Sahel Futures Independent research project Opening paper

RESEARCH PAPER · SECURITY & REGIONAL POLITICS

The Sahel: testing the Middle East analogy

Daniel Spurr tests the Middle East analogy against evidence on regional politics, armed conflict, climate pressure and displacement.

By Daniel Spurr10 July 202618 min readAI-assisted method

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01THE PROPOSITION

Officials and analysts use the Middle East analogy to describe a regional conflict system with competing foreign partners.

Officials and analysts group coups, jihadist campaigns, Russian deployments, uranium, gold and migration inside a familiar Western threat frame. They focus on a regional shift and spend less time on the institutions, economies and social geography that shape the Sahel.

Military leaders are dismantling the old regional order before officials can build a replacement. They have turned diplomatic isolation into a confederal project. Armed groups tax roads, regulate markets, control movement and conduct attacks. Foreign governments sell security while Sahelian governments renegotiate access to minerals, military bases and diplomatic support.

The people and institutions in these relationships operate across about 5,000 kilometres of Africa. Analysts need to study Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger through regional trade, mobility, public authority and civilian life. Analysts who rely on a counter-terrorism frame overlook much of that work.

5,000 km

The approximate Atlantic-to-Red-Sea span of the Sahel.

UNDP ↗

>50%

Share of recorded global terrorism deaths occurring in the Sahel in 2025.

GTI 2026 ↗

2.9m

People displaced within their own countries in UNHCR’s December 2025 update.

UNHCR ↗

Researchers built each measure for a different problem. The terrorism index team excludes conflict deaths outside its terrorism definition. UNHCR staff revise displacement totals when access and registration change.

EVIDENCE THEMES

Four parts of the regional picture

Political order, conflict, climate pressure and displacement require different sources and measures.

Political order

Three governments build a confederation

3 states

Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have turned successive coups into a regional project. The three governments use the Alliance of Sahel States to present a shared theory of sovereignty, security and partnership.

Source: ECOWAS; AES communiqués

Armed conflict

The Sahel accounts for most recorded terrorism deaths

>50%

More than half of global terrorism deaths in 2025 occurred in the Sahel. The index researchers exclude deaths from state violence, communal conflict and forms of war classified outside terrorism.

Source: Global Terrorism Index 2026

Climate pressure

Officials shape who bears climate pressure

1.5×

Temperatures are rising at about one-and-a-half times the global rate. Land rights, public services and market access determine who carries the cost of each shock.

Source: World Bank, Mapping Impact in the Sahel

Human movement

Most displacement remains inside the region

2.9m

UNHCR counted 2.9 million people living outside their home communities within their own countries across the Sahel in December 2025. Displaced families move to another town, province or border community inside the region.

Source: UNHCR Sahel Emergency

02THE ANALOGY

COMPARISON

Limits of the Middle East analogy

Useful parallels

A transnational conflict system

JNIM, Islamic State affiliates, communal militias, traders and displaced communities cross national borders. Analysts need a regional frame to follow their routes and relationships.

Competing security patrons

Russia, Türkiye and other partners expanded their roles after French and US forces withdrew. Each partner offers its own mix of arms, training, infrastructure and political recognition.

Governments use resources to claim sovereignty

Military-led governments use mining codes, refineries and pipeline disputes to assert material control. Their leaders give resource policy the same political weight as defence policy.

Foreign officials give local wars global meaning

Foreign governments may send money and weapons. Their officials may recast disputes over land, taxation, protection and representation as one front in a global war.

Important differences

The political economy of resource production

Uranium, gold and new oil routes shape government revenue and foreign relations. Their scale and infrastructure differ from Gulf hydrocarbons, maritime chokepoints and global energy dependence.

Large territories and limited administration

Governments provide uneven access to justice, services and protection across immense territories. In districts beyond administrative reach, citizens encounter the capital through checkpoints or military operations.

Pastoral mobility and local authority

Analysts who call disputes ‘ethnic conflict’ can overlook shifting coalitions and practical disputes. Officials decide who can move, who owns land, who compensates losses and which communities they treat as suspect during climate shocks.

Most movement stays within the region

Families move within their own country or into a neighbouring state. Officials focused on Mediterranean migration can overlook the services and political bargains that determine whether people can return.

TIMELINE · 2012 TO 2026

Fourteen years of political change

Coups, military interventions, regional institutions and foreign withdrawals changed the political order.

2012

The Malian rupture

Tuareg rebels, jihadist groups and military officers fracture Mali. Armed actors use the rupture to build a regional conflict system.

Consequence

Tuareg rebels, jihadist groups and military officers exploit northern grievances, military weakness and weapons flows after Libya’s collapse.

2013

France and the UN build a security architecture

France launches Operation Serval. MINUSMA follows, turning an emergency intervention into a decade-long international presence.

Consequence

French and UN officials extend a tactical success into a strategic commitment and leave the state–periphery bargain unresolved.

2020–21

Two coups in Mali

Military officers overthrow Mali’s government in 2020 and stage a second takeover the following year.

Consequence

Military leaders promise security and sovereignty and subordinate the political timetable to their rule.

2022

Two coups in Burkina Faso

Two coups within eight months bring Captain Ibrahim Traoré to power as violence spreads across the country.

Consequence

Two military governments fail to repair the security model through regime change.

2023

Niger falls; the AES forms

Military officers overthrow Niger’s elected government. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger answer regional pressure with a mutual-defence pact. UN officials close MINUSMA in Mali.

Consequence

Three military regimes begin converting diplomatic isolation into a shared political identity.

2024

Three governments declare a confederation

The three governments declare the Alliance of Sahel States a confederation. The United States completes its troop withdrawal from Niger.

Consequence

Western forces withdraw while AES leaders formalise their break with the old order.

2025

The three states leave ECOWAS

The three states leave ECOWAS under the bloc’s withdrawal rules. Russia backs a planned joint force. Wagner withdraws from Mali, and Russia keeps the state-controlled Africa Corps in place.

Consequence

AES leaders extend the rupture from rhetoric into passports, trade, justice, military coordination and resource policy.

2026

Pressure reaches the capitals

Armed groups coordinate attacks across Mali while AES and Russian officials pledge to expand military cooperation in Niamey.

Consequence

Military governments have expanded their authority while armed groups keep operating across the region.

ASSESSMENT

Sahelian governments created a market for new security partnerships after Western forces withdrew. AES leaders seek to turn those partnerships into a regional political order.

03THE REALIGNMENT

New partners entered after Western withdrawal

Russia, Türkiye, China and Gulf actors expanded their roles as France, the United States and the UN reduced their presence.

France withdrew its forces, MINUSMA closed and the United States left Niger. Moscow expanded Africa Corps and offered weapons, training and diplomatic backing. Russia and the AES states pledged to expand military cooperation after talks in Niamey on 9 July 2026.

Russia filled parts of the space France left. Türkiye supplies drones and defence equipment. China finances infrastructure, trade and extraction. Gulf actors connect finance, gold and logistics. Western governments pursue selected partnerships where their interests align.

Sahelian governments bargain among these partners. Researchers should trace who controls the weapons, services, justice systems and public institutions created through each partnership.

CIVILIAN CONDITIONS

Public institutions have uneven reach

1.5×

Warming

World Bank researchers estimate that Sahel temperatures are rising at about 1.5 times the global rate.

13.5m

Poverty risk

World Bank researchers estimate that climate shocks could push 13.5 million people into poverty by 2050 without adaptation.

64%

Rural lives

Alliance Sahel reports that 64% of the Sahelian population lives in rural areas with limited public services.

~20%

Electricity

Alliance Sahel reports an electrification rate of about 20% across the G5 Sahel countries.

Researchers need more evidence than these numbers to predict conflict. Governments and communities manage these pressures through land rules, services, markets and public investment.

SCENARIOS TO 2030

Indicators for three possible paths

Each scenario names observable signals and evidence that would weaken the assessment.

Military consolidation

Military leaders coordinate their forces, hold the capitals and restrict political competition while armed groups operate outside them.

Signals

AES officials fund permanent staff and operations
AES commands conduct routine joint operations
Blockades replace spectacular attacks

Evidence that would weaken it

A credible civilian transition or sustained reopening of political competition.

Local negotiations

Governments pair force with local ceasefires, service agreements and bargains over movement, taxation and representation.

Signals

Local negotiators maintain agreements across leadership changes
Civilians reach services outside capitals
Local authorities protect communities and end collective punishment

Evidence that would weaken it

National authorities criminalise dialogue and expand indiscriminate operations.

Fragmented corridors

Regional officials split institutions, armed groups entrench economic control and fighters move operations toward coastal states.

Signals

AES and ECOWAS officials adopt different trade and mobility rules
Armed groups sustain violence in northern Benin and Togo
State convoys carry most supplies

Evidence that would weaken it

AES and ECOWAS officials cooperate on stable borders and commerce.

ABOUT THIS PAPER

Daniel tracks change between major events

Editors and reporters concentrate coverage after coups and attacks. Daniel follows local authority, public finance, mobility, resource corridors and the political economy of protection between those events.

Daniel uses this paper as a sample of the proposed method. Before he claims institutional reach, he needs paid regional contributors and external review. He must test the correction process.

FOUNDING RESEARCH AGENDA

01
Power below the capital
Track who taxes, protects, negotiates and delivers services at subnational level.
02
Resources and routes
Map gold, uranium, oil, energy and logistics without treating extraction as destiny.
03
Civilian harm
Record harm by armed groups, state forces and partners with the same evidentiary standard.
04
Regional voices
Build paid contributor and translation networks. Treat local knowledge as paid expertise.

PROJECT STATUS

Sahel Futures remains a founder-led project

Daniel must set governance, contributor terms and editorial review before he opens a funding round or publishes a budget.

Read the project status

EVIDENCE DESK

Sources and limits

Daniel places source links beside factual claims and labels assessments and scenarios. Researchers who build conflict datasets use different definitions and miss events in places they cannot access.

Daniel used AI-assisted tools for document discovery, comparison and code. He treated the original documents and datasets as evidence and remains responsible for verification, interpretation and correction.

Research cut-off: 10 July 2026. Legal status falls outside the paper’s scope.

01
Global Terrorism Index 2026 ↗Institute for Economics & Peace
Terrorism definitions and 2025 data.
02
Sahel Emergency ↗UNHCR
Regional displacement totals; page updated December 2025.
03
Sahel: A region of opportunities ↗UNDP
Geographic scope and regional context.
04
Mapping Impact in the Sahel ↗World Bank
Climate exposure, warming and poverty risk.
05
ECOWAS statement on the three withdrawals ↗ECOWAS
Official statement on the 29 January 2025 withdrawal.
06
Closure of MINUSMA ↗United Nations
Mission history and closure on 31 December 2023.
07
US withdrawal from Niger completed ↗US Africa Command
Official confirmation, September 2024.
08
Russia and Sahel states deepen military ties ↗Reuters
AES–Russia talks in Niamey, 9 July 2026.
09
Insurgents stage attacks across Mali ↗Reuters
Coordinated attacks, 4 July 2026.
10
Understanding JNIM’s expansion ↗International Crisis Group
Regional expansion and political strategy, February 2026.
11
Civilian harm in Burkina Faso and Mali ↗Reuters / HRW / ACLED
State, allied-force and jihadist violence; April 2026.
12
G5 Sahel climate and development report ↗World Bank
Demography, institutions and adaptation pathways.
13
The Sahel Alliance ↗Alliance Sahel
Rural population, electrification and development context.