After a bit more than two years, Russia’s disinformation campaigns in Africa’s Sahel region look like the quickest propaganda success ever staged. The three countries in the Sahel where military powers recently seized power—Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger—withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and set up a rival defense pact, the Alliance of Sahel States. They formalized this on July 6, 2024, just one day before an ECOWAS summit in Abuja, Nigeria, was set to discuss ways to reintegrate them into the regional bloc. “Come and get us,” the military regimes seem to say. “You can nag us to return to the barracks, but this time we will ignore you. No preaching, please.” The so-called G5 Sahel, an earlier defense pact in the Sahel to combat terrorism, is no longer.
Western entities have been expelled from the area, including Radio France International and France 24 and among others a US military drone base in Agadez, Niger, as well as US troops in the capital of Niger and in Chad. In November of 2022, Operation Barkhane, a French military presence in Mali, was officially shuttered. Germany and Sweden threw up their hands and withdrew their military presence to leave local populations at the mercy of fundamentalist thugs.
The timetable has been swift and relentless. Not only the juntas but many of the people in the streets are hostile to the West, especially to former colonial power France. These sentiments were always latent and are deeper than anything Russia could have cooked up so quickly.
Western policy makers go a bit overboard in attributing this just to wily Russian maneuverings and its mighty disinformation industry. Yes, Yevgeny Prigozhin led the effort with his Wagner Group and Internet Research Agency until his death in a plane crash on August 23, 2023. And it remains robust, with new monikers like the “Africa Corps.” Policy papers heat up the internet, with strategies to confront Russia in this debacle.
But Russia alone couldn’t have done all this. There is little doubt that their motives are cynical, and seek to destabilize a vulnerable region, then capture any natural resources that may be rattling around, such as uranium and gold. Pretty good deal for Russia: Africa Corps in, $2.5 billion worth of gold out. The French had their turn with these extractions, as well as the Americans, Britons, and Belgians elsewhere on the Continent. Now Russia has moved in to fill a void. That said, the West’s Russia fixation is distracting and overlooks a wider context.
Two Ears, One Mouth
Democracies and governmental structures in the region were weak and vulnerable, subject to mischief from the outside. In fact, they always were. So, what tipping point led to France’s rapid expulsion from the region? Russia made the most of these events and prodded them to a degree, but didn’t conjure them out of nothing. Resentment of France is historic and deep, love or trust for Russia vanishingly small. African demonstrators in Ouagadougou, Bamako, and Niamey brandishing the Russian flag are motivated more by resentment for the former colonizer and less from love or faith in Russia. When fleeing a charging bear, you need not run fast, just faster than the other guy. In this case, the other guy would be France. Russia knows from bears and got the hang of it.
Policy makers in Washington mistake the symptoms for the disease. Those who don’t understand French may not fully understand Africans’ disaffection and disillusionment. Western militaries perform effective deployments, but their job is strategy, not knowledge of complex underlying causes. Diplomats and think tanks who are supposed to develop that knowledge view their equities largely as military and economic, with a dash of costly and mainly ignored information operations thrown in. The hot topic now is “Russia and Africa” (with “China in Africa” a worn and tired exercise) but policymakers don’t really have time for Africans themselves—their wishes, resentments, and their modern history from their own point of view.
France Almost Gets It
While France is in retreat in the region and seems to understand the jig is up, ironically President Emmanuel Macron is the Western leader most willing and able to listen and learn. While he will be remembered for his country’s failures, he can be taken as an example of how G20 countries can engage with African civil society in open and productive dialogue.
A bit before many of the coups, on October 8, 2021, he invited African civil society leaders to a “summit” in Montpellier to hear them out. No other Western leader has done this or is close to trying. The dialogue was lively, frank, and often funny. African speakers pulled no punches but loved that he put his interlocutors up on the stage with him and listened, took notes, spoke extemporaneously, held himself open to roasts and teasing. Some critics saw him as patronizing at times, but all enjoyed the give and take.
He gave as good as he got, answering each point—acknowledging some, saying “yes but …” to others, and clearly taking the whole thing in. Immersed in the history and current leadership of the region, he was able to joke with his critics. Africans were fed up with France and its policies, but not with him. Importantly, he never interrupted an African speaker, and they did go on at length. Consider this six-minute segment, where a Burkinabe delegate takes the French president to task with affection, humor, and incisive truths. Note especially the enthusiastic audience reaction, the split screen showing the president taking it all in. The speaker, Ragnimwende Eldaa Koama, calls for the removal of degrading terms (she cites “development” and “aid”) and draws approving glances even from Macron. He later commits to revisiting even the name of the French development organ, the French Development Agency. Imagine any other Western leader opening him/herself up this way.
The speaker compares French development aid to an encrusted cooking pot and, with humor, notes that the pot is filthy and needs to be scrubbed. Macron smiles knowingly. Koama then says, “You can cook the best meal and invite me, but until you scrub the pot, I will say no, and you will eat alone.” Thunderous applause in the hall.
Koama finds words that resonate with the audience. Africans, invited to speak openly and frankly do so, with apparent affection for the French president and harsh comments for his country’s colonial past. The distinction is clear. It is a triumph of communication from both sides. This is what Africans want of Western leaders, especially those from NGO and private sectors who would just as soon have their own leaders stay home. Their presidents, juntas, and ministers generally are not up to the task, that’s a given.
In 2021 at the time of the Macron meeting, embryonic Sahel democracies were already rotting—the Wagner group was infiltrating various places (first in Central African Republic) but hadn’t yet come to dominate the Sahel. It was there, planning its power grabs, but didn’t run the show. African street demonstrators may carry the flag of the Russian Federation in photos, but they don’t care all that much about Russia: Their ire is directed squarely against the former colonizers. Russians exploited the ire, perhaps manipulated it, but did not create it.
Contrast Macron’s civil society dialogue with the December 2022 White House African Leaders Summit, the first in eight years, which drew leaders and senior officials from forty-nine countries. Leaders (presidents, prime ministers, a king or two) may have had little to offer, but at least they wanted to have a say. The Washington Summit was organized not as a dialogue, but as a cavalcade of “deliverables” meant to inspire gratitude, something like party favors. Africans saw this as condescension. It did not help that the leaders, scheduled to meet their American counterpart early on December 8, were put off by multiple delays that kept them waiting through the morning hours They were not pleased. One called it “a hostage situation minus the Stockholm Syndrome.” At a side event, diaspora leaders met for half a day, but were never given a microphone, not even to pose a question. Respectful but disgruntled, delegates reported drifting off by the dozen during each coffee break and going home disappointed.
Old Think/New Think
In a July 12 article in Foreign Affairs, Andrew Weiss and Frederic Wehrey get many things right about confronting Russia in Africa, such as stating, “Russian patronage will leave African leaders worse off in the long run,” and, “Russian help often backfires.”
However, the United States risks Cold War, binary thinking in viewing this scenario as “Russia versus the rest,” when Africans generally seem beyond all that. The following video shows the junta leader of Burkina Faso address an audience in Niamey, Niger, June 6 of 2024. Burkinabe Captain Ibrahim Traoré heaps praise on the Alliance of Sahel States, the new defense pact of the three junta countries, and by omission scorns ECOWAS. He appeals to blood lines linking the peoples of the Sahel and refers to their failed civilian leaders as “house slaves” (“esclaves de salon”) to their European masters. The words are harsh, but land on an approving audience. Traoré ridicules Western themes of “democracy, freedom, and human rights” as devoid of real meaning.
One may find flaws in Traoré’s rhetoric, but observe the reaction of his neighbors in Niger, whose sentiments are echoed throughout the region. Africans and their leaders may have chosen a perilous path for their near-term future, but they will not have outsiders choose for them. The honeymoon with Russia may not last long, but the disillusionment will.
When Western countries come to realize this paradigm shift and focus on genuine listening, they may have more say in Africa’s future. “Deliverables” alone will not dupe them, and it serves no purpose to offer public funds on a scale that the Chinese private sector already exceeds by far. Africans have expansive patience and willingness to forgive, but in return they want to get a word in edgewise. Western policy makers and analysts will tell you they are “here to listen,” and perhaps they are. But Africans no longer take their word for it.
The United States does not need another “Summit” to begin really listening. It is time for it to put talking points aside, admit it never really heard Africans, and see what partnership means to them. Only then might it draw on the capital of the African public’s longstanding affection for the States and find middle ground. Men in uniform run the show now, and African publics seem fine with that. Nostalgia alone for a diminished ECOWAS will not get the United States far. If it is to get to a 2.0 rules-based order, lend some ears to African voices, even acknowledge its past errors, the country might be served well.