Diplomacy & Crisis News

Backlash is building—but Beijing can’t seem to recalibrate.

Mq-9 Reaper Drone – the weapon that was used to carry out the tragic attack

On August 29th, just two days before the Biden administration’s deadline to complete America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, an unnamed official from the newly established “Over-the-Horizon Strike Cell” authorized a strike from an MQ-9 Reaper drone that killed ten Afghan civilians, including seven children. 

This is a tragedy. Individual Americans, myself included, should be ashamed that our government carried out this sort of indiscriminate violence. The military officials who authorized the strike should be held accountable both publicly and privately. 

As opposed to responding with the sort of transparency that one might expect from a nation that aspires to be a beacon of liberal democracy and good governance for the world, American military officials and their representatives to the media continued to perpetuate lies and misinformation about the strike’s consequences for weeks before conceding that the attack that they authorized resulted in the murder of children and aid workers. Not only are these sorts of misinformation campaigns corrosive to the trust that individual Americans have in their government, but these murders and lies destroy American credibility around the world. 

Despite this series of lies and indiscriminate violence, General Milley, who not long ago referred to the strike as “righteous”, would now like to recognize that his actions were a “mistake” and offer his “sincere apology” to the surviving family of the children killed  in the operation he authorized. Other officials in the United States military have offered similar apologies for the role that they played in this murder of children and aid workers. 

At this point, it is important to note that since the launch of the war in Afghanistan some 900 civilians have been killed by American drone strikes, and some 45,000 Afghan civilians have been killed as a consequence of other elements of America’s military operation in their country. This is hardly America’s first apology for the killing of civilians in the Middle East. Well over 350,000 civilians have been killed as a consequence of the generalized violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen over the last twenty years and four presidential administrations. 

Despite this horrific loss of life, in the days following the attack much has been written questioning America’s capacity to continue to strike military targets in Afghanistan without boots on the ground. This is the wrong question- instead, we should be asking if America’s plan to sustain military efforts in Afghanistan are precise enough to avoid murdering civilians and children. 

In order to address the threat of terrorisim over the long term, it is important that we understand what motivates terrorisim. Here, we can look at a two pronged study conducted by James Payne, who has taught at Yale, John Hopkins, and other well respected institutions. 

First, Panye goes through the journals and public statements of Osama Bin Laden, a man whose ideology undeniably shaped modern terrorisim, in order to develop a better understanding of what incentivises Al-Qaeda and other similar groups. Over 70% of these statements were classified as “Criticism of American aggression, oppression, and exploitation of Muslim lands and peoples”. On the other hand, only 1% of bin Laden’s recorded remarks are “criticisms of American society and culture”, an even smaller portion advocates “Spreading Islam to the West”. 

On the basis of these findings, Payne argues that the approach of “taking the fight to the terrorists” that the United States has employed since 2001 is, “… a mistake.  (As) The size of terrorist ranks are not fixed. Their numbers are a function of the perception of American intrusion.” The murder of children and aid workers, then, serves as “ideal” recruting material for groups like ISIS-K that would work to further destabilize Afghanistan and work against other American interests.

The fact that these attacks were carried out by unmanned aircraft while the United States was in the process of a nominal withdrawal from Afghanistan likely contributes to the notion that the United States is unwilling to apply proper restraint to its actions and will continue its pattern of recklessly striking out against targets, military and otherwise, in Afghanistan and beyond.

In order for the United States to eliminate the threat of terrorisim, much less help the people living in terror afflicted nations, American military strikes simply cannot continue to kill civilians- this recklessness is exactly the sort of behavior that creates terrorosim. 

If the United States wants to be given the benefit of the doubt by non-aligned people in the region, we need to prove that we are the “good guys”. When the “good guys” fight wars, they typically don’t kill kids- America’s military has failed in that, and as a consequence local populations are faced with a difficult question when evaluating America’s actions in the region. To quote Anissa Ahmadi, the wife and mother of some of those killed by the drone strike, “America used us to defend itself, and now they’ve destroyed Afghanistan, whoever dropped this bomb on our family, may God punish you.” 

Here, we are made to grapple with the sad reality that even the best possible intentions do not guarantee good outcomes. 

There is little reason to doubt the power and reach of America’s military might.  The question is not, “ is the US military the most capable in the world?”, the question is, “are our leaders capable of using that military might without inspiring future generations of anti-American terrorism?”.  It clearly remains to be seen whether or not American political and military officials are capable of wielding that power responsibly.   A drone strike that kills innocent civilians would suggest our military tools are, unfortunately, far superior to our ability to decide when and where to use those tools constructively. 

With great power comes great responsibility.   The recent drone strike in Afghanistan did not live up to that responsibility.

—

Peter Scaturro is the Director of Studies at the Foreign Policy Association

A force for good in the changing international order.

The conclusion of Nord Stream 2’s construction through the Baltic Sea poses a range of geo-economic and security challenges – and not only to Eastern Europe.

Whether the Biden Administration’s surprising approval of Nord Stream 2 this summer means that the pipeline will soon start operation remains an open question. The US Congress seems to be about to introduce new sanctions against the company operating the pipeline. However, the imminent completion and remaining certification process by European authorities will increase pressure for the pipeline to start operation.

Whether Nord Stream 2 will go online or not, its emergence raises questions about the EU’s future relationship with Kyiv, as well as Ukraine’s role both as a transit and storage country for natural gas and as a potential alternative energy exporter. Russia sees the completion of the controversial pipeline not only as a commercial and technological achievement, but as a major geopolitical victory for Moscow.

If it starts operation, Nord Stream 2 will remove the remaining leverage that Ukraine had as a major transit country for the export of Siberian and Central Asian gas to the EU. This is not mere conjecture: Russia’s onetime economic dependency on Ukraine was reduced with the start of the first leg of the original Nord Stream pipeline’s operation in 2011. After Angela Merkel opened the second string of Nord Stream in October 2012, Russian-Ukrainian relations deteriorated rapidly.

With its annexation of Crimea and intervention in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, Russia began to treat Ukraine in the same way as it had been treating Moldova and Georgia for many years before.

These two countries had already been dismembered by the Kremlin, because Chisinau and Tbilisi never held any significant economic leverage over Moscow. The activation of Gazprom’s TurkStream pipeline via the Black Sea in early 2020, and the completion of Nord Stream 2 via the Baltic Sea in September 2021, conclude Russia’s energy-industrial disentanglement from Ukraine. It gives Putin a free hand to continue his aggression against Russia’s presumed “brother nation”.

Ukraine is an important partner for the West. Compared to most other post-Soviet republics, it has become a beacon of relatively free and pluralistic democracy. While not yet a fully liberal and consolidated state, and continuing to grapple with issues in the rule of law, Ukraine is far more open, pro-Western and democratic than authoritarian Russia and Belarus.

It is often forgotten that Ukraine emerged in 1991 as a new state with the world’s third largest atomic arsenal, comprising more nuclear weapons than France, the UK and China then held combined. In 1994, the Ukrainian leadership handed over all of its warheads and joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a fully non-nuclear weapons state.

Twenty years later Russia, a founder and guarantor of the non-proliferation regime as well as an official nuclear weapons state attacked Ukraine. In 2014, Moscow undermined the entire logic of the international system to prevent the spread of arms of mass destruction. Ever since, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has been creating international security risks that have global implications.

Against this background, strengthening Ukraine’s security, and the Ukrainian energy sector in particular, is a political responsibility and should be high on the agenda of the West. There are a number of ways in which the EU and US can come to Ukraine’s aid while also boosting long-term European energy security. Brussels – and not only the US Congress – should exploit all possible legal instruments to either prevent or limit the geo-economic impact of Nord Stream 2 and its use within Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine.

One of the opportunities for the West to help Ukraine is to take full advantage of the country’s significant renewable energy potential, in particular with regard to blue and green hydrogen, as well as offshore wind capacities. This has already been recognised in the EU’s Green New Deal, and the US-German Green Fund for Ukraine. It is a trend that will – and should – continue, in order to both protect Ukraine’s importance as geopolitical player in Eastern Europe, and to match the expected further rapid growth of green energy demand in Europe.

The Ukrainian state gas company Naftogaz has gone through major reforms in recent years. It has successfully navigated a turn-around from a famously corrupt drain on public finances to a poster-child of corporate governance. However significant foreign investment will be needed to ensure an adaptation and modernisation of Ukraine’s already significant capacities. A further updating, expanding, and converting of the existing gas transportation and storage infrastructure in Ukraine is an urgent priority. New facilities for the production of green and blue hydrogen as well as renewable energy will need to be planned and constructed.

In order to achieve rapid progress in these areas, both governmental and corporate investors need to step in, providing the necessary funding, expertise, and institutional backing. This investment will not only secure significant financial and environmental returns, but would also counter-balance the negative impact of a possible start of operation of Nord Stream 2 in the EU’s eastern neighbourhood and beyond.

Australian Dassault Mirage IIIs, the result of one of the first major defence projects between Australia and France.

The United States and France have always had a symbiotic relationship, as much as people today would not acknowledge it or recognise it. The French Navy supported the Americans in their revolution against the British in the founding of the United States, and continued to be a model of progressive government in the formation of the American Republic and Presidential system of Government. These two nations formed much of the modern systems of democracy and fought shoulder to shoulder during the First World War paying homage to Lafayette and their shared past. Americans fought to re-entrench French democracy during the Second World War and while France set themselves apart from NATO in the following decades, France, the US and NATO allies worked together to promote democratic values worldwide.

The recent spat that lead to France recalling their ambassador to the United States requires a great deal of context to explain fractures between France and the US. French industry, namely its aircraft industry, was decimated during the Second World War, so much so that the post war period was defined by re-establishing France’s technological prowess and national pride along with competing internationally. France’s largest aircraft manufacturer at the time, Dassault(named after its founder’s Partisan code name during the war), first gained its international reputation by beating out the UK and US competitors selling Mirage III fighter jets to Australia. Australia’s connection with the French defence industry allowed France to expand that sector greatly over the years, and likely lead a culture and relationship that created the submarine deal set a few years back, promising to injecting $66 billion into France’s economy.

The US and France however were always in intense competition in heavy industries. The success of Dassault and relationships with other European countries lead to the creation of Airbus, an airline manufacturer that has been in heavy competition with Boeing over the last 30 years. The intensity of competition between those two mega-corporations dragged in their respective governments over the years, along with thousands of lawyers and dozens of legal conflicts regarding competition, unfair trade practices and contract disputes.

A fracture in policy was also in play since the 1960s when France decided to leave NATO, produce its own defense industry and challenge US hegemony on the world stage. The 1956 Suez Canal crisis put the UK and France at odd with the US in the post-colonial era, and the following years lead France to focus on policy challenging what was seen as American colonial expansion. Since the Syrian War post-2015, France was also pushing for a more assertive stance against the Assad regime, while the US often was more passive and confused in their approach. The recent high pressure evacuation from Afghanistan, where hundreds of French soldiers lost their lives, also created fissures between the US and its allies, soon to be met with the new submarine deal and AUKUS defense pack with Australia, the UK and US a few short weeks later.

France has been a strong defence ally of the United States, UK and Australia, and with the loss of the $66 billion submarine deal to dump conventionally fuelled French submarines for nuclear powered American submarines, French employment in that industry will be harmed greatly. The bitterness of the Boeing-Airbus disputes over contracts and jobs may be shadowing this move by the Biden Administration. While bad faith disputes between governments regarding Airbus and Boeing were more common, Australia is also likely reacting to foul relations it has had with China directly and hopes to become a more active participant in limiting the power of China’s ever expanding navy. While China has had a strong response to arming Australia with nuclear powered submarines, those submarines will not carry nuclear weapons and is a logical response to China’s Navy, that has doubled in size and have produced Aircraft carriers since 2015. Under the spirit of Lafayette, the US and France should come to terms over their dispute regarding Australia and its new defence pact and integrate France economically and strategically into the fold in the region. France has been the strongest US ally against international terrorism and had dedicated the lives of its soldiers more than any other nation in the world along with the United States. The new AUKUS may displace much of the focus on the Five Eyes relationship, and while France is not a part of it, they also are not acting like one of the Five Eyes that have been shut. France have not been making questionable security decisions lately like Canada has done over the last few years. France and the United States are democratic cousins in the best possible manner, and this tradition should be honoured.

What is this country? “2004 Election Map” by The Lawleys licensed under CC BY 2.0

U.S. foreign policy thinkers say that foreign policy starts at home.  So what drives U.S. policy today?

Domestic division is a major theme throughout U.S. history.  But in the 21st Century, politics has evolved from two-party competition to intransigent bipolar confrontation.  A zero-sum trench war inexorably sucks in resources and emotional energy.  As one business analysis puts it, “Republicans focus their energies on pleasing far-right voters and Democrats on addressing … the far left.”  On a given legislative act, one side will “spen(d) every second trying to repeal it and the other side (will spend) every second trying to defend it at all costs.”  The polarizing dynamic goes beyond politics to permeate American culture.  If this is home, what country does foreign policy represent?

Public discourse speaks of “left” or “right” as though they define America’s political spectrum.  There are “far” or “moderate” versions of each, and “independents” fall somewhere between the two, but all sit on the same line, leaning toward one pole or the other – but along that line.  It may help to see those poles are not the only possible ones, and need not define American politics.  

Journalist George Packer, in a recent Atlantic article extracted from his new book, sees the nation fragmented into “four Americas” – Free, Smart, Real and Equal – carrying four contentious mindsets.  The four align with Walter Russell Mead’s Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian, Jacksonian and Wilsonian schools of U.S. foreign policy thought.  Hamiltonian, Smart America drives the institutions and industries that have generated much of the nation’s wealth and power.  It speaks in economic and scientific rationality.  The Jacksonian, Real America fights for its own, seeing the world as a dog-eat-dog place where not winning is losing.  Free America sees our national order as freedom’s font, a view captured in Jefferson’s image of an Empire of Liberty.  The Wilsonian school seeks to realize ideals and right wrongs much as Packer sees Equal America driven to expose and eradicate inequality – he suggests calling it Unequal America.

The four schools/Americas do not account for every American impulse.  The issue of racism is only addressed directly in Unequal, Wilsonian America.  Older drives have faded or morphed, e.g. for territorial expansion or religious utopias.  A ‘state’s rights’ view supporting slavery was rejected and defeated.  New social patterns and new technologies may generate entirely new schools.  But the Packer/Mead framework raises an overlooked point. 

The different drives are pursued without restraint, often in self-righteous conviction.  Any voice for any American drive will invoke the unalienable rights and government by consent of the governed.  Each will bend these tenets of the Declaration of Independence to its own interpretations.  Packer wouldn’t want to live in an America that is exclusively any of the four, and the divisions among them worry him.  Mead notes how steering the U.S. “raft of state” is made cumbersome and frustrating by the four schools’ crosswinds and eddies.  But all rest on a common base.  Mead’s raft doesn’t sink, none of Packer’s ‘Americas’ would ever cede the name. 

Americans carry several drives, not just two.  The Packer/Mead framework shows them as interpretations of the same creed rather than fundamentally different identities.  And an overview reminds that while these four schools/Americas have deep roots, other have gone away and new ones can arise.  The four drives reflect cultural, historical nuances, not the stuff of desperate political conduct.

Will America reaffirm commonality over political interpretations?  In one arena, we really need to.  In foreign policy a nation acts as a unit.  However any competing schools or Americas may drive politics, foreign policy is carried out by “America” as a single entity.  If foreign policy starts at home, can the people and institutions who shape that policy do better than the politicians?  Will they carry the buoyancy of the raft, even as they are buffeted by foreign crosswinds and whiplashed by domestic politics? 

The question is not which of today’s two sides (or four or more, or current or new) will prevail, nor even whether a balance can be struck among them, but whether the shared touchstone shows through.  Can factionalized Americans exhibit the common page under their doctrines? 

In an age of mind-bending new developments, soul rending disruptions, and unlimited possibilities, any principles come under scrutiny and question.  Factions may well exploit the uncertainty to cement their base’s allegiance, so that division becomes all the harder to heal.  America’s creed offers a common, psychic bedrock, rigorous in concept and morally appealing.  American national conduct also needs to validate that basis of national legitimacy.

Alignment of conduct to principle always requires an art.  In an art of American policy everyone does share the same starting premises.  In foreign policy, one institution needs this art in order to function.  That is the permanent body of official U.S. representatives, the U.S. diplomatic service.  If they cannot display a consistent spirit across different administrations, they cannot really say what nation they represent.  For credibility in their job, U.S. diplomats need language that belies today’s bipolar partisan rhetoric.  Packer and Mead offer an image that might diffuse the standoff, to liberate the diverse Americas to see each other as fellow Americans rather than “us” or “them.”  U.S. diplomats who are fluent in the Declaration’s creed will see the image.  If they operate by this ethos, they can give Americans, ourselves, a picture of our founding creed in operation.  America will then project its core nature, as vessel of hope and catalyst for opportunity, to the world. 

The legacy of the Cuban Revolution that marks the daily life of Cubans to this day has taken a blow as Cuban citizens fight for their freedoms. The past narratives, posters, painting and songs of the fight against the Capitalists was always a draw for those outside of Cuba to defend and actively support the Cuban Revolution. Many a time during my own work in Western countries that excelled with virtues of freedom and democracy were colleagues who not only wore Che proudly as their work clothing, but encouraged visiting Cuba to take advantage of the advantages Cubans did not have in their daily lives. At one point a colleague who was an expert on Cuba had to be put on undetermined sabbatical as she had a long diner with Fidel Castro himself. While it was an impressive tale, it did not reflect well on an organisation that often had discussions with Cuban exiles living in the US at the time. Their rebels were seen as the heroes for most of the latter half of the 20th Century, but that might have changed recently.

Power to the people can only really come from grassroots movements that gain a certain level of strength, often based on valid grievances towards an established system. While Latin America has spent the last one hundred years flowing between Capitalism and Socialism, the trend often was linked to cults of personalities, namely since the 2000s Chavismo and faith in the Castros. The connections movements had to these personalities often propelled some awful and abusive policies towards those citizens that did not agree with their leadership. Whether their flag was red or blue did not always determine more rights to average citizens, in many cases, it turned them into refugees. With many of these refugees now living for a few generations in places like the United States, and more recently in Colombia, an aversion to anything that looks like support for similar movements creates a healthy aversion to similar outcomes.

When listening to discussions outside of Cuba, on Cuba, you will notice that it often is shaded by local politics and best/worst case scenarios. Often an accelerated narrative is created where Cuban protesters are compared to those that protest in fairly healthy democracies. While many of these claims can be seen as valid, they must accord with the reality of the situations at hand. Romanticizing a movement in places where rights are sacrosanct is not the same as analyzing a situation where Romanticizing the narrative eliminates the ability for protesters to seek their basic essentials in life.

In more extreme examples, the Romanticism of a situation is used to justify horrific acts by governments over their own people. Havana seems to have a soldier with a rifle in every intersection in calm times, and if we are honest towards ourselves, it is not the same as most cities where we reside. The almost wholly ignored plight of the Yazidis, especially women and children does not benefit from a romanticized narrative, so they are almost wholly ignored despite suffering the worst atrocities since the Second World War and brutal acts by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The silence by many democratic countries over the Uighurs being systematically eliminated is heard from young footballers before Prime Ministers, even though they make daily pronouncements against Genocide in the past that they barely recognise in the present. It is simply the worst thing you can do as a political leader in a democratic country.

When a narrative is used to violate human rights, it is no longer a narrative, but a tool of violence and oppression. It seems like Cubans are sending us all a message: Romanticizing dictatorships will put you on the wrong side of history. We should listen.

The Constitution

Even following America’s hasty and disorganized withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States remains involved in prominent military conflicts in Libya and Syria (and, frankly, Afghanistan) – not to mention many smaller combat operations in other nations around the world. In these conflict zones, the United States conducts armed drone strikes, and occasionally participates in standard manned operations. While some might be hesitant to formally designate these conflicts as “wars”, these sorts of military operations undeniably cost the United States both lives and treasure. Each of these ongoing conflicts is authorized either through the notoriously vague 2001 AUMF or has no formal authorization at all. 

The Constitution grants the legislature the power to declare war and authorize military conflicts- Article I, Section 8, Clause 11: The Congress shall have Power . . . To declare War. However, over the last eighty years, the legislature has adopted a strategy of passing legislation that authorizes spending on military objectives like counter-terrorisim or regional security as opposed to direct declarations of war as prescribed in the Constitution. As a consequence, despite being at war for nearly half of the time between the 1940’s and the present day, the United States legislature has not voted to authorize a war since 1941at the start of American involvement in World War II.

Despite being a broadly known and well established problem (the legislature did not vote to authorize the War in Korea or the War in Vietnam), the wounds that come from the legislative branch’s unwillingness to take responsibility of foreign policy decision making are still being inflicted today. President Obama famously begged Congress for authorization in Syria.  S.J. Res. 21, the legislation proposed in order to consider the military authorization, was never brought up for a vote. Even without the legislature’s approval President Obama went on to authorize a conflict that is still resulting in American casualties today. 

The legislature shunned the wisdom of its collective 535 members in favor of one single person’s judgment- in my opinion, this sort of decision making process is akin to begging for mistakes to be made. It forces us to ask if our representatives are taking their responsibilities in foreign affairs seriously. 

With this context in mind, it is important to think about the oversight being conducted by the legislative branch in foreign affairs. According to research conducted by Linda Fowler, a professor of political science at Dartmouth, the legislative branch is conducting oversight hearings at a historically low rate. More than that, when oversight hearings do take place, Fowler’s research suggests that hearings have become increasingly about performative rhetoric as opposed to serious consideration or problem solving.

To amplify this problem further, research suggests that as the public becomes increasingly aware of the costs and outcomes of the conflicts their countries are involved in, they become less supportive of continuing those conflicts. Without the signaling from the legislature that today’s conflicts deserve serious attention, the media does not provide consistent coverage of ongoing conflicts, and the citizenry at large remain uninformed about truly pressing issues. As a consequence, conflicts with questionable authorizations can quickly become quagmires. 

Given the fact that the 2001 AUMF was voted on in, well, 2001, and wars being waged without congressional authorization are obviously a major cause for concern – Americans of all political persuasions should be frightened by this. More than that, the legislative branch should live up to its responsibility to conduct consistent oversight. This becomes even more important given the contradictions between the legislation that is currently being used to authorize many ongoing conflicts and America’s new posture in Afghanistan with the Taliban returning to control of the country. 

The bulk of the conflict in Afghanistan might be coming to an end, but we need to keep a careful eye on the future -as well as today’s continuing conflicts- in order to avoid this sort of mess down the line.

 

—

Peter Scaturro is the Director of Studies at the Foreign Policy Association

 

Both sides must revise their red lines—or risk war.

On June 10, 2021, the president of France Emmanuel Macron announced the end of operation Barkhane in the Sahel region. It will be finished by the first quarter of 2022 in order to reconfigure French military engagement in Africa.

More details appeared after a virtual video summit with the leaders of the G5 Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania and Niger). In particular, France would start closing three military bases in northern Mali by year-end. Still there would be 2,500-3,000 of French soldiers, but within the so-called Takuba European task force. France, Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy and Sweden are now involved in Takuba force. 

For many years France was the main external security (and political) power in the Sahel region. Africa (as well as the Sahel) is within the eyeshot of many international actors. Among them is Russia, famous for its involvement in non-stable, problematic countries. In light of the latest decisions of France one question topped. Will those new security conditions transform in a chance for Russia to strengthen its role in the Sahel?

Operation Barkhane: why now?

Active military involvement of France in the Sahel began in 2013 after Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda took control of the desert north of Mali. Firstly France announced Operation Serval, which was transformed into Barkhane a year later. It covers Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger with the involvement of 5,000 French personnel.

After all these years war against terrorism in the Sahel turned into something similar to Afghanistan for France. But its military presence has not only an altruistic goal of supporting African states. So, among main French interests in the Sahel are:

1. Natural resources. For example, uranium in Niger, which is important for French energy sphere, especially for stage-managed Orano company, oil in Mali, where one more French company Total operates.
2. Political image. In international politics this region was always seen as a France backyard, where France as an ex-colonial power defined the rules.
3. Political “benefits” of African countries. They have a significant amount of voices within international organizations. Only in the UN General Assembly African states have 25% of voices. 

Earlier this year Emmanuel Macron warned that France would end its military presence if there was one more coup in Mali. Exactly, this happened at the end of May, 2021. But a second coup in Mali definitely isn’t the main reason for withdrawing the troops. 

First of all, operation Barkhane has caused significant fatigue among both the African and French people. Sahel’s people have organized demonstrations  with the demands of withdrawal troops several times. Concerning the French, only 49% of respondents support military presence in the Sahel. Death toll (56 soldiers since 2013) and its costs (costs $708 million a year) contribute to the problem.

At last, troop’s withdrawal is the chance for France to change its policy towards Africa and find other partners, not only in the West part of the continent. Also this is the way to deal with domestic French critics who blamed Paris for replacing sovereign nations in Africa. Especially in the context of future elections, planned for 2022 in France. 

Chance for an old Russian dream

Russia has already been intensifying its relations and involvement in the Sahel, especially in Mali by coup-d’etat with Russian fingertips. Moreover, there public opinion is more positive towards Russia than France. And expesially Asian country the Sahel region sees as future ally in war against terrorism. 

Russia chose Mali as a springboard in the Sahel not accidentally. This is a big country with so-called grey areas at the periphery, poorly controlled by the government. The Kremlin promises “assistance”: peace, military and political support. At the same time, Russian main interests in Africa are:  resources, political adherence at international level, new markets for weapons, new clients for state-owned mining companies. The Kremlin interpretes involvement in Africa as a way to strengthen its image as a world strong power and implements its old desire – to become a new Soviet Union. 

Moreover, African Sahel has a direct connection to the international role of Russia. There are many grey areas, related to illegal migration and narcotraffic. All these are sensitive issues for the EU. Gaining control over these areas gives Russia a significant advantage and possibility to use this “trump” in negotiation with the EU.

As always, Russia chooses weak countries to extend its influence, using old worked out instruments. They include: supply with weapons and mercenaries (well-known Wagner Group), supporting opposition groups, maintaining coup d’etats, using controlled media resources and network of NGOs. All this Russia has successfully tried in Africa many times: in Central Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar.

It’s worth considering that the Sahel is a complex region with a lot of problems – extreme poverty, clash of religions and cultures, the struggle for resources, the institutional weakness and political fragility. All this together creates an ideal environment for terrorists, a fertile ground for their slogans, to which the poor local population responds. And this is one of the reasons why terrorism is so ingrained in the region.

The Sahel is now a frontier against spreading terrorism. The regional countries themselves will not cope with this threat – they do need external support. And ending of Barkhane operation makes perfect conditions for Russia to spread its influence.

A surge in low-quality jobs may prime Latin America for social unrest.

Brussels needs to fight to defend its carbon-border policy.

Lebanon’s enduring economic crisis risks reversing decades of gains in people’s wellbeing, the head of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.    

Attempts to explain Berlin’s militarism tells us something about how analysts approach Beijing.

Underfunding has left a “yawning gap” in the UN Refugee Agency’s ability to protect forcibly displaced people worldwide from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UNHCR said on Friday. 

From COVID-19 to climate, the U.S. president will focus his first General Assembly speech on the world body’s indispensability.

The long-range weapon could strike South Korea, Japan, and U.S. bases in the region.

As French officials complain of being blindsided over submarine deal, Australia says it communicated its reservations clearly.

After years of consensus, a new era of division is set to roil German politics at home and abroad.

Russia has been wargaming with Belarus. Sometimes, that’s a prelude.