The war against al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Africa is a frequently-overlooked part of America’s counterterrorism effort.
Although the deaths of four Americans in Niger on October 4 brought America’s presence in Africa to the forefront of the national consciousness, the response to the tragic experience does not address the fundamental shortcomings of U.S. engagement in the Sahel region. Rather than rely on counterterrorism operations, policymakers must formulate a regional approach to contend with the political and economic roots of the conflict.
American policymakers fail to see the Sahel outside the lens of counterterrorism. Even those who are supposed to approach the region from non-security perspectives, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, view the conflict in narrow and militaristic terms. And, while Congress was keen to understand what went wrong during the operation on October 4, the actual policy changes have come entirely from the Department of Defense.
A declassified summary of the investigation into the incident, released May 10, recommended only minor changes. These reforms, while important to the tactical picture, do not address the overarching strategic problems with U.S. operations in Niger and the Sahel region.
The United States has been focusing on how to fight in the Sahel instead of how to win, and no one is more aware of these shortcomings than U.S. Africa Command itself. When General Waldhauser, head of AFRICOM, testified before Congress in March 2018, he affirmed that “very few, if any, of the challenges on the African continent can be resolved in the military use of force.” AFRICOM’s construction of an airfield in Agadez and altered mission guidelines is all well and good, but real political and economic development in the Sahel requires significant reforms beyond the military.
The main focus of the U.S. mission in Sahel, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert S. Karem, is to provide security force assistance to the Nigerien government, but a more capable Nigerien army is not the solution to the region’s problems. In fact, large sections of the population see security forces as a threat to their safety rather than a guarantor of it. Security force assistance in Niger also comes at the expense of security sector reform and non-military development efforts, leaving the country and its counterterrorism partners in the region with more effective militaries—but little else.
Senior U.S. policymakers have also failed to address the localized nature of violence in the region. Jihadi groups more often originate from local-level ethnic or tribal disputes than religious convictions, with the party that feels weaker seeking out the protection and material benefits of a jihadi patron. Many groups have no fixed loyalties to al Qaeda or ISIS, and they frequently change affiliations between them.
U.S. strategy is ill-suited to dealing with these local dynamics. The only thing accomplished by reducing the violence to a battle between legitimate states and terrorists is the undercutting any potential political settlements.
When the main problem is radical groups co-opting local grievances, the U.S. needs to articulate to the government of Niger and its neighbors how responsible governance will undermine Jihadi rhetoric. Poor governance is one of the factors that generated threats to the regime in the first place, so policymakers should seriously consider how to strengthen civil governance and spur economic development, rather than focus solely on improving the security forces. A variety of development efforts, including some by USAID, are underway, but a thoughtful whole-of-government approach from the U.S. would allow it to continue helping the Sahel states and pressure them to institute democratic reforms responsive to the needs of their long-abused citizens.
The United States cannot achieve stability in the Sahel through half-measures. There either needs to be a substantive plan to address the root causes of regional instability, or a significantly lighter U.S. military presence in the region. As it stands, a prolonged engagement in the Sahel with no clear endgame will only divert sorely-needed funds and manpower from other missions to a fight which the military cannot win alone.
Marcel Plichta, a postgraduate student in Global Security at the University of Glasgow, has been writing about U.S. policy in sub-Saharan Africa since 2015.
