A coup by any other name would seem suspect. Nonetheless, the US still refuses to call the military takeover that took place two months ago in Niger a “coup.” That is because this label would legally require the US to halt military cooperation with a strategically located country in Africa’s Sahel region, a notorious playground for jihadist terrorists and Russian mercenaries, among other unsavory characters.
How much longer can Washington keep up this linguistic squirming? More importantly, should the US cut off relations with Niger’s new regime in its capital of Niamey? Yes, the junta ousted former Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum, who is now under house arrest, but there are ulterior considerations of US statecraft.
These questions confronting US President Joe Biden became more urgent this week after French President Emmanuel Macron said on television that he would pull out about 1,500 French troops stationed in Niger, as well as the French ambassador. France, as Niger’s former colonial power, has long played the lead for Team West in the Sahel, with the US in the unaccustomed role of understudy. So the US should take the hint.
However, Washington instead views the French withdrawal as an opportunity to clarify three aspects of the US’ grand strategy.
First, despite appearances of geopolitical confrontation between democracies and autocracies, “the West” is not really a thing. France and the US are separate actors with different interests. France is widely hated in the Sahel, whereas the US is merely distrusted. So, the US is not obliged to follow anything the French do.
Since 1960, when West African countries such as Niger gained independence, Paris had often behaved like an imperious and arrogant neo-colonial overlord. France still dominates the region’s currencies, economies and resources. For example, in Niger, it has grabbed local uranium for French nuclear power plants in a way that has cut locals out of the profits. Many of the leaders ousted in the region’s coups — most recently, Gabon’s in August — were seen by locals as French puppets. This anti-French attitude has allowed the usurping juntas to pose as anti-colonial freedom fighters.
Cynically, Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group are rebroadcasting that narrative as they infiltrate the region, betting that Africans would overlook Moscow’s own neo-imperialist war of aggression against Ukraine. In a simplified plotline, the geopolitical effect of coups in the Sahel is to remove the French and to bring the Russians in, while leaving the terrorists to celebrate the chaos.
This highlights a second point about US foreign policy today, and international relations in general, which is that realism is ascendant over idealism. The Biden administration started out idealistic, claiming to lead the free world against the tyrants.
However, since Russia’s attack on Ukraine last year, it has discovered that this pitch is not working for countries in the so-called Global South, including Africa. As talking points, power and order work better.
Hence Biden’s Plan B, which represents a reversion to the historical mean of power politics. For instance, this shift to realpolitik explains why Biden is contemplating security guarantees for Saudi Arabia, an autocratic monarchy. The goal is to keep the Chinese and Russians out, the Israelis onside, and Iranians, Saudi Arabians and others tractable.
In the cauldron of human misery that is the Sahel, admittedly, imposing even a minimum of order will be a challenge. In Niger, the US has just over 1,000 troops on the ground and a state-of-the-art drone base. It is anybody’s guess whether those forces can keep the local branches of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in check, and Wagner mercenaries at bay.
Yet it might be worth a try, and that touches on the third element of the US grand strategy at stake in Niger. It is encapsulated in the debate in Washington between internationalists, who believe that the US should keep playing the role of a benevolent hegemon in world affairs, and neo-isolationists, who think the US should retrench. The “engagers” would stay in Niger, the “restrainers” would leave.
There is also a different problem with US foreign policy: the damage that ensues from the naive messianism that drives provisions such as Section 7008 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which proscribes financial assistance to regimes that seized power in a coup.
Congress does a disservice to the US and the world by legislating foreign policy in such Manichean terms. All that does is to force the executive branch to torture the thesaurus in search of euphemisms and then resort to hypocrisy. A decade ago, when a junta overthrew the government of Egypt, then-US president Barack Obama’s administration had also avoided the word “coup” to keep working with Cairo.
Being honest in the language you use, and also in the trade-offs and dilemmas you are trying to solve is a better way. What transpired in Niamey was obviously a coup. Nonetheless, the US has global responsibilities that require it to stay in Niger.
Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for The Economist. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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