How French Pullback Led to a Wave of Coups in Africa
How French Pullback Led to a Wave of Coups in Africa
France has reduced its military commitments to Africa. The resulting power vacuum is being filled by local military juntas, Russian mercenaries, and the U.S. government.
Africa is the only continent where every country has a total fertility rate above replacement levels and, as a result, is projected to grow to 2.4 billion people by 2050 and 4.2 billion by 2100, reaching nearly 40% of the global population.
This demographic growth is expected to provide major opportunities for economic growth both in Africa and for outside players, but such growth can only occur under politically stable conditions. In August 2020, the military of Mali overthrew the government in a coup d’etat. Since then, in quick succession, four of Mali’s regional neighbors have experienced coup attempts, including successful ones in Guinea and Burkina Faso. The Central African Republic, meanwhile, has become a client state of Russia. This unprecedented wave of coups is a consequence of decisions made in Paris to pull back long-standing French troop deployments in French-speaking Africa.You can listen to this Brief in full with the audio player below:
The French military has been actively deployed to West Africa since January 2013, when an offensive was launched to defeat armed separatists in northern Mali who threatened to overthrow the government. Initially successful, the deployment was formalized as Operation Barkhane in 2014 and expanded to neighboring countries, including Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad. At its peak, Operation Barkhane involved 5500 French soldiers. A United Nations follow-on peacekeeping mission involved about 15,000 UN peacekeepers, including over one thousand German soldiers.
In early 2020, the French government loosened its commitment to military involvement in the region. French President Emmanuel Macron, newly elected in 2017, was unwilling to send more French troops to Africa to bring an end to the ongoing insurgencies, which had multiplied rather than subsided. Macron believed that France’s relationship to Africa needed a “reset” or “refoundation” from its colonial past and, as part of that, France should allow African countries to solve their own problems. French military intervention, therefore, would be scaled back.
An official change in strategy would be made to reduce the French military’s geographical area of focus, request more troops from European allies and the UN, and encourage more initiative by local African governments.
Most importantly, the threat of “disengagement” from Africa was on the table if local political elites did not cooperate with French demands, including for political reforms. At a high-profile summit in France in January 2020, Macron met with the leaders of Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania and subsequently released a joint statement affirming their commitment to the change in strategy.Nevertheless, the local militaries did not succeed in taking the initiative and major political reforms were not carried out. With the French government having made clear that French military support would not increase, France had effectively chosen to abandon its client states in West Africa. Instead, by August, the Malian military decided to take matters into its own hands and overthrew the civilian government. The other coups all followed afterwards.
Operation Barkhane was formally terminated in November 2022. The French military has completely exited both Mali and the Central African Republic and is in the process of exiting Burkina Faso shortly. Nevertheless, about 3000 French troops are expected to remain in Niger and Chad, but will reportedly not engage in warfare independently, but only in cooperation with local militaries.
Whatever military outcomes result from this change, the political outcome is that French prestige and influence in Africa has suddenly dropped and, along with it, the power of French-backed local elites.All of the countries in question are former colonies of France. Although formal French colonialism ended in the decades after World War II, France nevertheless maintained a notable sphere of influence in its former African colonies, especially in West Africa. This informal empire was maintained through elite social and business ties with France, as well as through the large-scale involvement of the French military, which was deliberately designed to be capable of rapid intervention in Africa.
Local military commanders have used the power vacuum created by French pullback to overthrow their civilian leaders. But other players are also stepping in: the United States and, surprisingly, Russia. While the U.S. has taken a new interest in Africa since 2020 and committed billions of dollars to aid, it has also had U.S. troops deployed in Africa for years, partially as part of assistance to France’s Operation Barkhane. Russia, meanwhile, has emerged as a local player mainly through the presence of the private military company Wagner Group, led by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close friend and ally Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Though the coup leaders desire regional stability and the end of mediation by foreign powers, they face the same basic problem as their civilian predecessors. Weak states that cannot suppress insurgencies or alleviate privation on their own necessarily come to depend on strong states and, in the process, become client states. If France will not provide this support, perhaps the U.S. or Russia will. It remains possible for France to reverse this strategic pullback in the future, but with Macron staying in office until 2027, it seems unlikely in the short term.
At the moment, the coup leaders in Mali and Burkina Faso have both apparently invited the Wagner Group to assist, while the Central African Republic has had a relationship with the Wagner Group since 2018. For the Wagner Group, involvement in Africa is basically a business decision, since payment can be taken through leases on lucrative gold mines or other such natural resources. Russia’s strategic interest in West Africa is minimal, but for Wagner Group in particular is very high.
The U.S. does not have a relationship with the coup leaders, but has stepped up diplomatic commitments to Africa broadly that prefigure more economic and possibly military involvement. While U.S. strategic interest in West Africa is also relatively low, for individual players in the State Department or Department of Defense, each new foreign intervention is a potential justification for more funding and resources and therefore for a new personal empire within the department. With French elites pulling out of Africa, an opportunity has arisen to replace them.
France Gives Up On Africa
The core driving factor of events in West Africa has been a change in French strategy effected by French President Emmanuel Macron. Since coming into office in 2017, Macron has been attempting a large-scale “reset” or “refoundation” of French relations with Africa. His views were outlined in a November 2017 speech he gave in Burkina Faso, where he explained that “there is no longer a French policy for Africa,” because he no longer wished for France to exercise a colonial-style, paternalistic relationship with African countries.
Macron’s views are informed by both French and African academics who study European colonialism and its consequences. In 2018, for example, Macron commissioned a report from the Senegalese academic Felwine Sarr and French art historian Bénédicte Savoy on the “restitution of African cultural heritage” in order to return African artworks in French museums to Africa. In 2021, Macron personally commissioned the Cameroonian academic and prominent critic of French colonialism Achille Mbembe to conduct a seven-month tour of Africa—conducting interviews with civil society leaders—and produce a report on how France can reform its relationship to Africa.
Many of Mbembe’s eventual recommendations dovetail with Macron’s policies and actions, such as, for example, the elimination of the CFA franc currency used in West and Central Africa.
The CFA franc is guaranteed by the French treasury, pegged to the euro, and comes in two mutually non-convertible varieties, giving the French government significant monetary influence in Africa. Macron announced in 2019 that the CFA franc would be discontinued and replaced with a new independent currency called the “eco,” although this has not yet happened due to the region’s instability.While Macron openly and enthusiastically acknowledges the negative effects of European colonialism in Africa, he is not strictly attempting to dismantle French influence in Africa. Rather, in his view, both France and Europe broadly would benefit from stronger, more independent African states and France would benefit from building relationships with African countries that were not former French colonies, including some of the continent’s most populous countries like Nigeria and South Africa.
Nevertheless, Macron’s strategy to achieve this goal seems mostly to be backfiring and resulting in the dismantling of French social and business ties to Africa without any superior replacement.
In January 2020, Macron decided to apply his reformist views to the ongoing French military intervention in West Africa. Fearing a greater resurgence of armed insurgencies and unwilling to commit more French troops in response, the French government decided to reduce the geographical scope of Operation Barkhane and pressure “pusillanimous allies” in Europe and Africa to commit more resources and take more initiative in the ongoing warfare.
Notably, Macron specifically wanted the government of Mali to finally implement a peace agreement reached in 2015 with the armed separatists in the north of the country, whose insurgency necessitated the original French intervention.
Implementation of the agreement’s provisions had stalled since it gave considerable autonomy to the separatists and required unwanted constitutional reforms of the Malian government. At a summit in Pau, France in January 2020 with the heads of state of Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania, Macron communicated his new strategy and requested public commitment to the French presence.By August 2020, Mali’s elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta was deeply unpopular due to corruption, a stillborn parliamentary election, and poor economic conditions worsened both by the ongoing conflict and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On August 18th, Malian soldiers stormed the capital and declared Keïta’s resignation and the establishment of a “transitional” military government, emphasizing that the constitution was still in effect and that they wanted to maintain the military partnership with France. The French government did not interfere on Keïta’s behalf beyond condemning the coup.In March 2021, units of the Niger military attacked the capital and attempted a coup two days before Niger’s new democratically-elected president was due to be sworn in.
This attempt failed. In April 2021, the President of Chad died in combat with rebels. His son was immediately instated as president of another “transitional military council” and, perhaps sensing the possibility of yet more violence, Emmanuel Macron actually attended the late president’s funeral in Chad the same month, signaling French backing for the Chadian government. Chad has not suffered another coup since.In September 2021, the military of Guinea overthrew President Alpha Condé. While Guinea was not on the frontlines of the insurgencies, Condé had also become deeply unpopular after violently cracking down on opposition to his disputed third term in office. The month before the coup, he had announced both tax increases and reduced spending on the police and military. Condé was notably implicated in a corruption plot with French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, who was criminally charged in France for it. Once again, France did not intervene on Condé’s behalf.
In January 2022, the military of Burkina Faso overthrew the civilian government and announced that parliament and the constitution were suspended. In similar circumstances as Mali, Niger, and Guinea, the combination of economic privation, political corruption, and failure to end violent insurgencies made the government unpopular. But the deciding factor was not the unpopularity of the government, but rather the sudden willingness of national militaries to capitalize on unpopularity for a coup attempt.
Such power grabs would previously have been kept in check by the threat of economic sanctions or even military intervention by France. For example, when the Malian military overthrew the government in 2012, France suspended “all” security cooperation with Mali.
After the 2012 coup leaders agreed to return power to a civilian government, under sanctions from both France and neighboring countries, France began planning its ambitious offensive that became Operation Barkhane. In 2010, when the President of Côte d'Ivoire refused to step down after losing an election, the French military assisted the opposition in removing him by force through a four-month civil war.But having made clear that French military commitments to Africa would not increase in 2020, Macron intentionally or unintentionally signaled that France would no longer act as the regional hegemon and back weak leaders or states. This opened the door for coup attempts and each successive coup reinforced this fact. In December 2022, Mali’s northern separatists pulled out of the stalled peace plan with the Malian government, putting a decisive end to Macron’s January 2020 gambit.
In Mali and Burkina Faso, the coup leaders have made clear that they no longer want French support or intervention, military or otherwise. In February 2022, the Mali junta asked France to withdraw all troops immediately. France complied. In January 2023, the Burkina Faso junta did the same.
France recalled its ambassador and complied again, announcing it would withdraw all troops within a month. Instead of France, the juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso have turned to an unexpected foreign backer: Russia’s premier state-backed private military company, the Wagner Group.Russian Mercenaries Find a New Market
The Wagner Group reportedly arrived in Mali in December 2021, with up to one thousand mercenaries.
Though not officially linked to the Kremlin, the private military company is understood to be a covert arm of state influence, with its leader, oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, providing counsel to Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. estimates from early 2022 held that three to five thousand Wagner Group troops were present in Africa, though most of these are likely to be in the Central African Republic, where the Wagner Group has had a presence since 2018.The Mali junta is reluctant to claim the Wagner Group as working for it, stating that it only contracts with the Russian Armed Forces, though Russia has denied any military involvement in Mali whatsoever.
Given that the Russian government denies any connection to the Wagner Group, this seems to be a confirmation that the Mali junta has invited the Wagner Group to Mali. Regardless of the official story, it is clear that Mali needs help to hold off armed separatists, or even a rival coup attempt, and that the Wagner Group is the latest attempt to enlist foreign manpower, expertise, and legitimacy.The Wagner Group’s operations seem suited for smaller-scale deployments. The Wagner Group is embedding with the Malian military in armed combat, administering supply hubs, and upgrading army telecommunications. As of late 2022, the Wagner Group lacked the materiel for airborne reconnaissance in the style of U.S. and French troops in Mali, and is mainly focused on tactical deployments. Given the group’s increasing stature in Russia’s war effort against Ukraine, however, they may eventually upgrade their capabilities and become a more technologically advanced private army.
In addition to operating in Mali, the Wagner Group is suspected to have played a role in Burkina Faso’s most recent coup. Notably, coup supporters demonstrated in the capital with Russian flags, what would otherwise be an unlikely sight in West Africa.
It is likely, however, that in Burkina Faso’s case the collaboration with Russia is more formal than it is in Mali. Russian government officials have been quick to congratulate the junta in Burkina Faso on their victory, and reports leading up to the coup indicate that the military sought Russia as a supplier of heavy equipment that France would not provide.While the Burkina Faso junta has neither confirmed nor denied its new relationship with Russia or the Wagner Group, the country’s new junta-appointed prime minister visited Russia in December 2022 and spoke positively of a “partnership.”
The president of neighboring Ghana, meanwhile, has claimed outright that the junta has made an agreement with the Wagner Group and ceded a gold mine as payment in exchange for help fighting insurgencies.The entrance of the Wagner Group to conflict in West Africa has limited the ability of French and U.S. forces to maintain their presence there. The French withdrawal from Mali in August of 2022 was precipitated by the Wagner Group taking control of areas formerly under French jurisdiction. New Malian legislation has required 72-hour notice for surveillance flights, which renders French and U.S. intelligence-gathering operations ineffective.
For the Wagner Group, entering mercenary service in Mali and Burkina Faso would simply be a continuation of its successes doing so in the Central African Republic, which has used the group for military training, security, and warfare with rebels since 2018.
In return for successfully protecting the Central African government, the Wagner Group has received an “untaxed license” to source and export diamonds, gold, and timber from the country. Meanwhile, France finished withdrawing its 1600 troops from the country in January 2023, blaming its withdrawal on the Central African government’s decision to work with the Wagner Group. The parallels with French pullback in Mali and Burkina Faso are clear.It is important to note that, though linked to the Kremlin, the Wagner Group is not necessarily representative of the motivations or goals of the Russian government, and it is unlikely that Russia is using the Wagner Group to secure resource claims or geopolitical allies. In addition to Russia’s own vast natural resources industry which needs no competition, west and central African states simply lack the infrastructure and expertise to process and export their wealth of natural resources—including oil, gold, diamonds, bauxite, and uranium—at a scale that would make them strategically relevant. All of the states with Russian involvement, moreover, are landlocked.
Russia has very few economic ties to the region as a whole. Russian trade with sub-Saharan Africa is approximately a quarter of the United States’ trade, and less than one-tenth of China’s. It does not provide significant foreign direct investment, nor is it involved in development initiatives or sustained humanitarian aid. For the Wagner Group narrowly, however, employment as mercenaries in Africa can prove to be a powerful foundation for the company’s international empire, bringing in presumably large and much-needed streams of revenue.
U.S. Involvement in Africa is Ready to Increase
.jpg){kind=link}
Though not primarily associated with Africa in common usage, the “war on terror” is in fact the primary justification for U.S. involvement in West Africa. Starting in the early 2010s, conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa spilled over into the Sahara, the Sahel region, and even sub-Saharan Africa as Islamist forces reorganized and regrouped from defeats in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere, giving rise to regional cells and ultimately spreading their influence. Many of the insurgent groups fighting in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad are explicitly Islamist or jihadist.
Africa had previously proven to be a fruitful space for insurgencies to incubate: Al-Qaeda leadership chose to shelter in Sudan in the 1990s, for example, and Algeria has had a long history of Islamist attacks.
But as the U.S. pressured Islamist cells in the Middle East and North Africa, a resurgence of activity emerged in Africa. To contain the insurgencies, which were fought by interconnected militant groups associated with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Somalia’s Al-Shabbab, and Nigeria’s Boko Haram, the U.S. invested in training and arming state military forces in Africa through the 2002 Pan-Sahel Initiative and the 2005 Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership.These programs were combined into the U.S. military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) as of 2008, with the stated goals of neutralizing extremism in Africa and building peacekeeping and disaster response capabilities in local forces through materiel support and training programs.
It is not the case that the U.S. unlawfully invaded African states; U.S. presence is justified under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, a congressional resolution authorizing the deployment of the U.S. military against those responsible for the September 11th attacks.AFRICOM further justifies its presence by generally not engaging in armed counterterrorism, instead billing itself as a peacekeeping and training force similar to the UN.
However, AFRICOM has ultimately given the U.S. a reputation for employing local militaries as proxy forces in the war on terror. The U.S. policy of maintaining a “light footprint” in Africa actually leads to significant enmeshment with local militaries, much of it off the books. At present, AFRICOM is staffed by approximately 2000 troops based out of its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, although the actual number of troops working in service of AFRICOM are higher due to training, personnel transfer, and materiel support.Between 2013 and 2017, U.S. special forces saw combat in at least 13 African countries, and though operation names and general purposes are mostly common knowledge, the full extent of the programs are not. These programs, known as “127e programs” after the budgetary authority that allows U.S. special forces to use foreign military units as proxies, allow the U.S. to run small and self-sufficient counterterrorism operations, and also employ foreign troops in countries where the U.S. is not officially at war.
The 127e programs are highly secretive and there is little consensus regarding which operations are still ongoing.Other U.S. military interventions in Africa are better known. Since the NATO intervention against Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi during the Libyan civil war of 2011, U.S. presence has increased in North and West Africa. In 2012, Operation Jukebox Lotus gave AFRICOM the authority to operate freely in Libya during crisis response.
Operation Juniper Micron created a detachment of U.S. troops that provided materiel and intelligence support to France’s Operation Serval, the armed offensive which began in Mali in 2013 when fighters from Libya arrived and assisted separatists in northern Mali.Based in Niger, this detachment was operational as early as July 2013, mainly by flying long-range reconnaissance drones in support of French troops on the ground.
After Operation Serval was expanded into the wider Operation Barkhane, U.S. support continued. In 2018, it was reported that the CIA had built a drone base in Niger that was used to fly armed combat drones in missions against Islamist and jihadist groups. The U.S. military has also regularly provided airlifts for French cargo and troops from its Niger bases. U.S. support for French military operations in Africa is not new, as the U.S. tacitly supported French colonial and post-colonial interventions during the Cold War to counteract Soviet influence in the region.Despite more than $850 million spent since 2011 on Libyan operations alone, the results of U.S. long-term counterterrorism operations in Africa have been mixed at best.
In each of these conflicts, short-term gains for U.S. and French forces created a “terror diaspora,” pushing conflict into other areas of Africa and leaving local governments vulnerable to takeover, weakened both by expenditures in combat and reliance on foreign manpower and materiel.While the U.S. has had a weak strategic interest in West Africa and the Sahel region, namely to defeat Islamist terrorist groups that might organize attacks on U.S. citizens or soil, the best way to understand U.S. involvement in West Africa is as motivated by the desires of individuals in the U.S. government to build up their own personal empires.
In U.S. government bureaucracies like the State Department or the Department of Defense, any potential conflict around the world is an opportunity to, for example, provide humanitarian aid or establish counterterrorism training. As long as some kind of intervention can be justified, no matter how limited, a new or expanded budget can be justified that allows an ambitious official to build up a patronage network and career credentials. Similarly to how Russian involvement in Africa is driven by the Wagner Group’s business decision-making, personal empire-building also drives U.S. involvement, moreso than any grand strategic vision of geopolitics.
The U.S. government has made several moves to indicate an increased interest in Africa since 2020, coinciding with both the start of Macron’s military pullback and the election of U.S. President Joseph Biden. In 2021, the State Department announced $80 million in assistance in response to the “Sahel crisis.”
In August 2022, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced a new U.S. strategy for Africa focused around promoting democracy and free trade on the continent and countering Russian and Chinese influence.In December 2022, the White House hosted the second-ever United States-Africa Leaders Summit, a very large meeting of the U.S. president and nearly all of the heads of state or government from Africa in Washington, D.C. The first and only previous such summit was held in 2014. According to National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, the U.S. will commit at least $55 billion in spending on Africa in the next three years.
President Joseph Biden is reportedly planning a multi-country tour of Africa in 2023, his first official visit to the continent as president.While these moves remain tentative so far, they have set the stage for much greater U.S. involvement in Africa diplomatically, economically, and militarily. U.S. officials are also keenly aware of the Wagner Group’s activities in Africa. A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate to classify the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization lists alleged war crimes in Mali and the Central African Republic, among other places.
Assuming the juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso—or the government of the Central African Republic—survive long enough, it would not be unreasonable to expect U.S. support to overthrow them in the next few years, whether covert or overt, in an attempt to damage Russian interests.Emmanuel Macron’s “reset” of relations with Africa looks like it is failing. France has simply lost economic, social, and military ties to the continent with no clear gain. This reduces French strategic autonomy and has already created new opportunities for Russia and the United States to expand their own empires at France’s expense. It seems unlikely that the military juntas will produce live players able to forge strong states out of weak ones, so it is a foregone conclusion that Africa’s weak states will come to rely on other foreign powers. If not France, it seems most likely to be the United States, though in the coming decades it is also possible that China, Russia, or even Morocco learn to become such patrons as well.
Ibrahim Anoba, “How a Population of 4.2 Billion Could Impact Africa by 2100: The Possible Economic, Demographic, and Geopolitical Outcomes,” Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute, September 24, 2019, https://saisreview.sais.jhu.edu/how-a-population-of-4-2-billion-could-impact-africa-by-2100-the-possible-economic-demographic-and-geopolitical-outcomes/
Roger Cohen, “Putin Wants Fealty, and He’s Found It in Africa,” The New York Times, December 27, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/world/africa/central-african-republic-russia-wagner.html
Nathalie Guibert, “Au Sahel, le nouveau visage de l’opération « Barkhane »,” Le Monde, January 13, 2020, https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2020/01/13/au-sahel-le-nouveau-visage-de-l-operation-barkhane_6025672_3212.html
Ibid.
Hugh Schofield, “France calls time on anti-jihadist Operation Barkhane in Sahel,” BBC News, November 9, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63575602
Read the full speech here: https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2017/11/28/emmanuel-macrons-speech-at-the-university-of-ouagadougou.en
Gregoire Sauvage, “Qui est Achille Mbembe, l’architecte du sommet Afrique-France de Montpellier?”, France24, October 7, 2021, https://www.france24.com/fr/france/20211007-qui-est-achille-mbembe-l-architecte-du-sommet-afrique-france-de-montpellier
Coumba Kane and Elise Barthet, “Le rapport Mbembe préconise une « refondation » des relations entre la France et l’Afrique,” Le Monde, October 6, 2021, https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2021/10/06/le-rapport-mbembe-preconise-une-refondation-des-relations-entre-la-france-et-l-afrique_6097353_3212.html
Isaac Mugabi, “West Africa's Eco currency remains an illusion,” Deutsche Welle, July 2, 2021, https://www.dw.com/en/west-africas-eco-currency-plan-remains-a-pipe-dream/a-58136111
Jason Burke, “Macron seeks African reset with new view of France’s troubled history on continent,” The Guardian, May 29, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/29/macron-tells-africas-leaders-he-seeks-to-reset-french-ties-with-the-continent
Nathalie Guibert, “Au Sahel, le nouveau visage de l’opération « Barkhane »,” Le Monde, January 13, 2020, https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2020/01/13/au-sahel-le-nouveau-visage-de-l-operation-barkhane_6025672_3212.html
Ibid.
“Mali’s Algiers Peace Agreement, Five Years On: An Uneasy Calm,” International Crisis Group, June 24, 2020, https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/sahel/mali/laccord-dalger-cinq-ans-apres-un-calme-precaire-dont-il-ne-faut-pas-se-satisfaire
Ruth Maclean, “Anger at Mali’s President Rises After Security Forces Kill Protesters,” The New York Times, August 19, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/world/africa/mali-protesters-killed-keita.html
Ruth Maclean, Cheick Amadou Diouara, and Elian Peltier, “Mali Coup Leaders Pledge Democracy After Deposing President,” The New York Times, August 19, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/world/africa/mali-military-coup.html
“Niger: Attack on presidential palace an ‘attempted coup’,” Al Jazeera, March 31, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/31/heavy-gunfire-heard-near-nigers-presidency
Daniel Pelz, “Why France is backing Chad's new leader, Mahamat Idriss Deby,” Deutsche Welle, April 23, 2021, https://www.dw.com/en/why-france-is-backing-chads-new-leader-mahamat-idriss-deby/a-57316728
“France suspends cooperation with Mali after coup,” Reuters, March 22, 2012, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mali-army-france-idUSBRE82L0L820120322
“France confirms Mali military intervention,” BBC News, January 11, 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-20991719
“Mali's northern armed groups pull out of Algiers peace talks,” Reuters, December 23, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/malis-northern-armed-groups-pull-out-algiers-peace-talks-2022-12-22/
“Burkina Faso confirms telling France to withdraw troops,” France24, January 23, 2023, https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230123-burkina-faso-confirms-telling-france-to-withdraw-troops
Joseph Ataman, “France recalls ambassador and will withdraw military forces from Burkina Faso,” CNN, January 26, 2023, https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/26/africa/france-withdraw-burkina-faso-intl/index.html
John Irish and David Lewis, “Exclusive-Deal allowing Russian mercenaries into Mali is close - sources,” Reuters, September 13, 2021, https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-deal-allowing-russian-mercenaries-130553760.html
Roger Cohen, “Putin Wants Fealty, and He’s Found It in Africa,” The New York Times, December 27, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/world/africa/central-african-republic-russia-wagner.html
“News conference following Russian-French talks,” President of Russia, February 8, 2022, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67735.
Mayeni Jones, “Why Russia is cheering on the Burkina Faso coup,” BBC News, October 10, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63171771
Sam Mednick, “Russian role in Burkina Faso crisis comes under scrutiny,” AP News, October 17, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-africa-france-west-a6384d7134e8688c367a68721f657857.
“Burkina Faso confirms it has ended French military accord,” Al Jazeera, January 23, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/23/burkina-faso-ends-french-military-accord-says-will-defend-itself
Lalla Sy, “Wagner Group: Burkina Faso anger over Russian mercenary link,” BBC News, December 16, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-63998458
Danielle Paquette, “Russian mercenaries have landed in West Africa, pushing Putin’s goals as the Kremlin is increasingly isolated,” The Washington Post, March 9, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/09/mali-russia-wagner.
Akram Kharief, “Foreign mercenaries in new scramble for Africa and the Sahel,” Middle East Eye, May 24, 2018, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/foreign-mercenaries-new-scramble-africa-and-sahel
Roger Cohen, “Putin Wants Fealty, and He’s Found It in Africa,” The New York Times, December 27, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/24/world/africa/central-african-republic-russia-wagner.html
Ibid.
Ash Milton, ““Opportunity Is Always Out There” With Simon Mann,” Palladium, January 18, 2023, https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/01/18/opportunity-is-always-out-there-with-simon-mann/
David Shinn, “Al-Qaeda in East Africa and the Horn,” Journal of Conflict Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2007, https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/jcs/article/view/5655/6658.
“United States Africa Command 2017 Posture Statement,” United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, March 9, 2017, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Waldhauser_03-09-17.pdf.
Oona Hathaway and Luke Hartig, “Still at War: The United States in Somalia,” Just Security, March 31, 2022, https://www.justsecurity.org/80921/still-at-war-the-united-states-in-somalia.
Nick Turse, “The U.S. Brags About Health Aid to Africa While Bombing Some of its Most Vulnerable Nations,” The Intercept, May 22, 2020, https://theintercept.com/2020/05/22/us-africa-aid-coronavirus-somalia-libya.
Nick Turse, “Pentagon’s Own Map of U.S. Basis in Africa Contradicts Its Claim of ‘Light’ Footprint,” The Intercept, February 27, 2020, https://theintercept.com/2020/02/27/africa-us-military-bases-africom.
Kyle Rempfer, “Special operations launches ‘secret surrogate’ missions in new counter-terrorism strategy,” MilitaryTimes, February 8, 2019, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/02/08/fighting-terrorism-may-rely-on-secret-surrogate-forces-going-forward.
“Operation Jukebox Lotus,” America's Codebook: Africa, https://codebookafrica.wordpress.com/operations/recent-us-military-operations-relating-to-africa-2000-present/recent-us-counter-terrorism-operations/operation-jukebox-lotus.
“Operation Juniper Micron,” GlobalSecurity.org, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/juniper-micron.htm.
Eric Schmitt, “Drones in Niger Reflect New U.S. Tack on Terrorism,” The New York Times, July 10, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/11/world/africa/drones-in-niger-reflect-new-us-approach-in-terror-fight.html
Abigail Fielding-Smith, “Deciphering the New CIA Drone Base in Niger,” The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, September 11, 2018, https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2018-09-11/deciphering-the-new-cia-drone-base-in-niger
Capt. James Sheehan, “US gives lift to French forces,” U.S. Army, October 8, 2019, https://www.army.mil/article/217360/us_gives_lift_to_french_forces
“The United States and Libya,” U.S. Department of State, June 23, 2021, https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-and-libya.
Nick Turse, “America’s Proxy Wars in Africa,” The Nation, March 13, 2014, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/americas-proxy-wars-africa.
Ned Price, “The United States Announces Humanitarian Assistance for the Sahel Crisis Response,” U.S. Department of State, March 19, 2021, https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-announces-humanitarian-assistance-for-the-sahel-crisis-response.
Edward Wong and Lynsey Chutel, “U.S. Promotes Democracy in Africa as Rival Nations Expand Influence,” The New York Times, August 8, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/world/africa/us-policy-africa-blinken.html
“Explainer: How the U.S. plans to commit $55 billion to Africa over three years,” Reuters, December 15, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/how-us-plans-commit-55-billion-africa-over-three-years-2022-12-13/
Dave Lawler and Hans Nichols, “Scoop: Biden planning multi-country trip to Africa next year,” Axios, December 12, 2022, https://www.axios.com/2022/12/12/biden-visit-africa-summit