Diplomacy & Crisis News

Technological innovations have brought tectonic shifts in global geopolitical dynamics over the past decade. A technological competition between the two major powers, China and the United States, is now underway, with implications for the globe. And like every war needs a battleground, the emergent tech war, too, needs a platform for the tech powers to showcase their strength and achieve victories. 

Saudi Arabia has embraced the situation with both hands. Having laid its Vision 2030 plan, which seeks to diversify its economy through increased focus on innovation, Riyadh has made digital transformation a critical goal. However, considering the contemporary geopolitical realities, Riyadh must also embrace diplomacy, strategic autonomy, and a multipolar perspective. There is reason to believe that the Saudis are ready to do so. 

Saudi Arabia organizes several of the world’s biggest forums and platforms in the tech space.  Its annual Global Cybersecurity Forum discusses the universal opportunities and challenges posed by the evolving cyber order, and the LEAP Tech Conference—an annual tech convention—serves as a global platform to exhibit future technologies and some of the most disruptive tech professionals from around the world.

But before taking over as a center for global tech attention, Riyadh has brought its house in order with strong policy and strategy frameworks, reflected in its second rank in the International Telecommunication Union’s Global Cybersecurity Index—a reference that measures the commitment of countries to cybersecurity at the global level. 

After creating a National Cybersecurity Authority in 2017, Saudi Arabia created a Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) in 2019 and launched the “CyberIC” program in 2022, seeking to develop its cybersecurity sector by localizing cybersecurity technology and encouraging indigenous cybersecurity startups. 

The China story

The recently concluded LEAP 2023 gave a glimpse of Chinese interest and inroads in Saudi Arabia’s tech oasis. While Huawei displayed its latest innovation solutions under the theme “Unleash Digital,” demonstrating end-to-end innovations and industrial applications for some of Riyadh’s key focus sectors like oil, gas, and governance, Huawei Cloud announced its plans to invest $400 million over the next five years to establish its infrastructure in the country.

For Huawei, Saudi Arabia is a platform to present its advances in the cloud and artificial intelligence. This is exemplified by the unveiling of Huawei’s second store in Saudi Arabia in early February this year, having opened its biggest flagship store outside China precisely one year ago in Riyadh in February 2022. Furthermore, to strengthen the partnership, the Saudi Arabia-China Entrepreneur Association (SCEA) has been launched, comprising over 100 Saudi and Chinese businesses, government entities, academic institutions, and non-governmental organizations. 

While Chinese media underlines SCEA as pivotal to driving continued progress in the digital transformation of both Saudi Arabia and China, in Saudi Arabia, it is seen as a critical step toward the Saudi-China strategic partnership in terms of tech and innovation.

A U.S. comeback?

The United States shifted attention to the Indo-Pacific in the past decade due to its decreased reliance on the Middle East region for energy needs. However, in light of accelerated decoupling from China, Washington is rejuvenating its regional strategic partnerships. This is visible in several recent announcements like I2U2 (a grouping of India, Israel, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates) and the expansion of the Abraham Accords to include cyber collaboration. 

In May 2022, the Saudi minister of communications and internet technology met with the U.S. deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology to review efforts to foster the partnership and develop bilateral cooperation in cybersecurity and emerging technologies. Then in July, Saudi Arabia and the United States signed the “Jeddah Communique,” outlining the strategic partnership between the two over the coming decades, aiming to advance mutual interests and offering a shared vision for a more peaceful, secure, prosperous, and stable Middle East. U.S. president Joe Biden remarked that Saudi Arabia would invest in new U.S.-led technologies to develop secure and reliable 5G and 6G networks, in Saudi Arabia as well as in developing countries, in coordination with the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. This collaborative effort by the G7 countries is based on trust principles of the Blue Dot Network (a multi-stakeholder initiative by the United States, Japan, and Australia) and is a vital component of the “Biden doctrine.”  

These agreements are seen as a boost to containment efforts by the United States against the accelerating proliferation of Chinese technologies in the region.

A third tech pole?

Indian-Saudi Arabian relations have intensified on the political, diplomatic, and tech front in recent years. In November 2022, India’s national cybersecurity coordinator, Lt. Gen. Rajesh Pant, remarked that Saudi Arabia and India would soon sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to elevate cooperation in cybersecurity and that the bilateral talks are steadily progressing. Several major Indian companies like Tata, Wipro, and TCS have a strong presence in Saudi Arabia, with many others now in line to get a piece of Riyadh’s investment offerings. This was also visible at the LEAP 2023, which saw participation from over forty-five Indian companies and a delegation from the Confederation of Indian Industry—a non-governmental trade association and advocacy group representing the Indian industry’s interests. 

On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos earlier this year, the Saudi minister of communications and internet technology met with his Indian counterpart to discuss strengthening the Indian-Saudi strategic partnership in technology, innovation, and digital entrepreneurship. At the recently concluded LEAP, the results emanating from the WEF meeting were underlined by Tech Mahindra—one of India’s top software companies—signing a MoU with the Ministry of Communication and IT to set up a “Data & AI and Cloud Centre of Excellence” in Riyadh, and Zoho Corp—another leading Indian multinational software company—announced plans to boost investment in Saudi Arabia.

Trends for 2023

Saudi Arabia has faced a slew of cyberattacks on its critical industrial sectors in recent years. In one estimate, 54 percent of Saudi organizations experienced business-impacting security incidents, while over 56 percent of organizations in the country faced ransomware attacks in 2021. Today, while over 50 percent of the Saudi IT sector workforce is non-Saudi, Riyadh has focused on encouraging universities to invest heavily in curricula to develop the required cyber skills among students. In the past decade, major international companies have hired and trained Saudis, and government policies now encourage companies to employ local talent aggressively. In addition, the Saudi government has inked an agreement with the WEF to explore cybersecurity cooperation and a deal with the United Nations to empower children in cyberspace. 

Strengthened by internal strategic cohesion, Riyadh is transforming into a tech hub for competing global technologies. At the WEF in Davos, the Saudi finance minister emphasized that the country can be a conduit between China and the United States during heightened geopolitical tensions. While the United States has been a long-standing strategic partner, China and Saudi Arabia signed a strategic partnership agreement in December 2022—described by the Chinese Foreign Ministry as “an epoch-making milestone in the history of China-Arab relations.” Moreover, while Huawei has a broad penetration in the region—posing difficulties for new entrants—the new partnership with the United States based on open technology frameworks can help offset China’s inroads. 

Indeed, it appears that there are three countries looking to develop and enhance strategic partnerships with Riyadh. As the United States and India embolden their bilateral partnership under the initiative on the Critical and Emerging Technology paradigm, it remains to be seen if a trilateral strategic partnership framework can emerge between India, the United States, and Saudi Arabia. For now, all the tech roads seem to be heading to Riyadh.

Divyanshu Jindal is a Research Associate at NatStrat, India. His research revolves around geopolitics, cyber, and influence operations. Views are personal.

Image: Shutterstock.

Migration, especially from Africa, has been rising over the past decade. But Europe’s leadership does not seem particularly focused on it. At the forefront is Italy, which for years has been trying to stem an increasing flow of migrants, along with other Mediterranean nations—Greece, Spain, Malta, and Cyprus. Planning a truly shared policy among European states is certainly difficult, but the migration phenomenon will likely increase exponentially in the coming years. Libya is the springboard for thousands of migrants. Its weak government is not up to the challenge, presenting an obstacle that the European Union must deal with soon.

Of particular concern is irregular migration, which happens outside the laws of the sending or receiving countries. In 2022, the European Border Security Agency, FRONTEX, counted 330,000 irregular entries within European borders: an increase of 64 percent compared to the previous year and the highest number since 2016. These numbers did not include the more than 13 million Ukrainian refugees who “were counted on entry” after fleeing Russia’s invasion.

To be sure, this year’s preliminary figures were down 12 percent from the previous year, in large part due to poor weather conditions on sea routes to Europe. Numbers are still lower than in 2015, when nearly a million migrants, asylum-seekers, and refugees entered Europe. However, the flow of migrants is unlikely to peter out.

Why Migration Will Continue to Be a Problem for Europe

Libya is historically a jumping-off point for departure to Europe and neighboring countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. Nearly 680,000 migrants of more than forty-one nationalities were registered in Libya in July-August 2022, mostly coming from Niger, Egypt, Sudan, Chad, and Nigeria.

In addition to migrants fleeing political, security, and economic crises, migrants are coming in increasing numbers from crises related to climate change. These so-called climate migrants have always been there, but the trend looks set to increase. The World Bank has released staggering numbers, indicating 86 million climate change migrants by 2050.

At the same time, Africa’s population growth is surging. Its population rise will require an extraordinary increase in natural resources that is very unlikely to be met. Future rainfall projections indicate a decrease that will affect water resources, in particular the surface water that supplies the largest dams and reservoirs in North Africa. Faced with the desertification of the Sahel belt, migration flows from Libya across the Mediterranean, will likely intensify, impacting coastal nations such as Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta. These countries have suffered greatly in recent years due to European policies that are now out of step with the times, such as the criteria of the Dublin Convention—an international treaty signed in 1990 by the then twelve member states of the European Community and entered into force in 1997. Things got worse following the fall of Muammar el-Qaddafi and his regime, which caused the loss of control of migratory flows from Libya, impacting Italy first and foremost.

Italy in the Front Row

For Italy, Libya is not only the most important departure point for migrants traveling to its shores, but also of enormous strategic value in terms of energy. Yet Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has not revealed how her government will tackle migration in practical terms. Likewise, the European Council’s meeting on February 9–10 reiterated that immigration needs a common response, but little has been done to help Italy and other coastal countries deal with this emergency. In November 2022, the European Council proposed twenty rather generic measures to reduce irregular migration. These measures are along three lines: working with countries such as Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt to control migrant departures; promoting “more coordinated” search and rescue in the Mediterranean; and strengthening the implementation of the voluntary migrant redistribution mechanism introduced in June 2022, which, however, has so far failed to yield satisfactory results.

It is difficult to develop a coherent, long-term strategy with weak, delegitimized, and even overlapping governments in Libya, as happened last spring when the “outgoing” government of National Unity in Tripoli led by Abdulhamid Dbeibah was pitted against the sham government of National Stability led by former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha.

Italy, for better or for worse, collaborated in the past with the Qaddafi regime. It has continued to come to compromises with Libya in recent years through official memoranda and less-than-clear agreements. The first memorandum between the two countries was signed in 2008 by then-Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni and Qaddafi, and stipulated that Italy had to pay Libya $5 billion in aid in exchange for constant patrolling of the coast to prevent migrants from leaving. The agreement was heavily criticized for the arbitrary detention, mistreatment, and torture of migrants by Libyan authorities. In 2012, Rome renewed the agreement with Tripoli, to control Libya's southern borders and train local border police. In 2017, then-Italian interior minister Marco Minniti signed a memorandum of understanding with then Libyan prime minister Fayez al Serraj on migration management, border control, and countering human trafficking. That so-called “memorandum of shame” has drawn much criticism regarding the migrants’ safety. Renewed in 2020, it was extended again on November 2, 2022, provoking a chorus of protests among civil society groups. Yet these memoranda are not part of a long-term strategy shared with Brussels, but rather the result of ongoing emergencies.

In September 2022, European Parliament president Roberta Metsola and senior European representatives agreed to conduct negotiations to reform EU migration and asylum rules by February 2024, with the chair of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, the chair of the Asylum Contact Group, Elena Yoncheva, and the permanent representatives of Czechia, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, and France. This step reinforces the European Commission’s proposal of a new pact on migration and asylum in September 2020 to improve procedures and share responsibilities fairly among member states while managing migration flows.

Actions, unfortunately, have not lived up to words, and while Europe languishes, other nations are establishing themselves in Africa. The widespread presence of Russia’s Wagner Group is one example, but China, Turkey, and the Gulf states are also present. Libya has provided an important haven for jihadist groups such as the Islamic State that have maintained cells in the border territories and the southern province of Fezzan. Hundreds of armed militia groups are also present—some purely local, others outright criminal cartels. These groups have shared control of Libya through constant violence and extortion. In many respects, they now hold Libyan institutions hostage.

In the face of these troubling scenarios, the real issue is what can realistically be done to staunch the flow of migration and control the doors of the Maghreb and Libya as migration superhighways to Europe. To remedy this crisis, there must first be some semblance of a coherent process to create credible, implementable policy recommendations. That process is broken, principally because the right players are not at the table, and those who are, on balance, are not contributing to a workable solution.

The United States must provide strategic leadership to the entire process in close partnership with the EU and other key European countries. The wave of migration in 2015, which nearly destabilized European politics, was a harbinger of things to come. Europe’s political stability—which, if this continues, is by no means assured—is a vital interest of the United States. The EU must demand a more energetic and participatory U.S. involvement. The sources of migration are an African continental matter, not a North African one, so the African Union cannot sit this one out. It too must be at the table and a full participant, as should the Arab League, with a very different motivation from what we have seen so far.

As to the policies themselves, because their formulation process is sub-optimal from the start, they should focus on three principal goals.

First, the reasons for migration must be addressed on the African continent itself. These are complex and can seem beyond the reach of credible policy. People are leaving in droves because of a lack of economic opportunity and grinding poverty; vast and seemingly insoluble governmental corruption; local and transnational conflict fueled by strongmen, mercenaries, militias, and gangs; and, increasingly, climate change.

Second, policy formulation should propose how to manage, mitigate, or prevent illegal migration into Europe. A security solution to migration seems fraught, but it must be considered. This is a maritime and border security issue and will require a coordinated effort by the Mediterranean nations’ coast guards, navies, and border control organizations.

Third, migrants who legally arrive on the shores of Europe should be compassionately processed and supported through comprehensive European programs. These three domains must be seen as a policy whole.

Unless the policy formulation process is fixed, there can be no comprehensive approach to migration. It is a threat to African nations, and to Europe. And it is a threat to American vital interests in Africa and Europe as well.

Federica Saini Fasanotti is a military historian specializing in irregular wars. She is a nonresident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington DC and an associate senior fellow of the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) in Milan.

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The lessons-learned doctrine from the war in Ukraine is yet to be written, but the conflict has clearly demonstrated how paramilitary forces, such as Russia’s Wagner Private Military Company (better known simply as the Wagner Group) can reinforce state militaries.

Of course, proxies and non-state partnerships have influenced the contours of conflicts in the Middle East for many years. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has led the curve via its relationships with Shia militia groups in Iraq and across the Levant.

Yet the IRGC is more than a fighting force. Despite sanctions on its commercial affiliates, most notably Khatam al-Anbia, it is a financially self-sustaining military. Beyond this, the IRGC created a systemic model of establishing a presence in vulnerable states and regions, and followed with front and shell companies for funding and sanctions circumvention. And the Wagner Group appears to be following a similar path. Moreover, Wagner serves as a tool of foreign policy for Moscow, just as the IRGC does for Iran.

There are key differences to be sure. The IRGC was created by and is recognized as a military institution of the Iranian regime. The Wagner Group is a private military company, owned by one man—Yevgeny Prigozhin. And while it works in tandem with the Russian defense forces, it also competes with them for resources and funding. Yet while Prigozhin is the owner, the group is believed to be loosely managed by Russia’s Ministry of Defense and the GRU, its military intelligence office.

Just as the IRGC’s operations have spread from Iran to Syria and beyond, so have Wagner Group operations extended from Ukraine through much of Africa. The use of self-sustaining fighting groups appeals to certain states, because they allow them to impose greater losses and costs on their enemies and alter global order. This model is gradually becoming the norm in warfare and international relations.

The IRGC Model

The dark alliance between Russia and Iran is a study with multiple variables. It ranges from military-to-military coordination in Syria (to keep Bashar al-Assad in power) to arming Russian forces with Iranian drones to fight Ukraine. The scope of cooperation is determined by the necessities of the conflict.

The Iranian Artesh has always been considered the conventional state military. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran ushered in an era of regional change and domestic turmoil that called for a force that could temper anti-regime ambitions. The IRGC was born from this state of affairs. Gradually, this export arm of the Islamic Revolution transitioned into a major player in Iran’s economy, politics, and even foreign affairs. But it was a series of crises that catapulted the IRGC to self-sufficiency and political dominance.

The Iran-Iraq War was a pivotal moment not just for the region, but for Iran to reevaluate its priorities and define its defense doctrine. The IRGC-owned Khatam al-Anbia was established to rebuild the country following the war. It became the leading engineering and construction company in Iran, which continually wins multi-billion-dollar contracts from the state because of the lack of competition. It was beyond domestic control; the IRGC expanded abroad and exploited vacuums.

Following the 2003 Iraq war, U.S. political maneuvering with the new government in Baghdad left open pockets of opportunity ripe for Iranian influence. This influence expanded vastly from 2013–2017; while the United States was focused on combating the Islamic State, the IRGC Qods Force created parameters for Iranian staying power in both Iraq and Syria.

This was accomplished largely through the efforts of former IRGC-QF commander General Qasem Soleimani, who cultivated a variety of lethal Shia militia groups that were both nationalist, but loyal to him personally. This facilitated a political, economic, and military power grab along the Shia crescent. Front and shell companies have been weaved into the IRGC defense doctrine. Once a presence is established, a range of regionally based companies facilitate the IRGC’s illicit activities.

Likewise, Russia’s war in Ukraine is serving a comparable purpose for the Wagner Group. A private military company is not the same as a state-run military, but there is nothing inherently unique about the Wagner Group that separates its activities from those of Iran’s IRGC. Prigozhin is seizing an opportunity to vault the Wagner Group to greater prominence. Much like Khatam al-Anbia, the financial arm of the Revolutionary Guard, Prigozhin’s Concord Management has signed lucrative contracts in Russia and abroad thanks to his relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The Wagner Group is believed to have been heavily involved with the 2014 Russian invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Wagner mercenaries are also believed to have fought on behalf of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in Ukraine in 2015, as well as having a footprint in Donbas and being active in the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Wagner fighters were deployed to Syria in 2014 and 2015 to help Assad remain in power. Wagner struggled against U.S.-backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) in 2018 in the battle for Deir ez-Zor province. But with lessons learned, they have since increased the areas under their control in Syria and are now more influential than Iran in that country. The group has now expanded its operations to the African continent, particularly across Sub-Saharan Africa. Libya was a gateway into this venture, in part because of Wagner's mild successes with Khalifa Haftar.

Filling vacuums is part of the IRGC model. They had success in parts of South America, but its ascension in Iraq serves as the standard. Sub-Saharan Africa is becoming the Wagner Group’s Iraq. Wagner fighters appear to be most heavily present in Mali, allegedly conducting counterinsurgency operations at the behest of the Malian government. Wagner’s commercial operations are reportedly tapping into Mali’s rich natural resources to illicitly fund their activities.

The Central African Republic is the latest African country to be experiencing Wagner’s influence. Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency, a troll farm, has been spreading pro-Russian disinformation there. Wagner recruiters are now reportedly following up by actively recruiting prisoners there to fight in Ukraine. To the west, Burkina Faso is being increasingly pressured by Mali to embrace Wagner’s services to help forge bilateral ties with Russia. Elsewhere, Wagner personnel are present following Russia and Cameroon’s signing of a defense agreement in April 2022. Wagner operations are also active in the Democratic Republic of Congo, specifically through front companies that support influence operations.

The Role of Sanctions

The Iranian regime has expertly circumvented U.S. and international sanctions for over four decades. We should assume that Moscow is Tehran’s apprentice in evading sanctions. This Russia-Iran cooperation is merely one of convenience for Moscow; there are other relationships that are far more significant as Russia is pushed further out of the global markets.

When used correctly, sanctions are an effective foreign policy tool. For instance, Iran’s Khatam al-Anbia, through its various financial holdings and virtual monopoly on Iranian construction bids, is a highly lucrative source of funding for the IRGC. When the U.S. sanctioned its engineering subsidiary, it proved one of the most effective sanctions to hit the IRGC. Since then, sanctions against other subsidiaries have increased, but so too has the IRGC’s creativity in sustaining this model.

The Wagner Group is slowly experiencing similar economic straits. Prigozhin was designated in 2014 for his ties to the conflict in Ukraine and again in 2015 for his links to malicious cyber activities. Concord Management and Consulting, Prigozhin’s leading company, was sanctioned in 2017 for ties to the war in eastern Ukraine. With Concord sanctioned, Prigozhin is doubtless using other front companies and subsidiaries to bankroll his military operations. When these are discovered and exposed, sanctions will presumably follow. In 2021, the EU, led by France, sanctioned the Wagner Group for its activities in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine, which includes human rights abuses.

Working in tandem with both defense and intelligence forces, Wagner affiliates are actively engaging in disinformation campaigns to influence foreign elections. Sanctions are starting to roll on these operations, too. Perhaps the most significant designations came in 2018 (for U.S. and foreign government election interference) and again in 2022 (when cited for U.S. election interference by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control). Relatedly, in February 2022, Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency was added to European Union sanctions for running disinformation campaigns to manipulate public opinion.

But though the United States and the rest of the international community have ramped up sanctions against Wagner, challenges remain. Washington should pivot resources toward affiliated individuals and entities, with a special emphasis on the likelihood of front and shell companies tied to Prigozhin and Wagner, to ensure a sustained campaign of aggressive sanctions enforcement that will ultimately lead to broader sanctions implementations. In 2022, a significant increase in pressure was added to Wagner with the designation by multiple countries, including the United States, as an international criminal organization.

Wagner’s Future

The feud between Prigozhin and Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu—who has support from the chief of staff of the Russian military—led to setbacks in weapons and funding for Wagner. But as the invasion of Ukraine floundered in 2022, the need for the group’s services and cooperation grew. This has led to a more robust relationship with the GRU. Wagner forces are gradually blending into Russia’s defense doctrine, which was recently updated to reflect changes in both tactical and operational doctrines, closely mirroring the Wagners.

But the make-up of the Wagner forces is distinct from Russian forces. Wagner's military recruiters draw largely from prisons. As of this writing, roughly 50,000 Wagner fighters are in Ukraine: 10,000 are “traditional” mercenary contractors, while 40,000 are convicts. Wagner publicly ended this practice on  February 8 of this year.

The Treasury Department’s designation of the Wagner’s as a “transnational criminal organization” (TCO) is a significant step toward exposing greater Wagner atrocities. Transnational criminal organizations threaten U.S. interests through diversified criminal activities. Violence and corruption are at the heart of TCOs and how they conduct their illicit activities.

It is an open question as to whether or not Wagner is trying to outshine and even outlast the Russian state military. Continued sanctions hurt, and continuing exposures of direct ties to the Kremlin make it easier to impose more effective sanctions. It’s improbable that Wagner will create a shadow government as the IRGC have done in Iran, but they can become self-sustaining to such a degree as to offer Moscow parallel militaries to achieve its geostrategic ambitions counter to NATO and abroad in the most vulnerable parts of Africa. While the Kremlin writ large is not altogether supportive of Wagner (or Prigozhin for that matter), the group has Putin’s support—unless Putin changes his perspective on his old friend.

A Future of Private Military Groups?

Institutions like the IRGC and Wagner are tools of foreign policy by their respective states. Ever opportunistic, these states look to expand their influence in global hotspots where the United States is minimally present, taking advantage of the fact that Washington is focused is on higher-priority issues elsewhere. When a foothold is established, front and shell companies are propped up to enable illicit activities and evade sanctions. In the Wagner case, African countries are strategic access points for a regional presence that could assist Moscow’s economy through the impact and re-export of globally banned items due to sanctions. While Iraq was a political and military access point for Iran’s IRGC, African countries offer commercial activities that support Moscow, and could potentially lengthen the war in Ukraine.

For years, Prigozhin and his group went unnoticed, wreaking havoc in unstable environments while eluding the attention of the international community. Then, again, the world didn’t see the rise of the IRGC coming either. With the ongoing war in Ukraine, it’s essential to set our sights on Wagner before it becomes too powerful to scale back.

Alma Keshavarz is a visiting professor in international relations at Pepperdine University, School of Public Policy. She previously served in the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State.

Kiron K. Skinner is the Taube Professor of International Relations and Politics at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy, W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and a Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Image: Shutterstock.

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The United States’ lasting prosperity and global muscle can be credited in part to its hard and soft power, but they also owe to another strong force: intelligent power. Intelligent power is the ability of a country to influence other players to follow or emulate its political system, social structure, development pathway, and lifestyle through its morality, culture, and values. It refers to the natural projection of moral appeal, cultural inclusiveness, and values.

Intelligent power is endogenous, resilient, and magnetic. A country with strong intelligent power sets an example worldwide, one that is the object of study of other countries, inspiring imitation in the political, economic, social, and judicial sectors. The unique intelligent power of China during the Song dynasty, Italy during the Renaissance, and the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution served as a model to inspire the development efforts of other countries.

With high levels of political morality based on the rule of law, inclusive multiculturalism, and broadly accepted values, countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, and Singapore appeal to people pursuing their dreams around the world. At the same time, these people bring their own special wisdom, knowledge, and cultures, which are used to further enhance the intelligent power of these countries.

In contemporary international relations, hard power—which relies on military intervention, coercive diplomacy, and economic sanctions—is becoming less useful as the global system changes. Soft power stresses the ability of a country to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion, but it is not easily wielded to achieve specific outcomes. By contrast, intelligent power is a fundamentally progressive force of human civilization grounded in its common morality, inclusive culture, and universal values. A country with intelligent power has a worldwide network of alliances that helps to strengthen both its hard and soft power.

Due to its strong intelligent power, the United States has long been considered one of the most attractive places on the planet, its voice and proposals are heard and followed by most countries, and its political system and values are followed by many other governments. A country with only hard power, like Russia, cannot earn the respect of others nor gain power through discourse in the international community.

No one denies that China is endowed with huge intelligent power. Its unique culture has assimilated civilized achievements from the East and the West; its traditional morality of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and fidelity is the cornerstone of China’s social order; and its common values of the “golden mean” are commonly accepted by the people of Asia.

In his efforts to consolidate the legitimacy of his regime, Chinese president Xi Jinping has been peddling Marxism packaged with Chinese culture and values to the world. As of 2018, 530 Confucius Institutes and more than 1,100 Confucius Classrooms were set up in 149 countries to promote and teach Chinese culture, language, and art. However, more and more critics argue that they are, in the words of Ethan Epstein, "an important part of China's overseas propaganda set-up”

To show “the spirit of struggle” that Xi has urged officials to implement, Chinese diplomats have embraced an aggressive “wolf warrior” ethos, discarding the professionalism, rationality, and courtesy that Chinese culture upholds. Chinese state media has embarked on advertising campaigns to bolster its Marxist ideology on Western platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

At home, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has launched a sweeping Mao-style ideological campaign. Xi called for China to build cultural confidence and oppose the transmission of Western cultures in China, blurring the distinction between ideology and culture. Moreover, Chinese authorities have intensified their crackdown on religious groups.

In the age of globalization, universal values are needed more than ever before to manage differences among countries without resorting to violence. Since Xi took office, the CCP has begun to distort or undermine universal values, portraying universal values as a force that threatens the CCP’s rule. Recently, the CCP urged China never to follow the path of Western constitutionalism, separation of powers, or judicial independence.

Xi’s ideological push has severely harmed China’s intelligent power. Many Confucius Institutes are banned in Western countries, while many countries and human rights groups have accused Beijing of serious human rights violations. “Wolf Warrior diplomacy” has frequently undermined Beijing’s reputation and interests. Indeed, Xi’s stigmatization of universal values has caused most modern, civilized countries to reject China as a world leader.

The CCP’s propaganda campaign to disseminate Marxism under the guise of promoting China’s culture and values cannot succeed. Because of this, China is unlikely to develop intelligent power in the near future.

Chris Lee is a Chinese economist and political strategist. He has published more than 60 papers. His latest piece in The National Interest is China Faces a Looming Economic Disaster.

Image: Salma Bashir Motiwala / Shutterstock.com.

When Abiy Ahmed assumed office as Ethiopia’s prime minister, he inherited a country grappling with long-standing internal tensions, including an imminent civil war in the Tigray region. Abiy’s initial approach of cracking down on the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the dominant party in Ethiopian politics over the past thirty years, culminated in a brutal and protracted conflict with far-reaching consequences for the country’s political and economic infrastructure. Through the support of neighboring strongman and autocrat Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki as well as Turkey, China, and the United Arab Emirates, Abiy eventually emerged victorious, but not without significant costs. As Ethiopia continues to grapple with enduring tensions and internal conflicts, and as Abiy attempts to establish a lasting legacy as a peacemaker, the role of regional actors, including Afwerki, is emerging as a critical factor in the country’s stability.

In April 2018, when Abiy became Ethiopia’s prime minister, he faced the challenge of managing a country on the brink of a civil war. His predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn, resigned under duress, paving the way for Abiy to make history as Ethiopia’s first Oromo prime minister. As an ethnic Oromo married to an Amhara wife, Abiy was enthusiastically received by the wider Oromo community, showing their contentment with Ethiopia’s political trajectory by showing up in large numbers on the streets. In 2019, Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending a twenty-year conflict with neighboring Eritrea.

However, Abiy’s ascension to power coincided with deep-seated tensions between the Ethiopian government and TPLF. When he began cracking down on Tigrayan officials holding powerful positions in Ethiopia’s government, he faced multiple assassination attempts as a result. Escalating tensions eventually led to elections in September 2020, a controversial display of TLPF autonomy from the central government in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian government deemed the move illegal, and in November of the same year, the TPLF attacked the Northern Command of the Ethiopian military, sparking the Tigray war.

Initially, the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) overran the TPLF and ousted the rebels from the Tigrayan region capital, Mekelle. However, the TPLF, resorting to classic guerrilla tactics, engaged in a game of cat and mouse with the ENDF. The ENDF’s frustration with the recalcitrance of the Tigray people, a tight-knit, highly politically conscious society, led to the full wrath of its power being brought onto the civilians in Tigray. Cases of rape, torture and extrajudicial killings were widely documented by international human rights organizations.

In June 2021, the TPLF retook Mekelle, and in November of the same year, it declared that it would push toward Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. During that period, the TPLF's brutal retribution for the ENDF's occupation of Mekelle extended to new areas in the Amhara and Afar regions, where it unleashed large-scale atrocities against civilians with almost equal measure. Abiy temporarily handed over his duties as Ethiopia’s prime minister to his deputy and led the army himself. With Turkish and Chinese drones and Eritrean troops on the ground, the ENDF launched a blitzkrieg against the TPLF, taking back the territories that the TPLF had occupied in the previous three months in just three days. 

This time, Abiy demonstrated a capacity for learning from past missteps. Specifically, during the 2020 incident where the ENDF overpowered the TPLF, the Ethiopian government was reluctant to acknowledge any potential for third-party mediation and failed to capitalize on the favorable momentum to establish a peace agreement. However, during subsequent events, the Ethiopian government signaled a willingness to consider the African Union’s peace agreement that was spearheaded by Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria, as a mediator. The African Union acted quickly, organizing a peace conference in Pretoria, South Africa, in November 2022, almost two years after the commencement of hostilities, and invited representatives from both the TPLF and the Ethiopian government. Subsequent rounds of negotiations emerged as a result of the peace conference, ultimately contributing to a de-escalation of tensions and culminating in the TPLF surrendering its heavy weaponry in January 2023.

This recent chapter in Ethiopia’s historical narrative marks a crucial and transformative moment, characterized by a departure from the country’s violent past. Ethiopia has struggled with intermittent civil conflicts that have seldom been resolved through peaceful means. The reign of Emperor Haile Selassie during the 1930s was tumultuous, culminating in his alleged assassination by the orders of Mengistu Haile Mariam, who staged a military coup in 1975 to overthrow the monarch. In the 1990s, Mengistu himself was forced to flee the country after being ousted from power by a rebel faction led by the TPLF. Furthermore, the unexpected death of Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s prime minister since the 1990s, in 2012 left a leadership vacuum, and concerns over a peaceful transition of power emerged. Hailemariam Desalegn, who succeeded Zenawi, resigned under the weight of TPLF’s reluctance to relinquish its hold on power, thus passing the baton to Abiy Ahmed. Abiy’s approach to peace in Ethiopian politics is distinctive in that it effectively reconciled opposing factions, a feat that was previously unaccomplished in the country’s history. 

Nonetheless, despite the success of Abiy’s innovative approach to peace in Ethiopian politics, it remains uncertain whether his efforts have earned the approval of his Eritrean ally, Afwerki. Afwerki’s deep-seated personal animosity towards the TPLF dates back to the 1998 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Furthermore, the recent loss of power by Somalia’s president, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, to Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in May 2022, has weakened Afwerki’s position in East Africa. Farmajo had cultivated a special relationship with Afwerki, an arrangement that was not welcomed by Djibouti, a neighboring country with linguistic, ethnic, and religious ties to Somalia, and whose part of its land has been occupied by Eritrea since 2008. The changing political dynamics in the region, with the departure of Farmajo and the emergence of a new alliance between Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya under the banner of the “Somalia’s Frontline State Summit” in Mogadishu in February 2023, may marginalize the tripartite alliance between Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia, formed during Farmajo’s time in office, thus further isolating Afwerki. Such developments may lead Afwerki to work against Ethiopia’s peace process, thereby undermining the potential for sustainable peace in the region.

Despite Abiy’s apparent consolidation of power in Ethiopia, there remain deep-rooted tensions that continue to simmer in several parts of the country, creating a potential opportunity for Afwerki to exploit and undermine Abiy’s efforts toward stability. In Oromia, for instance, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) continues to mount attacks on the ENDF, occasionally gaining control of territories. Similarly, there are unresolved disputes between the Afar and Somali ethnic groups, which have escalated since the outbreak of the Tigray conflict. Armed Afar groups, equipped with ENDF weaponry, have seized Somali towns they regard as historically belonging to Afar, leading to the massacre of civilians, particularly women, and children. Moreover, the Amhara militia group known as FANO, which has played a significant role in the conflict against the TPLF, is not in a completely stable relationship with Abiy. Additionally, the recent tensions between Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church and members of the Oromo ethnic group may open new fronts of religious tension in the country. These simmering tensions offer Afwerki a window of opportunity to interfere in Ethiopia’s internal affairs and maintain control over Abiy, exploiting any perceived lapses in his leadership.

The recent successful negotiations that culminated in the TPLF surrendering its heavy weaponry and de-escalating the Tigray conflict are significant steps toward Ethiopia's journey to stability. The African Union’s mediation efforts, combined with the Ethiopian government’s willingness to consider third-party intervention, proved to be a winning combination. The strategy employed in this situation could serve as a model for resolving other brewing conflicts in Ethiopia, such as those involving OLA, FANO, the tensions between the Afar and Somali ethnic groups, and the issues concerning the country’s religious groups. By establishing a similar framework of transparency and rectitude in these situations, Ethiopia can create guardrails for peace and deter further attempts to undermine its trajectory toward stability. The African Union and the Ethiopian government must work together to ensure that the lessons learned from the Tigray conflict are applied to other conflicts in the country, to ensure that Ethiopia continues to move forward on a path of peace and stability.

Ethiopia’s quest for stability has undergone significant transformations under Abiy’s leadership. The Nobel laureate’s unorthodox path from a peacemaker to a war leader has brought into question the sustainability of his leadership and opened the door for Afwerki to exploit Ethiopia’s underlying tensions. Furthermore, Abiy’s pragmatic approach to emerging regional alliances has significant implications for Ethiopia and the region at large, which could define his rule for years to come. 

Mahad D. Darar is an academic based in Colorado, USA. Mr. Darar has a graduate degree in International Relations and Conflict Resolution. His research focuses on the Middle East and East African region. Follow him on Twitter at @organizermahad.

Image: Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock.com

The recent election in Nigeria was supposed to be about change. For months, millions of youth who had long been apathetic to politics enthusiastically flocked, both in social media and in person, to the banner of third-party candidate Peter Obi, who also garnered wide and positive coverage from international media outlets. After more than a decade of careening from one crisis to another under incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari and his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan, the conventional wisdom was that the most populous country and largest economy in Africa was ready to put its economic malaise and chronic insecurity behind it.

Then, after some foreseeable delays and even more embarrassing snafus with its information technology systems, the country’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) delivered the results: the seventy-year-old former governor of Lagos, Bola Tinubu—the longtime kingmaker of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who actually campaigned with the Yoruba-language slogan Emi l’okan (“It’s my turn”)—won the presidency with approximately 37 percent of the vote, beating both Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who received 29 percent of the vote, and Obi of the Labour Party (LP), who got 25 percent.

And yet, a closer examination of what transpired shows that, despite the dejection—to say nothing of anger—on the part of many of those wishing for more immediate change, a shift is indeed underway in Nigeria, one that its neighbors on the African continent, as well as its global partners, would do well to be attentive to.

What Happened?

Quite simply, as Phillip van Niekerk noted in one of the most cogent analyses to appear immediately after the results were announced, “the opposition parties committed a strategic blunder by splitting their forces.” A former vice president, the seventy-six-year-old Abubakar is a perennial aspirant for Nigeria’s top job; this was his sixth presidential campaign. In the previous race in 2019, Abubakar, with Obi as his vice-presidential running mate, won seventeen of the country’s thirty-five states plus the Federal Capital Territory. Had the duo not broken up, it is very likely they might have won this year’s contest in a landslide.

Despite the social media-fueled devotion of his youthful following—self-styled “Obidients”—the sixty-one-year-old Obi was handicapped by the limits of the vehicle he adopted for his presidential ambitions: the practically irrelevant LP which, in the current National Assembly, has just one member in the 109-seat Senate and eight in the 360-seat House of Representatives. Had Obi, by some extraordinary feat, managed to win the presidency, he would have struggled mightily to get anything through a legislature dominated by the APC-PDP duopoly since, while the party did better (winning six Senate seats and thirty-six House seats at the time of writing), it still is far from being a major legislative force. However, that scenario was never likely given the mundane realities of political dynamics in the Nigerian federal system: effective national campaigns are built upon having organization (and candidates) at the level of the states and the country’s 774 local government areas (governors in twenty-eight states and state legislators in all thirty-six states and the federal district were to have been chosen in a March 11 vote—now postponed until March 18—that has received very little outside attention; another three states hold gubernatorial votes later this year). The LP did not even field candidates in all the down-ballot races across the country. The hitherto marginal party’s organizational woes were compounded by a money-laundering conviction by a federal high court and the subsequent resignation of the head of its presidential campaign committee, Doyin Okupe, just two months before the vote. This was followed by a subsequent defection of other influential members of the committee, especially a bloc from northeastern states who feuded with Obi’s inner circle.

While there is not denying the energy that the Obidients injected into the campaign, this predominantly urban demographic may represent Nigeria’s aspirations but is itself not representative of a nation where half of the population is still classified as rural. This bias was readily apparent in skewed polling, conducted for the most part via mobile phones or online, that showed Obi with more support than ultimately manifested on the day of the election. Also telling was the story of one self-professed Obidient, profiled by Ruth Maclean, West Africa bureau chief of the New York Times. This particular Obidient who waxed eloquent about her candidate, retweeted his posts, blocked supporters of his rivals, and hectored her friends to register to vote, only to never collect her own Permanent Voter Card (PVC) because, upon encountering long lines, decided that she did not “really like stress.”

The Obidients may have been siloed from many other Nigerians in the same manner that is often inaccurately ascribed to New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael (“I don’t know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don’t know anybody who voted for him”), but both INEC and the international community contributed to the narrative, however unwittingly. The electoral commission did itself no favors in the leadup to the vote by overhyping the untested Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) it introduced to authenticate the new biometric PVCs issued to electors as well as failing to collate and publish results in a timely manner. Some of the machines only arrived in Nigeria just days before the vote. Not surprisingly, they did not perform as promised. The problem, however, is that in the climate of mistrust and suspicion then prevalent, INEC was not given any benefit of the doubt when polls were delayed in opening or results failed to upload for whatever reason. As the preliminary assessment of the joint National Democratic Institute-International Republican Institute election observation mission led by former Malawian President Joyce Banda put it succinctly: “Challenges with the electronic transfer of results and their upload to a public portal in a timely manner, undermined citizen confidence at a crucial moment of the process. Moreover, inadequate communication and lack of transparency by [INEC] about their cause and extent created confusion and eroded voters’ trust in the process.”

Van Niekerk pointed out that while INEC may have been inept, charges of systemic fraud favoring the incumbent APC would require an almost dogmatic faith in an elaborate conspiracy: “If the APC were clever enough to pull off a vote-switching operation, they surprisingly denied themselves victory in Katsina, Lagos, Osun, Edo, much of the Northwest and Kano, and rewarded Obi with more than 90 percent of the vote in the Southeast.”

Almost without exception, the international media coverage leading up to the vote was focused on Obi’s candidacy and the Obidients’ rallying around it, inadvertently feeding what proved to be a myopic worldview. The Economist—and it was hardly the only publication to fall into the trap—even published a feature article with a headline describing Obi as “the surprise front-runner in Nigeria’s presidential race.” Zainab Usman, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Africa Program who is originally from Nigeria, has lamented that “Twitter became so toxic to many level-headed analysts who just chose to go silent online. Therefore, the prevailing narratives here are incredibly misaligned with on-the-ground realities…But bullying those who don’t align with preferred narratives will make the echo chamber more hollow, loud [and] detached from reality.”

What Next?

Both the PDP and the LP have denounced the results proclaimed by INEC and, in fact, demanded a rerun of the polls even before the official announcement of those results. The LP has filed a legal challenge and the PDP is expected to follow. Abubakar filed suit to contest his losses in the 2007 and 2019 elections, but his appeals were rejected by Nigeria’s Supreme Court in both cases. Obi is likewise no stranger to the process, albeit with slightly better success than his former running mate: in 2003, he contested the results of the race for the governorship of southeastern Anambra State, which was declared for the candidate of the then-ruling PDP; in 2006, after an epic legal battle, the courts ruled in his favor and he was sworn in. Such a reversal, however, has never occurred in a national race.

In the meantime, Tinubu is expected to take over the presidency on May 29. With several races still to be called, the APC will retain a slightly diminished, but still solid, majority in the Nigerian Senate and will likely have a slim majority in the House of Representatives. Significantly, the new National Assembly is considerably different in terms of parties represented and individual members than the outgoing legislature. At least eight parties will be seated in the new body. While the PDP remains the leading opposition party, Nigeria’s first-past-the-post electoral system has meant that many of the gains by the LP and smaller parties came at its expense: so far, it has lost at least fifteen Senate seats. And while the yearning for change was not enough to totally overturn the Nigerian political system, it created sufficient churn that Senate President Ahmed Lawan will be the only one of the 469 legislators who has served since the restoration of civilian rule in 1999 (in comparison, currently ten of America’s 100 senators and thirty-seven of its 435 representatives have been in Congress since before 2000).

Alas, the number of women among parliamentarians will likely diminish. Of the six women in the outgoing Senate, three lost their reelection bids amidst the anti-incumbent mood, while three others—including the new First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, who represents Central Lagos—did not seek another term. From the results so far, only two women have won seats in the upper chamber.

At an even more basic level, the entire national political establishment faces a challenge of legitimacy in that barely 25 million voters, out of more than 93 million registered, cast ballots in the February 25 poll for the presidency and other federal-level offices. Whether the result of apathy, cynicism, or disenfranchisement, intentional or not, that level of participation is one of the lowest among democratic countries. Among all African countries since the end of the Cold War, according to the International IDEA elections database, only Algeria’s 2021 parliamentary election (23 percent voter turnout) and Tunisia’s December 2022-January 2023 parliamentary election (11 percent turnout) have had lower levels of participation than the recent Nigerian federal vote. Post-election media reports of disenchanted young first-time voters destroying their voter cards and vowing “to never engage again with the democratic process” hardly augur well for the future of Nigeria’s democracy if such tantrums become widespread.

The March 18 gubernatorial and state legislative assembly elections will also give INEC an opportunity to redeem itself if it can get its technology to work properly and better manage its communications. There are indications that the commission may have learned at least some lessons: the need to back up data stored on the BVAS machines due to the legal challenges from the federal elections and the complications of resetting over 176,000 devices for the state-level elections were cited in the communiqué announcing the postponement.

Back to the Future

Addressing the nation the day after he was declared the president-elect by INEC, Tinubu sounded a conciliatory note, saluting his opponents and declaring that “Political competition must now give way to political conciliation and inclusive governance.” He acknowledged that “many people are uncertain, angry, and hurt,” and called for healing and calm. The septuagenarian made a special appeal to Nigeria’s youth: “I hear you loud and clear. I understand your pains, your yearnings for good governance, a functional economy, and a safe nation that protects you and your future. I am aware that for many of you Nigeria has become a place of abiding challenges limiting your ability to see a bright future for yourselves.”

To turn those eloquent words into reality, Tinubu will need to draw upon some of the same playbooks that made his 1999–2007 tenure as governor of Lagos the success that he rightly highlighted during his campaign. According to UN Habitat, Lagos and its environs constitute the densest urban agglomeration on the African continent and come in just behind South America’s densest city, Medellin, for fourth place globally. Yet Tinubu not only managed to govern the sprawl, but it emerged as one of Africa’s key engines of economic growth during the period.

With about 10 percent of Nigeria’s total population, the state generates roughly 20 percent of the country’s GDP. Thanks to reforms put in place by Tinubu while governor, Lagos enjoys the highest internally generated revenue of any Nigerian state in absolute terms as well as in percentage of the state budget, making its government less dependent than other states on federal grants derived from oil revenues. Thus, although the loss of his hometown in the presidential election must sting, the ubiquity of Obidients there and the relative prosperity of many of them are testaments of a sort to the favorable entrepreneurial climate presided over by Tinubu and his successors—all of whom have been younger protégés he groomed after either recruiting them locally or convincing them to return from abroad.

One of the strangest twists during the recent campaign period was the decision in November 2022 by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to launch new naira banknotes and initially giving Nigerians only six weeks (subsequently extended by an additional ten days) to exchange their old notes for the newly issued bills. The resulting chaos—exacerbated by a shortage of the new notes and limits imposed on cash withdrawals from bank accounts—led to even well-off Nigerians being unable to pay for everyday expenses. Some prominent Tinubu allies even openly speculated that the exercise was some sort of payback from CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele, whose attempt to enter the APC presidential primary—notwithstanding the statutory nonpartisan nature of his position—was foiled. Since the election, the Nigerian Supreme Court has ruled that the government’s currency rollout unconstitutional, and ordered the old naira bills to be deemed valid through the end of year. This, however, means that completing the swap will be one of the first tasks for the incoming administration—and one the impact of which will affect every Nigerian.

Beyond the botched introduction of new banknotes—notionally not an unreasonable path to curb counterfeiting and other crimes—a number of macroeconomic reforms need to be undertaken. Tinubu has pledged to end the fuel subsidy that costs Nigeria some $15 billion annually—money he says he wants to have “more productively used in joint investments with the private sector to create jobs in infrastructure, health care, education and agriculture,” outlining plans for focused investments in industrialization, technological innovation, improved infrastructure, and agricultural development. None of this will be politically easy—vested interests, ranging from criminal organizations smuggling fuel to ordinary Nigerians, that are against changing the fuel subsidy have stymied every Nigerian president before him—but without drastic action, the stagnation will continue.

Restoring security will also need to be a top priority. Outgoing President Buhari, a one-time military ruler, lavished over twelve trillion naira ($26.5 billion) on the armed forces during his two terms, privileging the fight against Boko Haram and other jihadists groups in northeastern Nigeria. While the fight against the jihadists continues—just this past week, Islamist militants killed at least two dozen people in an attack on a fishing village in Borno State—insecurity continues to spread to other corners of the country, including banditry and criminal gangs in the northwest, separatists in the oil-rich southeast, herder-farmer conflicts in the Middle Belt (many evincing worrisome indications of increasing religious animosities), and growing violence in cities. The relatively conservative tally kept by the Council on Foreign Relations Nigeria Security Tracker puts the number of Nigerians killed last year in violence motivated by political, economic, or social grievance—including state actors as well as terrorist groups and sectarian—at an appalling 4,066. Unless the Tinubu administration can bring the violence under control and reform the security sector, the private investments it seeks for its ambitious economic agenda are unlikely to materialize.

Finally, Tinubu won in an election that also laid bare many of the fissures in Nigerian society, including ethnic and religious divides. The decision to defy the convention of balancing national tickets regionally and religiously by pairing up northerners with southerners, Muslims with Christians (the vice president-elect, Kashim Shettima, former governor of northeastern Borno State, is also, like Tinubu, a Muslim), may have been a smart political move to galvanize the APC’s northern base. But its downside is that the incoming administration will have to be especially attuned to the sensitivities of the plurality of the Nigerian population that does not share the religious commitments of the new president and vice president. Not only domestically, but in Nigeria’s foreign relations, especially with the United States and the United Kingdom, where the concerns of the country’s Christian communities—echoed by the large and well-positioned diaspora—resonate politically.

Why It Matters

While hydraulic fracturing and the resulting “Shale Revolution” mean that Nigerian oil and gas do not have the importance for the United States it once had—in fact, America hardly imports any Nigerian hydrocarbons—what happens in Nigeria still matters a great deal, perhaps even more so, from a geopolitical and geoeconomic perspective.

For the European Union, trying to wean itself from Russian gas in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, it is hard to overstate the importance of Nigeria, already the source of about 14 percent of EU imports of gas. The 4,000-kilometer Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline being built from Nigeria through Niger to the Mediterranean in Algeria will more than double that flow with an additional 30 billion cubic meters of gas annually from Nigeria. In the longer term, another pipeline, following the coast some 6,000 kilometers from Nigeria to Morocco, would send even more gas to the EU. In addition, today’s 216 million Nigerians will increase to 375 million by 2050, making the country the third most populous in the world after India and China. Its position will be unassailable as the clear economic and demographic regional heavyweight on an African continent that is increasingly significant in global strategic calculations.

Nigeria’s new president-elect won not only because of a divided opposition, but because the governing party and its core supporters agreed that, on account of his record for delivering politically in Lagos and nationally, it was “his turn.” However, the campaign and the vote tallies made clear that many Nigerians are more concerned that it finally be their turn. Much more than his personal political fortunes will be riding on how deftly Bola Tinubu balances both sets of expectations.

Ambassador J. Peter Pham, a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Senior Advisor at the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy, is former U.S. Special Envoy for the Sahel and Great Lakes Regions of Africa.

Image: Tolu Owoeye/Shutterstock.

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