of regional security before they are ready to do so.

With Nigeria facing massive economic and security challenges, and smaller ECOWAS states struggling with underdevelopment or authoritarian rule, there is a strong possibility that the organization could become overwhelmed by the pressures it now faces. But as was the case with the U.S. and the EU’s member states, geopolitical crises that lead to state formation and great power status rarely happen at moments that are convenient. Often it is only through a response to internal crises and external shocks that states consolidate the economic and military foundations needed to sustain a stable security order in their neighborhood.

Enhancing the structures of ECOWAS could ensure that a transition to a new security system in West Africa does not replicate the dysfunctions of the European-led order it would replace. In particular, Nigeria and other large ECOWAS members would do well to secure support from smaller states, such as Benin and Togo, to legitimize any collective action. Such an emphasis on consensus-building and solidarity would reduce the risk that resentment across the region toward arrogant external powers becomes redirected against perceived Nigerian bullying.

While some dynamics that led to West Africa’s system-wide crisis are specific to the region, for the EU its three core lessons are also relevant to trends unfolding in other parts of the world. In situations in which the EU, U.S., China and other external actors don’t have the capacity to shape sustainable outcomes, deferring to democratic local actors that are better positioned to sustain the rule of law in their regions is more helpful than chasing delusions of global grandeur. Faced with so many pressures around their own neighborhood, the best way Europeans can contribute to a safer world beyond it is in knowing when they shouldn’t lead.