In Niger, military takes control, with Moscow in the wings

Last month’s coup d’état in Niger, when military officers overthrew the country’s elected president, was a particularly hard blow for U.S. policy in Africa, and for Western interests generally on the continent.

Not only did it unseat the last civilian government in the Sahel region, the largely arid band of countries girding north-central Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, but it also threw into doubt the whole U.S. and European approach to curbing Islamic jihadis, who are spreading throughout the region.

In Africa, unlike Afghanistan, the Western focus has been on social and economic reforms – supported by military action by local soldiers – designed to tackle the ravages of climate change; desperate poverty, especially among a rapidly growing younger population; and woefully inadequate education, health, and social services.

Now Western countries have suspended all the aid they were giving to Niger to implement this approach. It would not be surprising if the new junta followed the example of its neighbors, such as Mali and Burkina Faso, which have turned for help to Moscow, and the Wagner Group mercenary force.

It remains to be seen whether they are any more successful in improving lives in one of the poorest countries on Earth.

It was supposed to be everything Afghanistan wasn’t: a broad, strategically planned U.S. military, economic, political, and social partnership with a stable democratic government, and few American boots on the ground, aimed at turning back a tide of jihadist insurgency.

With wider geopolitical stakes, too, as military juntas were seizing power in nearby states and buttressing their hold on power with Russian Wagner Group mercenaries.

Yet now, with one sharp shock, all of that has been thrown into doubt.

Because within the space of a few hours late last month, military officers ousted the elected leader of U.S. ally Niger, too. It became the last of the countries of the Sahel region, the largely arid band girding north-central Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, to have been taken over by the military.

And that’s left Washington, along with allies in Europe and Africa, frantically looking this week for a way to persuade the coup leaders to go back to their barracks. Or, at the very least, to talk them out of following the lead of next-door juntas, in Mali and Burkina Faso, by turning to Russia for support.

But Niger matters not only because it was the Sahel’s sole surviving democracy.

It’s because Niger’s huge array of challenges is shared across the Sahel: violent Islamic insurgencies; the ravages of climate change; desperate poverty, especially among a rapidly growing younger population; and woefully inadequate education, health, and social services.