A New Battleground Between The West Alliance And Russia? In The Context Of Niger

Abstract

In the last year, military coups in Mali, Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Burkina Faso and now Niger have resulted in changes of government in all countries in the Sahel region, leading to the concept of “coup contagion” being applied to continental Africa. This geographical concentration of coups points to the need to take into account features of the Sahel sub-region that may have shaped current coup dynamics.  A decade of insecurity in the Sahel, as a consequence of deeper structural and historical issues, requires us to emphasise a number of proximate or intermediate factors that have contributed to the conditions that have shaped the rise in military coups. In addition, African countries’ strategic location and natural resources drew them into the sphere of global and regional competition before and after the coup. The possibility of the emergence of a new area of conflict between the Western Bloc, in which the United States and France play a leading role, and Russia over Niger constitutes the basic investigation part of the study. The military takeover in Niger, which the US and France used as a geographical and military base in the fight against radical terrorist groups, put the geopolitical interests of these countries at risk. Subsequently, the Kremlin's presence in African countries through the Wagner Group and private military companies has fuelled the geopolitical rivalry between the Western Bloc and Russia. This study focuses on the role of Niger, which is at the centre of this new field of competition, in the power-sharing between the Western Bloc and Russia. By analysing the geopolitical and political economy relations of both sides with Niger, this article will answer the question of which side gains how much benefit from the Niger field in the struggle for influence and whether this benefit is political economy or geopolitical.