Russia’s growing partnership with Niger’s military junta could lead to an expansion of terrorism in West Africa, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s team.
“In Niger, I think there’s a clear choice for the junta,” Assistant Secretary Molly Phee, who leads the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, said Thursday. “We have a proven track record of helping them and their partners in the region get after the terrorist threat.”
Phee cited the intensifying violence in Mali, where a military coup paved the way for the arrival of Russia’s Wagner Group, as a cautionary tale for Niger’s military brass. Yet the Nigerien putschists, who ousted Mohamed Bazoum in July, agreed Tuesday “to intensify joint actions” with Russia’s military, thereby solidifying a relationship that could doom a West African democracy and a valuable counterterrorism partnership for the United States.
“Obviously, if they chose to have a partnership with countries like Russia, that would be very complicated,” Phee said. “I think if they just look west to Mali and see the increase in civilian casualties and the increase in security attacks since the junta government in Mali invited in the Wagner Group and kicked out the French, that isn’t a model that I would want to follow, or I think most people would want to follow, if you were governing a country.”
Niger’s democratic government hosted about 1,100 U.S. troops, including a drone base that U.S. forces used as a platform to target terrorist organizations over the last decade. Phee held out the hope that the coup plotters would reverse course, but Blinken’s itinerary on an impending trip — which includes stops in Angola, Cabo Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, and Nigeria — points to the Biden administration’s recognition of a need to retrench.
“The U.S. is definitely staying engaged with the Nigerien junta, but they’re definitely trying to hedge their bets,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Liam Karr, an analyst with the think tank’s Critical Threats Project, told the Washington Examiner. “If the junta does decide … to go basically full pro-Kremlin, the U.S. is going to want to get out. And it needs backup options, basically.”
U.S. officials have begun to discuss the establishment of alternative drone bases in Cote d’Ivoire and other West African states, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report.
“Well, we have long been concerned about coastal West Africa as well as Nigeria, because if the terrorist threat in the Sahel were to disrupt life in those countries, it would be really problematic for a huge portion of Africa,” Phee said more generally. “So, we’re already invested in a joint project in five coastal states in West Africa, coastal West Africa — those include Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea-Conakry, Benin, and Togo. So that, I imagine, will certainly be a topic of discussion when we see the Ivorians.”
Blinken’s continuing interest in presenting the Nigerien junta with “a clear choice” between the United States and Russia points to the strategic dilemma that U.S. officials face in such crises, according to analysts. There’s a tension between the need to oppose the junta without simply conceding the relationship to the likes of Russia or China.
“It’s a balancing act, and one that I think is not unique to just Niger and the region, but globally,” a former U.S. official who remains in touch with regional governments said. “We always have to walk a fine line when it comes to sending a message but also maintaining influence.”
The junta released President Bazoum’s wife and son in early January, but the president remains in custody. “We’re always trying to drive towards better outcomes,” Phee said. “The Nigeriens have their own history of rather swiftly handing power back to civilians.”
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The continued captivity of the president might point to some bargaining space — “Bazoum is their insurance policy,” as the former U.S. official put it — but the deepening dialogues with Russia may be more telling.
“Russia will put less strings on the help that they give — for example, they don’t care about human rights, so if the military wants to use more brutal tactics, that won’t be a problem for Russia,” Karr said. “The junta is really just evaluating, one, its desire and need to stay in power … with the help that it can get.”
