By Luke Nicastro
Just before he left for June’s G7 summit, French President Emmanuel Macron made a surprise announcement. His country’s long-running intervention in Africa’s Sahel region, Operation Barkhane, would be coming to an end. Initially launched in 2014 to combat Islamist terrorism and stabilize regional governments, the operation failed to accomplish either objective: last year saw the largest number of casualties from conflict since the operation began, while the nations the operation was meant to shore up remain wracked by corruption and repression. By ending its ‘forever war,’ Paris came to grips with this reality, acknowledging both the intractability of the problem and the unsuitability of its solution.
It is a lesson with special relevance to the United States. Even as we wrap up our long-running conflicts in the Middle East, pressure is building to increase America’s security footprint in Africa. The head of the Pentagon’s Africa Command recently claimed that a “wildfire of terrorism” is engulfing Africa: and over the past year, the emergence of radical groups in countries like Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have prompted calls for a larger US counterterrorism presence across the continent. At the same time, policymakers are linking African security problems with the broader paradigm of great power competition. In this view, counterinsurgency becomes a tool for countering Chinese and Russian influence: “Successful great-power competition in Africa,” a recent Foreign Affairs piece claimed, “hinges on the United States’ ability to win over African governments with a holistic counterinsurgency strategy.”
But the example of Barkhane suggests otherwise. Rather than providing increased stability or the expansion of American influence, if the US significantly increases its involvement in African conflicts—whether by increasing its own troop presence or amping up security aid to partner nations—it is likely to encounter the same challenges which led France to throw in the towel.
This piece was originally published in 1945 on July 2, 2021. Read more HERE.