For anyone with an interest this article is cut down and pared slice of a portion of the work of Dr. Olivier Walther and Dr. Steven Radil, geographers at the University of Florida.
Thank's it adds a lot to explain why something like this pops up in the Economist of all places
> The United States and its allies should align its efforts accordingly. That means accepting longer time horizons, investing in less visible cross-border mechanisms over high-profile bilateral wins, and recognising that the periphery is now the centre.
oh boy
> African governments understand this dynamic, which is why regional organisations like the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, and even the juntas of the Alliance of Sahel States increasingly emphasise multinational responses.
Not to be too much of a panafrican commie here, but AES left the Ecowas months ago I hope(?) the authors were aware of this? Seems like worth mentioning, perhaps it means something who knows. I guess we learn more about what to think about the Shael states when the US or France invades them again in a few months from now.
That background is useful, though it seems more like "how" than "why" - my instinct is James C. Scott-style rebellious hinterlands[1] but I haven't gotten a sense if the bandits are the product of social dislocations, or just opportunists. My naive assumption would be all of the above, some conflicts along the edges of Sahel being ideological or about lack of resources or political participation, and others being just smash-and-grab (not that they're mutually exclusive).
I'm not a fan of the geographic argument as it removes agency from state and non-state actors who are backing various groups partaking in the Sahel insurgency.
The most obvious ones are the France/US-Russia, the UAE-Turkiye, and UAE-KSA rivalries, but even those is being exploited by Morocco and Algeria in the Sahel due to their existential rivalry.
Morocco and Algeria view each other as existential threats, and the Sahel will never become peaceful until that rivalry is resolved. Instead, it is becoming worse - Morocco is now transferring military IP and technology from the US, Israel, India, and the UAE while Algeria from Turkiye, China, Pakistan, and Russia.
The geographic argument also ignores the ethnic tensions that have always existed in the Sahel. Vast swathes of Maghrebis, Baggaras, Amazigh, and Tuaregs continue to down on Sub-Saharan Africans, and they tend to be the leadership in JNIM, AQIM, ISSP, ISWAP, and other Islamist groups in the Sahel. Their leaders remember how they and not Africans were the rulers of slave states in the Sahel before the French came.
And those who don't subscribe to ethnic chauvanism subscribe to religious chauvanism, hence why leadership of formerly secular insurgent groups like the Polisario Front and MPLA became hardened Islamists who are trying to enforce Sharia in states where the religious demography is not uniform.
I thought walled towns died not due to state authority becoming stronger, but because offensive weaponry simply became effective enough to overcome walls. Walls can protect you from men with swords, but not from heavy artillery or bombers. Today, wouldn't a fleet of cheap drones render a wall moot?
"Newly walled towns are a sign of shrivelling state authority" was my thought when I saw the walled off Capitol.
It is sad when the government needs walls to protect itself from its own people, a sign of weakness. To add to the irony the Capitol used to be, quite literally, the "people's house."
Coincidentally, this morning I happened to be in a hotel room where there was a TV-set showing some random TV channel, and there was a documentary showing that medieval-style fortifications have come back in the form of the new building of the US embassy in London, which is surrounded by a moat, presumably for fear of terrorists.
Just in this century, the US used fortified camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so did the French in Sahel. And the Ukrainians fortified Dombas and effectively prevented the Russians to take it quickly. Then the Russians fortified the Zaporizhzhia frontline (the Surovikin line) which stopped the Ukrainian counter offensive in 2023.
And talking about Africa in particular, the border between Morocco and Algeria, and also Western Sahara, has been a fortified wall for the past 40 years now.
It's not just Africa. Take a look at the Ukrainian battlefield and you will see a similar trend: kilometers of trenches with some concrete bunkers here and there; even longer anti-tank ditches; along them dragon's teeth-type anti-tank obstacles; along them several rows of concertina razor wire; plus anti-drone netting along logistical routes. then there's vehicles with layers of cages, spikes and metal plates all over them to protect against drones, to the point where they look like medieval rams. with all the high tech precision weapons and satellites and drones, people sometimes forget that wars are about dealing and withstanding kinetic force.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 53.8 ms ] threadA somewhat longer article of theirs is Why African Borderlands Keep Burning (April 15, 2026) - https://africanarguments.org/2026/04/why-african-borderlands...
and a recent paper Mapping the long-term trajectories of political violence in Africa (MARCH 2026) - https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06502
> The United States and its allies should align its efforts accordingly. That means accepting longer time horizons, investing in less visible cross-border mechanisms over high-profile bilateral wins, and recognising that the periphery is now the centre.
oh boy
> African governments understand this dynamic, which is why regional organisations like the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, and even the juntas of the Alliance of Sahel States increasingly emphasise multinational responses.
Not to be too much of a panafrican commie here, but AES left the Ecowas months ago I hope(?) the authors were aware of this? Seems like worth mentioning, perhaps it means something who knows. I guess we learn more about what to think about the Shael states when the US or France invades them again in a few months from now.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott#The_Art_of_Not_...
The most obvious ones are the France/US-Russia, the UAE-Turkiye, and UAE-KSA rivalries, but even those is being exploited by Morocco and Algeria in the Sahel due to their existential rivalry.
Morocco and Algeria view each other as existential threats, and the Sahel will never become peaceful until that rivalry is resolved. Instead, it is becoming worse - Morocco is now transferring military IP and technology from the US, Israel, India, and the UAE while Algeria from Turkiye, China, Pakistan, and Russia.
The geographic argument also ignores the ethnic tensions that have always existed in the Sahel. Vast swathes of Maghrebis, Baggaras, Amazigh, and Tuaregs continue to down on Sub-Saharan Africans, and they tend to be the leadership in JNIM, AQIM, ISSP, ISWAP, and other Islamist groups in the Sahel. Their leaders remember how they and not Africans were the rulers of slave states in the Sahel before the French came.
And those who don't subscribe to ethnic chauvanism subscribe to religious chauvanism, hence why leadership of formerly secular insurgent groups like the Polisario Front and MPLA became hardened Islamists who are trying to enforce Sharia in states where the religious demography is not uniform.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesco_bastion
It is sad when the government needs walls to protect itself from its own people, a sign of weakness. To add to the irony the Capitol used to be, quite literally, the "people's house."
Just in this century, the US used fortified camps in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so did the French in Sahel. And the Ukrainians fortified Dombas and effectively prevented the Russians to take it quickly. Then the Russians fortified the Zaporizhzhia frontline (the Surovikin line) which stopped the Ukrainian counter offensive in 2023.
And talking about Africa in particular, the border between Morocco and Algeria, and also Western Sahara, has been a fortified wall for the past 40 years now.
It is a sign of police incompetence, government collapse and the fact that those places are ruled by gangsters.